developing with my partner a certain team-work in our household duties
as well as in legal and mining matters. We were truly "hewers of wood
and drawers of water," and we enjoyed excellent health, although we did
our own cooking. Perhaps our best parlor trick was what we were pleased
to term "the poetry of motion." This took place after the mahogany had
been cleared for action, when one of us, presiding over a pan of hot
water, fished out from under the soapy suds some utensil and passed it
along to the other, who, accepting gracefully, gave it a polish in
transit and flourished it onward to its allotted place. Toward the end
of the season a neighborly little woman, the New England wife of a
miner from Maine, brought us some pastry which delightfully suggested
the land of the Puritans. She sympathetically remarked that she would
have performed many similar acts had she known we were doing our own
cooking. I must admit that we _bought_ our bread. Before I left Council
we were guests at a dinner-party given by this hospitable neighbor, and
rarely have I enjoyed a meal more. The home was most comfortable and
roomy, and we ate from pretty china which this little housewife had
brought all the way from New England. This goes to show that people can
now live comfortably and well in that remote country, if they only will.
The winter of course had been very long and tedious, and, in many ways,
a most trying one; but it was surprising to learn how lightly clad one
can safely and comfortably move about with the thermometer ranging from
30 deg. to 60 deg. below zero. This is due to the dryness of the cold. For
instance, at 30 deg. below, and with no outer garments other than flannel
shirt and overalls, one would perspire freely in chopping wood. With
hands and feet warmly protected, and winter underwear and wind-proof
outer clothes (drill coat and ordinary overalls), _and exercise_, one
can comfortably weather a degree of cold which, in lower latitudes,
would immediately transform him to an icicle. The snow had averaged on
the level places about five feet in depth, but was very deep where it
had drifted and been banked by the wind, making it a common thing to
have to dig one's self out, or for a party to lend assistance in
bringing to the light, if any there was, snow-buried men and women. The
shortest day had given three and a half hours of dusky light; the
coldest had forced the thermometer down to 60 deg. below zero, where
kerosene had frozen. Horses had to be killed on account of the absence
of fodder; and, after having been left out a short time to freeze, one
would chop them up with an ax for dog-food, the chips flying as if they
were timber. Frequent salutations on the trail were such as, "Say, old
man, your nose is frozen," which might bring forth the rejoinder, "So is
yours"; whereupon both would rub snow upon the senseless point, and
proceed onward. It was the continual wind, sometimes impossible to
withstand, which worked the greatest hardship and fiendishly got upon
the nerves. Old Tom Welch, whom I well remembered, and his partner,
while trying to prospect in the snow, had been frozen to death; and
there had been some talk of lynching the individual who had undertaken
to supply them with provisions, upon whose failure to do so the two
unfortunates had essayed to return to Council in a storm which had cost
them their lives. Some others had met a like unnecessary fate. The
natives and oldest white inhabitants unanimously agreed that it had been
the most severe winter known; and it was an attested fact that many
creeks in that region remained throughout the following summer hopeless
ice and presented to the expectant miner a frozen face.
The freighters came in at midnight the day of my arrival; and by the
noon following my twenty-odd pieces of freight and baggage, intact, were
properly stored and distributed in and about our abode--a very great
satisfaction indeed. Those fellows earned their three cents a pound all
right. A little later in the season two very small and very light-draft
stern-wheelers, referred to as "coal-oil Johnnies," plied intermittently
between White Mountain and Council, as the condition of the streams
allowed; but the usual and best-adapted means of transportation were
long, shallow scows which a horse pulled up-stream freighted, and rode
down upon empty.
This section of the country was now the Council City Precinct and
Recording District, a subdivision of the Second Judicial Division, as
designated by the Alaskan code. A United States commissioner, with
liberal jurisdiction and a marshal at his back, supplanted our military
tribunal and the mining recorder of the last year. With the exceptions
that his jurisdiction in civil matters is limited to a certain amount,
that he can neither grant an injunction nor try title to real estate,
his powers, judicial and otherwise, are plenary and varied. For
instance, in addition to his civil and extensive criminal jurisdiction,
the commissioner is _ex officio_ probate judge, coroner, notary public,
mining recorder, and tier of matrimonial knots. In the latter capacity
he is not overburdened with work, and having once tied, he has no
authority to unloose. There is a section of the criminal code which in
mining matters worked very salutary results. Under it an action of
"criminal trespass" can be brought in the commissioner's court, in which
the court may consider the record title, and, in proper cases, oust
irresponsible "jumpers" or legal blackmailers, who may then, if they
wish, in a legal way, seek a remedy in the District Court at Nome. We
proceeded on several occasions under this section. If the defendant was
found guilty, he was ejected from the premises by the marshal, and
either paid his fine and costs or languished awhile in an unupholstered
"jug." Although, naturally enough, he was in the country to better
himself from the ground, and not primarily from his fees, our genial
commissioner presided over his court with dignity, fairness, and
ability. I always made it a point to wear a necktie in appearing before
his Honor. After a trial he might drop into our cabin; and, over a
cigar and a little Scotch whisky, we would suggest wherein, in our
opinion, he had erred in his rulings or decisions, to which presumptuous
insinuations he would either good-naturedly assent or demur.
There was a lot doing. The District Court, though not appointing
receivers, was grinding out injunctions, or temporary restraining
orders, which, frequently conveyed by some legal luminary, came drifting
over from Nome, and, in consequence, some poor devil or arrant rascal
was thrown out of his job and summoned to appear at the metropolis.
There was a pause, however, about the middle of August, when Judge Noyes
pulled up stakes and sailed for the "outside" to prepare himself for his
October ordeal before the Court of Appeals.
Not long after my arrival, a good fellow named Joe Brennan, while
bringing his horses and freight up the rivers, was drowned some ten
miles below Council. It was believed that he was swimming a horse, and
that when the animal climbed the bank, Brennan fell off and, his boots
filling, drowned. When the body was recovered, a few days later, it was
brought to Council, a coroner's inquest held, and then decently buried.
Northwestern Alaska furnishes excellent graveyards, rivaling the art of
ancient Egypt. Its ground will preserve a man forever, but it is a long
way for his friends and relatives to come to see him. A small amount of
currency was found on Brennan; a poke of dust with which he was to
execute certain commissions was identified and returned to its owner;
but a considerable sum of money of his own, with which he was known to
have left Nome, was missing. Doubtless the body had been robbed. But
there are lots of good men in Alaska, although in the Nome country they
seem to be pretty well scattered. Brennan's two partners, who came to
consult us about the estate of the deceased, were such men--manly
fellows who wanted to have "poor Joe's" property rights preserved. One
of them came from Washington, my native city, with whom I could chat
about familiar landmarks; the other, who looked the athlete, had held
the New England championship for the high jump, and had trained for that
event several college men of my acquaintance. It is a well-worn phrase,
but the world _is_ very small. The Washingtonian was duly appointed
special administrator, and soon realized funds on a sale of the horses,
feed, provisions, etc., which were well within the legal definition of
"perishable property."
Enjoying the proud distinction of being notaries public for Alaska, and
being therefore quasi-judicial officers, we were frequently called upon
to take acknowledgments, affidavits, and depositions. I am not likely to
forget the work of taking an affidavit from one Joe Ripley. It was of
immediate importance in litigation at Nome, and Ripley, a squaw-man, who
lived with his Eskimo wife and children a number of miles down the
stream, had been specially engaged to come up and make affidavit to
certain matters with which he alone was familiar. As luck would have it,
my partner, who was acquainted with Ripley, had been called away to
euphonious Puckmummy Creek (Eskimo, "quick"), and it devolved upon me to
take the affidavit. Ripley and whisky, I was informed, were always
associated together,--were almost synonymous terms,--and whenever "Joe"
struck town it was a gala day for the saloons. In abnormal condition,
Mr. Ripley was a mild-mannered, polite, well-educated son of old
England. But my hopes that he might appear in the latter condition were
blasted when, in response to a shuffling and a bang at the door, I
welcomed in a small man with white mustache, wearing the native coat or
"parkie," and gloriously, triumphantly _full_! There was no doubt that
this was Ripley--recipient of the Victoria cross for gallantry in India,
sailor, miner, squaw-man, and devotee of the bottle. "Where's Castle?"
was his opening remark, of course not knowing me from Adam; and, as I
explained my presence, I racked my brain for delicate, unoffending
language which should suggest that he sleep "it" off and call again on
the morrow. The suggestion of delay brought forth a flow of noble
sentiments, delivered in heroic attitude, accompanied by gestures
dramatic. Pointing down the river, he burst forth in glowing language on
the subject of the devoted spouse whom he longed to see, somewhat
inconsistently declaiming, however, that the lady was twice as big as he
and usually shook the life out of him whenever he tacked home with
several sheets in the wind. I eagerly seized upon this latter tribute to
his charmer's charms as an argument for his remaining over, but realized
that it was useless to argue when, with emphatic "No, no's", and a
beating of his breast, he exclaimed: "Old Joe has a very small heart for
white people, but" (stretching forth his arms in yearning affection
toward the beloved) "his heart goes out to _her_ like a bullock's." This
was all very romantic and entertaining, but that affidavit had to be
obtained, and Captain John Smith, somehow, had to be prevented from
escaping to his Pocahontas. Excusing myself with the explanation that I
would consult my client in the matter, I went on a still hunt for the
man who might manage Ripley, and the latter, navigating his way toward
the nearest saloon, went on a hunt for the still. I found my man,
explained the situation, and instructed him, if impossible to detain
Ripley, to steer him back to the office, where we should proceed with
the ceremonies. Captain John having previously, when sober, told our
client the facts to which he could swear, I purposed having these facts
act as a check to a too willing or imaginative affiant. Shortly
afterward, I heard the two men coming, cleared the deck for action, and
braced myself for a delectable situation. It was a story of a "snow"
location of mining property. The law requires that a certain fixed
amount of work or expenditure shall be done or made annually upon every
mining location for purposes of benefiting and developing the claim, and
further provides that upon failure to do such "assessment work" the
ground shall become open and relocatable on the 1st of January
following. Hence many individuals single out what they believe to be
valuable property, and acutely investigate the validity of its holder's
title, nosing about the ground or searching through the records to
ascertain, first, whether the work has been done; second, whether an
affidavit of labor has been recorded; and, third, if the facts render
such an affidavit of no effect (save only as _prima facie_ evidence) and
subject the affiant to a charge of perjury.
The legal requirements had not been fulfilled regarding the property in
question; and on December 31, 1899, Ripley and Welch (before mentioned)
set out from Council, over the snow, for Crooked Creek, fifteen miles
away. Before starting, they took the precaution to set their watches by
the recorder's chronometer, for timepieces are very contradictory in
Alaska, and it frequently happens that a number of relocators assemble
at the same spot, watches in hand, near midnight of a December 31,
prepared to drive down their stakes at the first moment of the new year,
and of course it becomes a nice question of evidence as to who has the
right time. The case in point certainly had not been lacking in dramatic
incident. Welch and Ripley found others on the ground for whom no love
was lost. It was not a trysting-place. Some underhand work was done, and
Ripley, so he said, restrained old Tom from putting a bullet into a
certain miscreant. But it was hard work to confine the enthusiastic
Ripley to the material matters, and I had frequently to nail him down
and shut him up until I wrote out a portion of the statement desired. He
was acting it through, walking up and down, gesticulating, and,
occasionally, falling into the native dialect. His favorite mode of
brushing aside a suggestion--treating it as immaterial--was to exclaim:
"That's all right, but it don't buy whisky"; and now and then he would
suddenly turn upon the third man with the question, "Ain't she
pretty?"--referring to his Pocahontas. Now, of all the hideously ugly
creatures rated as human beings, the full-blooded Eskimo woman is easily
the prize-winner, and Mrs. Ripley, besides, was notoriously unattractive
even in her own class. It was, therefore, a very embarrassing question.
My sense of professional dignity was continually outraged, but, in the
end, I got a satisfactory affidavit, though it required nearly four
hours to round it up. _In vino veritas._ Exit Ripley.
A word as to the natives of northwestern Alaska. I presume they as
nearly approach living in a state of nature as any beings on the face of
the earth. Of undoubted Mongolian origin, their ancestors drifted over
from Siberia to an equally hard country where the sole occupation of
their descendants is a hand-to-mouth struggle for existence, in
obtaining for daily subsistence the scant provender which nature
supplies ready-made. It is a matter simply of catching fish in their
nets during the summer, and in winter trapping the ptarmigan or wild
grouse and hunting the walrus and the seal. Their boats, or "kyaks,"
made from walrus-hide and repaired with ivory, are very ingeniously
contrived and cleverly managed. They are naturally a very peaceful
people, except when, in violation of the law, the white man sells them
whisky. They are godless and have no religion whatever, nor any form of
worship, nor any imagery, nor any idea of a happy hunting-ground
hereafter. They bury their dead in airy wooden biers several feet above
the ground, together with pots and pans, food, guns and ammunition,
their theory being that the deceased has lain down for a long sleep.
Perhaps he may wake up sometime, and then he will need the means to
procure and prepare food; and from his position he can see his family
and friends when they come by, and note their prosperity as represented
by the number of children and dogs. As a race, they are few and
scattered, without attempt to live in tribal relation. The epidemics
among them in 1900 of pneumonia and measles carried away perhaps half
their number, and it is safe to predict that within a short period this
hapless race will become extinct.
Later in July there came a welcome spell of hot weather, which melted
the remaining snow upon the slopes and helped matters generally, giving
one an opportunity, among other things, to sun his blankets. It not only
did great work in thawing the ground, but it magnificently and quite
unnecessarily thawed out the mosquitos. The latter, however, though
bothersome at times and in places, were not very annoying. This hot
wave, which practically prevented traveling during the middle of the
day, gave way to cooler, overcast weather, which now and then furnished
a series of rainy, disagreeable days, broken, perhaps, by one or two
hopefully clear and beautiful. It is the most fickle climate in the
world, and will frequently, within a few hours, fancifully exhibit all
its contrary elements of rain and sunshine, wind and chill. But, rain or
shine, day and night, mining operations progress, and the fine treasure
in the earth is laboriously brought to light.
It frequently became necessary for one of us to journey through the now
more sparse timber, up the slaty, moss-covered, mountainous "divide,"
and over to the claims on the fast-becoming-famous Ophir Creek. In the
absence of rain, and with the encouragement of the wind or a little
sunshine, the ground, up to a certain point, dries remarkably soon, and
furnishes fairly good footing. If the day be pleasant, the cheerful
chirp of the inevitable song-sparrow and the song of the wild canary
are heard; a thrush or robin, surprised and alarmed, starts from the
brush; swallows and snow-white gulls from the sea circle over and about
the streams; and odd, unfamiliar little birds hop about in the willows.
How they get there, the Lord only knows. Beautiful--the daintiest--wild
flowers in great variety also do their part to make a desolate country
lovely. Truly, it is a wonderful land of contradictions. Looking down
from the "divide" to the basin below, Ophir Creek, almost a river, is
now dotted with permanent camps along its lengthy, sinuous course; the
little log-cabin settlements, whose lumber has been brought there at
great labor and expense, representing the larger operators or the
companies.
Of course, Frank Shaw was still in charge of the Wild Goose Company's
interests on claim No. 15 Ophir; and he had under him about a hundred
good men, opening up the claim, shoveling the pay dirt into five strings
of sluice-boxes, and some of them, teamsters, carpenters, etc., daily
bringing supplies from Council over the primitive roads, or doing other
necessary work about the camp. A very remarkable young man is Shaw, and
a very fine fellow. Born and bred, so to speak, in the mines of
California and Arizona, and having a genius for the work, he was
naturally a "born miner," and, though only twenty-three years of age,
was generally acknowledged to be the best in the Council City country.
In a comparatively recent explosion in a quartz-mine, Shaw had been
almost blown to pieces; and although he still carried in his face and
body bits of the rock, and could see only through powerful glasses, he
was, nevertheless, noted for his energetic zeal and indefatigable labor.
The qualities which go to make a good miner are, perhaps, generally
underestimated. He must, primarily, be a man of intelligence. He must
have the eye of an engineer for turning a creek, constructing ditches,
building dams, and meeting the exigencies of the situation. He must know
formation,--understand geology,--in order to locate the pay streak and
operate it successfully. And he must know how to manage men. These
qualities Shaw combined. For instance: The labor is divided into two
ten-hour shifts, the day shift and the night shift, and not infrequently
hardy men either have not the physique to endure the exhausting labor of
pick and shovel or they "soldier" in their work. Men discharged for
either of these reasons usually came to Shaw and, shaking his hand,
acknowledged the corn, and asked him to look them up if he ever came to
Montana, or wherever they lived.
I noted some familiar faces in the pits, among them those of the lusty
men on the _St. Paul_ with the uncongenial room-mate. On the steamer
they had shown me with pride a skiff-shaped boat which they had had
built in San Francisco especially for the Fish and Neukluk rivers; and I
didn't then have the heart to tell them that they could not have
obtained a boat more ill adapted to their purposes. They arrived at
Council worn out, disgusted, and with only half the load with which they
had started. And, having been told that their claim, ten miles above,
was glaciered, without further ado or any idea of investigating it
themselves, they sold out their remaining outfit, and went to work on
"15" for wages. In this they showed much more stuff than the fellows who
"lie down" immediately; and, having enough to get out on, go home and
tell their friends that the country is a "fake." Many of these latter
are the men who, on the way up, have fiercely declaimed to admiring
audiences: "By God, sir, if I find any jumper on my claim, I've a
six-shooter," etc. One of these brave boys, whom the ladies of the _St.
Paul_ had greatly admired, _did_ find an interloper diligently working
his Ophir Creek claim, whereupon he proceeded to auction off his plant
and sneak out of town without so much as making me a social call.
They were cleaning up one string of sluice-boxes the first time I went
to "15"; the water-gate in the ditch, into which a portion of the creek
had been diverted, allowed only a gentle stream to flow through the huge
boa-constrictor hose into the boxes and down over the riffles where the
bronze-colored gold shone forth distinctly. The work of the day shift
had ceased; the men were at dinner; and Shaw and one of the shift bosses
were carefully sweeping the result of a day's "run" into a gold-pan.
This finished, I accompanied him and his burden to the little cabin
which he and the bookkeeper occupied; and there found Billy West,
looking sturdier after his winter sojourn in Alaska, and engaged in
"blowing out" a pan of gold-dust--that is, eliminating the fine black
sand. In reply to my query, he said that they tried to average five
thousand dollars every twenty-four hours.
Old Jim, the excellent darky cook, gave me a cordial reception, which
was even more effusive when I gave him a cigar. He chuckled when I asked
him if he missed Mr. Sunnyside, his assistant of last season. I think
that the way Jim expressed his feelings toward Sunnyside is worth
recording. Sunnyside was a big, strapping Californian who had come up on
the _Lane_ the year before, by profession a lawyer, and doubtless
regarded by the fond inhabitants of his native town as a future Daniel
Webster. He aired a deep bass voice on the ship, and presented a very
noble and manly figure as he held up his end of the quartet. As already
observed, on the arrival of the fortune-hunters at Nome in 1900 there
were no loose nuggets lying about waiting to be picked up, and,
consequently, many of the confident newcomers were obliged to "come
right down to hard-pan." And so it happened that Sunnyside abandoned the
idea of practising law, and, later in the season, found himself
assistant-general-utility man to old Jim at 15 Ophir. He soon developed
into probably the most mournful, cheerless, pessimistic individual in
the country, and gave vent to his feelings accordingly. The country was
"God-forsaken" (as indeed it is); he suffered from several complaints on
account of the miserable climate and the lack of a feather bed; and the
days until his escape in the autumn seemed each one of a year's
duration. One day, at dinner-time, when Sunnyside had sounded some
dismal note, old Jim, good-naturedly enough, turned to him, and said:
"Mr. Sunnyside, my feelings to'a'd you am very well expressed by the
col'ed gen'leman who was divo'ced from his wife. Says he, 'Em'line, if I
nebber see you again dat won't be any too _soon_.'" A roar of delighted
appreciation went up from the double row of tables.