bountifully supplied by nature on all sides, needed no cover at night
other than the canopy of heaven, and who could work twelve months in the
year, seem trifling compared with the conditions which the Alaska
pioneers have confronted in a land disconsolately barren and
inhospitable, that metes out a meager four-months season for their
labor. To borrow again from Dunham, here were globe-travelers, men who
had "panned from Peru to Point Barrow," now in August "cross-cutting a
cussed cold creek," who would say, "There's no use telling the people at
home about this country; they'd think you were lying." And so, in fact,
it is a very difficult thing to undertake to do; for the reader or
listener has really nothing relative to go by, and, of course,
_atmosphere_ is essential to an adequate appreciation and understanding.
The ultimate yield of the "gold of Ophir" Creek will be enormous and
astonishing, justifying its right to a name famous from ancient times.
But, as is generally true of northwestern Alaska, the claims in order to
pay well must be (and they will be) owned and worked by large companies,
able to incur a considerable preliminary expense to mine them properly
and on a large scale. Now and then the individual will find a rich spot
from which he and his partners may realize a few thousand dollars; but
the palmy days of the Nome beach and the Topkok diggings are seemingly
over, and, as most of the miners say, it is not a "poor man's country."
And yet, as regards its wealth, hardly the surface has been scratched.
Dredging companies have been formed to operate the gravel bars and the
gold deposits in the beds of the streams; and there is excellent reason
for believing that fortunes will be made in this way. An excellent
indication of the stability and extent of the Council City District is
the fact that the common currency is gold-dust. Every store and office
has its gold-scales, and one must, for his own protection, be skilled
in manipulating the delicate balances. Although an ounce of "clean" gold
will average at the assayer's from eighteen to nineteen dollars, sixteen
dollars is, in Alaska, the accepted current value. With this, therefore,
as a standard,--a pennyweight being eighty cents and a grain three and a
third cents,--with accurate scales and proper weights, exchange is not a
difficult matter.
Alaska has furnished a fertile field for unscrupulous schemers to enrich
themselves at the expense of credulous investors. Hundreds of claims,
which either did not exist or were not worth the paper upon which they
were presented, have been sold to the gullible public, and corporations
have been formed to make their stockholders quickly millionaires. Such
a proposed donor of wealth was "The Polar Bear Mining Company," whose
prospectus I had read and whose operations near Council were within my
ken. This bonanza concern had a capital stock of one million shares,
offered for sale at four cents a share, and its assets consisted of
forty-seven wildcat claims upon which the prospectus dwelt at length in
golden praise, declaring that "pay streaks" and "old channels" pervaded
the entire bunch. "Alaska has made many millionaires--why not be one?"
was the tenor of this masterpiece of seductive argument. After the
season was well under way, the Polar Bear began to tear open the ground
not far from Council; and soon afterward a party of some six or seven
discouraged, disgusted, and disgruntled men trudged laboriously over
the tundra, and camped near us, until they should learn from
headquarters at Nome which other one of the forty-seven claims should
similarly be drained of its treasure. But no word came, and there they
remained abjectly despondent as the dreary days dragged by. One evening
my partner and I strolled over to where they were gathered in dismal
silence about a small fire, engaged in brushing away the mosquitos, and
looking generally miserable. They appeared to be farmers masquerading as
miners. There had been defection in the camp, due to a controversy as to
who was the "captain," and in consequence the circle was depleted.
Speaking of this lamentable fact, one of them, who resembled a shoemaker
out of employment, said apologetically (but he was proud of it): "Now,
I don't want to seem to be stuck up or conceited, but _I'm_ the boss
here--I'm the _secretary_ of the company." "How much did it cost you?"
we queried. "Well," he said, "I didn't pay anything to be secretary, but
I put twenty-one hundred dollars in the company." At this of course we
roared, and soon had the outfit, despite their misery, laughing
themselves while we recited choice bits from the glowing prospectus.
Before departing, the "secretary" earnestly besought us not to tell
anybody about his investment, and resignedly admitted that the laugh was
on him.
Later, in August and during the first part of September, the nights were
clear and bright and cold. A beautiful full moon, dominant in the
brilliant starry heavens, almost made day of night, and added luster
and weird charm to the picturesque meanderings of the river. The north
star was viewed at closer range, and shone sparkling more nearly
overhead. Icicles, as long as one's arm, formed in stalactite fashion,
hung from the sluice-boxes in the small hours of the morning; but,
nevertheless, aided by the light of lanterns, the work of mining went on
as regularly as clockwork. The days were mild and sunny,--like October
in New England,--and there was promise of a late working autumn, though
the wild geese and sand-hill cranes with hoarse cry were flying
southward.
One fine Sunday morning I said farewell to my friends at Council,
several of whom requested me to think of them when I was "dining at the
Waldorf"; and as my partner had decided again to winter it through and
hold things down, I left behind me a courageous, cultured, and able
gentleman, whose good judgment and varied mental attainments the
community, appreciative as heretofore, would enjoy throughout the white
silence.
IX
THE OPERETTA AT DEXTER'S--NOME CITY OF TO-DAY
Carried down the rivers to White Mountain with Tom Muckle, the
freighter, the horse having a free ride and nibbling at the brush when
the eddies drew the scow to the banks, I spent the night at that
intermediate point; and, in the morning, in a "coal-oil Johnny,"
proceeded on my way to Golovin Bay. This last-named means of
transportation was a very ridiculous affair, but was strictly a
"get-there" contrivance. It was a narrow skiff, about twenty feet long,
into which an antiquated gasolene-engine had been placed, which caused
the little pair of patched-up paddle-wheels to beat the water with a
great deal of vehemence and send the open skimming-dish over the water
at a delightfully progressive rate of speed. The captain, engineer, and
crew consisted of a grizzled anatomy bearing the densest growth of
underbrush in the way of beard, whiskers, and general facial hirsuteness
that the writer has ever gazed upon. It had the nose of a human being,
which bore the signs of conflict with the elements, and brilliantly
registered a long course of fiery internal applications. But he was a
nice old fellow, who wanted to get back to his home in southeastern
Alaska, and envied me my departure. Arrived at Chenik, I put up at
Dexter's Hotel, a pretentious and comfortable structure recently
erected by that pioneer of northwestern Alaska.
At dinner, doubtless in order to make me feel "at home," I was engaged
in conversation by a stout female person rather pretentiously attired,
who proved to be the housekeeper of the hotel. At least forty-five
summers had added successive weight to her proportions, and the only
delicate thing about her was her sensibility--and this I knew because,
in effect, she told me so. It was so trying for a woman to be alone in
Alaska, and how astonished her people at home would be to see what she
had to put up with--one who had been reared, so to speak, in the lap of
luxury. It made her homesick to hear that I was heading for New York,
whose gay metropolitan life, I somehow felt I was to infer, she had
enjoyed in days gone by. This engaging creature, in a softly modulated
voice, quite impressively selected her words,--the longer the
better,--and the fact that they were not always appropriate to the
thought was absolutely immaterial so long as the sentences were rounded
and sonorous. For instance, in speaking of the ability of the
commissioner at Chenik, judging from her association with lawyers (and
she had always known the very best), she hardly believed that he
possessed a "judiciary" mind. In reply to her leads, I said that I had
just come from Council, and that I was an attorney; but, in answer to
her query whether I had made my "stake," with great discretion I forbore
to boast of the fortune secreted about my person, remarking that in
Alaska one employed his profession as an opening-wedge for mining
interests, and that as yet my mines were in a state of development. This
elicited the information that she felt similarly as to _her_ profession;
and when I made bold to inquire what that profession might be, I was
slightly staggered by the rejoinder, "The operetta." Now, if she had
said _opera_, it wouldn't have been so bad, for one associates with the
opera something grand, massive, and substantial; but she didn't fit in
with "operetta" at all. It was a rude shock, later in the evening, when
I saw "Little Casino" standing by the bar and drinking her whisky
straight. Then I felt sure that the dear ones at home would have been
sorrowfully, painfully astonished thus to see their little one, whom,
perhaps, they fondly imagined softening and delighting with song and
merriment the rugged natures of the rough miners.
It would have been asking too much of Alaskan weather to be allowed to
journey on as far as Nome without some setback. This was soon apparent
when a storm of wind and rain came up which held me at Chenik for three
long and dismal days. It blew as it can blow only in Alaska. The wind
literally drove nearly all the water out of the shallow bay, so that one
morning the unusual sight of a beach and bar extending almost across to
the other side presented itself. I very vividly recall one evening at
that forlorn place, when the renowned Dexter himself and a crowd of
satellites and bar-room loafers were gathered about the table playing a
game of "freeze-out" poker. Business was slack, and the urbane
bartender, whom the favored addressed as "Eddie," and who, arrayed in a
pink-and-white sweater, was wont to flourish behind the bar, admiring
himself in the glass and brushing his slick hair between drinks, was one
of the select party. It was a terrible night outside. The men, now and
then during a pause, would voluntarily remark, or interrogate one
another, as to where they'd like to be,--in what city, restaurant, or
theater,--or (one fellow in particular, and for my special benefit)
would predict that the storm was likely to continue for a week or more.
The howl of the wind, which the Malemute dogs tried to rival, suddenly
found another competitor, which, dirge-like, a whooping sort of wail,
accompanied by the moans and groans of a pedal organ in agony, was
traced to the story above. It was the "operetta" in action--perhaps
thinking of home. At any rate, she felt badly; and the crowd showed its
sympathy by a raising of voices and yowling like the dogs outside, and
wondering what she had eaten for dinner to cause such evidences of pain
and suffering.
On the _Elmore_, which still had a monopoly of the traffic, I reached
Nome at last, and repaired to the Golden Gate Hotel, which, razed to the
ground by fire during the winter, had risen phoenix-like from the
ashes, a credit in structure and appointment to almost any community.
With its boarded streets, excellent water-supply, cold-storage plants,
fire-engine department, long-distance telephones, railroad to the Anvil
Creek mines, and projected electric-light system, Nome has indeed become
a city. As a matter of fact, the social atmosphere of Nome now demands
a white collar and a shoe-shine. Wonderful when one thinks of its
geographical situation, almost in the Bering Strait, three thousand
miles from any port of supply, scarcely one hundred and fifty from
Siberia, in a cheerless, Arctic country, barren of everything save gold!
When the telegraph line from the Klondike to St. Michaels is finished,
the cable, which has already been laid, will carry it through the
remaining one hundred and fifty miles, and Nome will then daily, in all
seasons, be in touch with the outside world.
I met Captain Baldwin, a prominent and useful citizen, who was selecting
characteristic photographs to put in an album, as a gift to President
McKinley from the citizens of Nome. And this was on the day of the
President's death. The terrible news of the assassination I did not
learn until I reached Port Townsend, in Puget Sound, September 26, when
the hollow shout of the news-vender, "McKinley dead and buried,"
considerably lessened the pleasure of home-coming. The mayor of Nome had
recently made a trip to Canton in advocacy of the removal of Judge
Noyes, and the President's questions as to how the people of the Nome
region lived had suggested the appropriateness of the intended gift.
The mines near Nome had been and were "showing up" well. Old channels
were being discovered, and it was generally admitted that more gold was
in sight than ever before. There had recently been found on Anvil Creek
the largest nugget which Alaska had yet produced. This was on
exhibition; and I elbowed my way through the camera fiends to heft the
boulder-like mass, which weighed ninety-seven ounces, or a little over
eight pounds (troy), and was worth $1552. I have been informed that
another nugget, slightly larger, was discovered in the same vicinity
soon afterward. It is not improbable that, when the creeks shall have
been worked out by the present methods of sluicing, quite as much
additional wealth will be accumulated from the debris by hydraulic
operations. The great richness of the country lies in the
"benches,"--creek flats and hillsides,--and to operate them successfully
great ditches are being constructed. For instance, on Ophir Creek the
Wild Goose Company now has under way a ditch, paralleling the creek,
twelve miles long and twelve feet wide, which eventually will extend
twelve miles further, to the mouth of the stream. It was surprising to
see a number of engines and plants of various kinds operating the beach,
which gave the lie to the general belief that the sands had been wholly
exhausted. Despite the severe handicap of a late spring, the mining
season averaged well, and the output of the yellow metal probably
equaled that of the year previous. The reports concerning the new
Kougarok and Bluestone districts, which had been heralded as "wonders"
and attracted thousands, of course proved to be exaggerated, and caused
great disappointment, although they are known to contain a few rich
creeks and may some day be worked on a large scale.
I ran across several of the "nobility" and also the "Divine Healer."
The former appeared less chipper, and the latter looked less benign.
Their large interests were centered in the mining districts aforesaid.
The "Cafe de Paris," enlarged and refitted, would grace any metropolis.
Its cuisine and service were excellent, and it was furnished with all
the up-to-date conveniences and appurtenances, including, as heretofore,
a count. Among the features of Nome are the licensed town-criers, who
parade the main street from early morn till late at night, calling out
and advertising with original variations the various restaurants,
entertainments, and sailings of steamers, for which services they are
very well paid. At this time there were two steamers in the roadstead,
and tickets to Seattle were selling like hot cakes. The crier for one
of these vessels--a young, clean-cut-looking fellow, evidently well
educated, and possessed of a sense of humor and a splendid voice--was
creating a good deal of amusement by his form of appeal. After extolling
the magnificence and speed of the ship, with solemn mien and clear,
resonant tenor voice he called out in the crowded thoroughfare: "Get
your tickets back to mother and the old farm, you hungry, homesick
placer-miners." This latter mode of address was of course highly
flattering to the host of bar-room loafers.
The Cape Nome excitement has yielded an abundant harvest to the
transportation companies; and, in the main, the treatment which they
have accorded their passengers has been outrageous--in some instances
even piratical. This I know not only from accounts of trustworthy
persons, but also from my own observation. Vessels have been making the
long and hazardous trip which should be condemned equally with their
owners. Narrow escapes from complete disaster have not been infrequent,
and persons who in good faith have bought first-class accommodations
have gone aboard to find that they have been _second_ purchasers, and,
in overcrowded ships, have been obliged to resort to the floor for
sleep, and to bribery of the stewards for decent food. Many a chapter of
horrors incredible could be detailed by unfortunate participants in the
Nome travel. It was with astonishment and genuine regret that I read in
a recent Nome paper of the suicide of my cabin-mate on the _St. Paul_,
the pleasant Knight of the Green Table. Despondent, he had deliberately
shot himself through the head. He was a general favorite, "square" in
his "profession," and his untimely end was widely regretted.
X
THE END OF THE CONSPIRACY--A WORD FOR ALASKA
After having served only three months of his year's sentence, on the
plea of ill health and through strong political influence, Alexander
McKenzie had been pardoned by the President, and was again free to
descend, if he chose, upon the mining fraternity of Cape Nome. But he
showed excellent judgment in returning to his Dakota constituency. The
Court of Appeals, in its opinion in the McKenzie contempt cases, had in
effect declared that an outraged community had patiently endured
injuries unparalleled in the history of American jurisprudence, and that
the people were entitled to high praise for their abstinence from
forcible resistance. Apropos of this, the then senior senator from South
Dakota, in his defense in the Senate of McKenzie and Noyes, had engaged
the attention of that body in a tirade against the honorable court.
During the winter, people had been brooding over their grievances, and
when spring came there was frequent mention of "necktie" parties and
"shotgun" excursions, in a way that carried conviction of settled
purposes. As a further inducement to Mr. McKenzie to seek other spheres
of activity and usefulness, the Circuit Court of Appeals had made
orders, and appointed an officer to serve them, requiring Judge Noyes,
Mr. Wood, the district attorney, Mr. Geary, the lawyer and
ex-Congressman who had advised and defended McKenzie, and one Frost, a
special agent from the Department of Justice at Washington, to appear in
San Francisco in October, 1901, and show cause why they, too, should not
be punished for contempt of court. After all, there was something to be
admired in the bold dash and forceful ability of the arch conspirator.
Alexander McKenzie might have reigned supreme until the successful
realization of the scheme or conspiracy had he been assisted by a more
efficient and less bungling corps of lieutenants.
Judge Noyes, having given a scant day's notice to the bar, departed from
Nome in August, 1901, adjourning his court until November, and leaving
legal matters in a state of great confusion. The favored, however,
immediately prior to his departure, had obtained his ready signature to
various orders and injunctions; and shortly before the vessel weighed
anchor there was a stream of small boats plying between the shore and
the maritime court, whose passengers were obtaining what came to be
known as "deep-sea injunctions." As a result of a number of conflicting
orders which Judge Noyes had made pertaining to a certain disputed
mining claim, a body of masked men some time later endeavored by force
of arms to drive away the parties in possession, in consequence of which
there was bloodshed and enrichment of the hospital.
Two petitions--one from the general public, the other from the
lawyers--were sent to the President seeking the removal of Judge Noyes
and the appointment of a suitable man in his stead. The latter petition,
signed almost universally by the bar, characterizes Judge Noyes as
"weak," "vacillating," "dilatory," "careless," "negligent," "partial,"
and "absolutely incompetent." It should carry additional weight by
reason of the moderation of its language. In September, having received
his instructions through Attorney-General Knox, Judge Wickersham, of the
Third Judicial Division of Alaska, opened a term of court during the
interregnum period; and, having entered upon his duties with ability and
despatch, soon gained the confidence of the community by a number of
prompt, clear-cut decisions.
The United States Circuit Court of Appeals, on the sixth day of
January, 1902, filed its opinion and judgment in the contempt cases of
Arthur H. Noyes, C.A.S. Frost, Thomas J. Geary, and Joseph K. Wood. The
opinion of the court was delivered by Judge Gilbert, and there are
concurring opinions by Judges Ross and Morrow, which, however, are
stronger and more severe in their expressions than the prevailing
opinion.
After reviewing the history of the proceedings which have heretofore
been set forth, and commenting upon the further evidence received on the
trial, Judge Noyes is adjudged guilty of contempt of court in that he
not only refused to compel McKenzie to obey the writs, but, on the other
hand, made orders which prevented their enforcement. In view of the fact
that he holds a public office, Noyes's sentence consists of a mere fine
of one thousand dollars. As to Geary, the lawyer, the court states that
there is not sufficient evidence to convince it beyond a reasonable
doubt that he was guilty of contempt, and the charge against him is
dismissed. Wood, the district attorney, is adjudged guilty, and is
sentenced to four months' imprisonment in the county jail of Alameda
County, California. Frost, the special agent from the Department of
Justice, who (as the evidence discloses), soon after his arrival at
Nome, became an assistant district attorney, and, later, Judge Noyes's
private secretary, and who spent government money in behalf of the
conspirators, is likewise found guilty of contempt of court, and is
sentenced to imprisonment for twelve months in the county jail.
Judge Ross in his concurring opinion says:
"I am of the opinion that the records and evidence in the cases show
beyond any reasonable doubt that the circumstances under which and the
purposes for which each of those persons committed the contempt alleged
and so found were far graver than is indicated in the opinion of the
court, and that the punishment awarded by the court is wholly inadequate
to the gravity of the offenses. I think the records and evidence show
very clearly that the contempts of Judge Noyes and Frost were committed
in pursuance of a corrupt conspiracy with Alexander McKenzie and with
others, not before the court and therefore not necessary to be named, by
which the properties involved in the suits mentioned in the opinion,
among other properties, were to be wrongfully taken, under the forms of
law, from the possession of those engaged in mining them, and the
proceeds thereof appropriated by the conspirators. For those shocking
offenses it is apparent that no punishment that can be lawfully imposed
in a contempt proceeding is adequate. But a reasonable imprisonment may
be here imposed, and I am of the opinion that, in the case of the
respondent Arthur H. Noyes, a judgment of imprisonment in a county jail
for the period of eighteen months should be imposed, and in the case of
Frost a like imprisonment of fifteen months.... I think Wood should be
imprisoned for ten months.... In regard to the respondent Geary, I agree
with the finding of the court to the effect that the contempt alleged
against him is not sufficiently established."