Cape Nome, Alaska, Aug. 6, 1899.--It is Sunday evening again and I
am reclining against my roll of blankets in the warm tent. Foote is
playing the banjo, beautiful music, too! I never appreciated music
until this trip. Foote's marches and familiar songs, associated as
they are with the freedom of camp life and that feeling of rest after
a day's work, have impressed their memory as the sweetest music I
ever heard. We are still on our beach claims; that is, part of us.
The "Penelope" is back at anchor, having left Jett and Wilson on the
scent of something under guidance of an Indian. Cox has not reported.
Our property is advancing in value and so is the stock of the L. B.
A. M. & T. Co. The same stock which I was ready to trade a few weeks
ago for some cotton batting, arsenic and plaster-of-paris! We own
a lot in Anvil City 200 × 300 feet. The beach claims are proving
better. If we can hold clear to the water line we are safe. The
past week we have taken out $250 in gold dust. Trouble with jumpers
continues. Over six hundred men are working with rockers on the beach
in sight. Some are making from $50 to $150 per day. One fellow struck
a pocket and took out $400 at one clean-up. Our claims are not as
good as those nearer Snake River. Several jumpers are at work on them
now and we cannot put them off except by force, and that means fight.
None of us want to be disfigured after our successful encounter with
the frost last winter. We appealed to the lieutenant in charge, but
he says he can do nothing until the arrival of the district judge
next week. Several of our boys have gone up to one of the rich
gulches to consider a new proposition. Maybe we will get a good lay.
A "lay" is a lease given by a claim owner to a party to work a claim
for a certain per-centage of the outcome.
Aug. 13.--Another week has passed away and very quickly, too, in
spite of the hard work. From six to twelve of us are still working on
one of the beach claims. Up to Friday night we had taken out $750 in
dust. If the whole company were working at the same rate this would
be good wages, but there are twenty to share with. The "Penelope"
has gone down the coast again to look after the prospectors and may
bring good news. Jesse Farrar, the cook, went to town last night, and
I have been cooking to-day. We were troubled quite a little at first
by our numerous Kotzebue friends dropping in for meals on their way
up and down the beach. So we put up a sign, "Meals, $1," more to rid
ourselves of the extra care than to go into the restaurant business.
Really it became unbearable.
The town is booming. The beach claim trouble is not settled yet, and
everyone is working where he pleases. Claim owners up in the gulches
are looking for men at $10 per day and board, and cannot get them. A
$310 nugget was taken from a sluice box the other day, and one man
cleared $20,000 for four days' work. Our boys have been up to see,
and I ought to go. A fellow hasn't a chance every day in his life to
see such a lot of gold in the rough, at its birth as it were, before
it is washed or dressed or alloyed. Most of the lucky ones are Swedes
or Laplanders, they being on the ground at the beginning of the rush
last spring.
Gold can only bring $15 per ounce at the highest, and only $14 at
some stores. In other words, coin is at a big premium. The beach
gold runs very high, being much purer than that from the hills. Some
was sent to St. Michaels and assayed $18.40 per ounce. If one had
the cash he could buy up the raw gold and sell it. That is where the
companies make the bulk of their money. It is a great temptation for
some of our party to desert and start into private enterprises. But
I, and most of the boys, will stay together and I believe will come
out better in the long run.
They say Dawson is played out and that this is the next place for a
boom. But I wouldn't advise anyone to come here if they have any way
of making a living at home. Ten dollars a day sounds big, but when
one pays $90 each way for transportation and then prices for things
here, there isn't much left from the short period of three months'
work, and one is not sure of that.
We have a short fish net set out beyond the surf. This morning
I found four salmon in it, the first we have had since leaving
Kotzebue. Only four of us are here to-day, but I had three
"boarders." Three dollars in "dust" was paid.
I have forgotten to describe what "rocking" is. A rocker runs just
like a baby's cradle, from side to side. At the top is a hopper with
holes in the bottom to keep out the coarse stuff. The sand falls
through the hopper-holes and washes over two "aprons" slanting back
and forth to the bottom, where it runs out through a sluice-box. The
aprons, and sometimes the sluice-box, have "riffles," or strips of
cloth fastened in crosswise, to catch the gold. The aprons and the
whole bottom of the box and riffles are of blanket, so that the finer
dust catches in the nap or wool. A man stands dipping water into the
hopper with one hand and rocking with the other, while the other man
puts in a shovelful of the pay dirt every now and then, and keeps the
water tub full and the tailings cleaned away. Two men run a rocker,
though when the "Penelope" crew is ashore there are three men to each
of our four rockers. We have to carry all our water from the surf.
Some of the rockers have copper plates amalgamated with mercury on
the upper sides. These are better, as the finer particles are caught
and amalgamated. To "clean up" a rocker, the aprons and blankets are
taken out and washed in a tub and the resulting debris panned out. I
am amalgamator, and have nothing to do with the rockers. I pan out
the previous day's clean-up and amalgamate the dust, squeeze "dry"
the amalgam and weigh it. We have no retort as yet and I have on hand
nearly ten pounds of dry amalgam. I have experimented with it and
find that the amalgam is one-half gold by weight. Oh, the boys have
a little joke on me. It was the result of my first experiment and I
shall never hear the last of it. There must have been something else
in the spoon I was using, nickel or silver, for the gold melted right
into the spoon. I poured the stuff out on to a shovel-blade to save
what was left. What did it do but melt right into and all over the
shovel! The result of this is that the L. B. A. M. & T. Co. has a
gold-plated shovel. We are a wealthy company and can afford it.
[Illustration: Cape Nome.]
Later. Anvil City, Cape Nome.--I came to town after supper and
am writing in our "city cabin," which is just back of the A. C.
Company's store. We own a very fine residence in the city 12 x 10
feet, on a 150 x 300 foot lot. It is a good eight miles from our
beach claims here, and as I walked it I thought it twenty. I wore
heavy shoes, and the best walking I could select was on the wet sand
along the surf. For the entire eight miles there is scarcely one
hundred feet without one or more tents on it. The beach is riddled
with ditches and holes, and hundreds of rockers of all descriptions
gyrate in various rhythm. I spoke to many Kotzebue people whom we
knew last winter, and all are doing well. The beach is still being
worked by everyone, irrespective of original locators, a dozen or
more on our own claims. The officer arrested several, but discharged
them again. The townspeople, saloonkeepers and transportation
companies are against claim owners, as it is to their own interest
to keep the mob taking out money. And they're doing it, too. Anvil
City is booming. Dozens of frame buildings are being erected. Three
big two-story sheet-iron buildings are going up, which comprise the
government barracks. Several steamers have gotten over the bar and
are in the mouth of Snake River. About two dozen saloons are raking
in the money. This is a speedy place. I wish I had my time for the
next two months here. Ptarmigan are $1 each for eating. Wages are $1
per hour.
[Illustration: Rocking Out Gold at Cape Nome.]
Cape Nome, Aug. 22.--I am quite sure that I do not aspire to the
realm of cookery, but yet, for all that, I am in the kitchen again,
"monarch of all I survey." I do not blame the cook for stubbornly
declaring his intention to resign and refusing to leave his bed. No
one heeded his warning given the day before. Pandemonium ensued. A
dish-pan of mush finally appeared at the hands of Uncle Jimmy. No one
consented to fill the vacancy at any wages. Three "boarders" came in
and were turned away. The dissolution of the company was imminent,
all because there was no one in the crowd to perform a duty which is
considered by all to be the most disagreeable of any on the list. I
told them so, and several other emphatic truths. "Practice what you
preach!" was hurled at me. Then I rose up like a martyr and declared
that I would "risk death" in the interests of the L. B. A. M. & T.
Co., and here I am in imminent peril of being wiped off the face
of the earth by some "beach comber" whom I charge fifty cents for
a loaf of bread. I sold three loaves at that rate yesterday. Also
served fifteen meals to outsiders at the rate of $1 per meal. One
man came in for supper last night who planked down a bag of dust
worth fully $800 for me to weigh the dollar from. I poured out a
little too much and he grabbed the bag and went out, saying, "Keep
the change!" Most of the money taken in is dust. Cash is scarcer
than ever. Copper plates are not obtainable, and silver dollars and
halves are at a premium for covering the bottoms of rockers. The
coins are amalgamated with mercury to catch the fine gold dust. I
saw fifty arranged in rows in one rocker. Our claims are now covered
with beach jumpers and we cannot get them off. Mob law rules. There
are one hundred beach combers to one claim owner, and the authorities
will not or cannot do anything. The lieutenant in charge gave us
some notices to "vacate," but the people pay no attention. It fell
to me to go up to one of our claims, and I showed the notice to each
of the workers along the beach. Some laughed at me. Some sneered.
One "tough" consigned me and the notice to a warmer place than Cape
Nome in August. He continued to swear at me, and when I respectfully
asked him to "be reasonable and give me a hearing," he told me to
get to that same place I have mentioned "and quick, too." This at
my own claim! I never knew I had a temper before, but for a minute
then I do not think I would have been responsible. I can easily see
how murders are committed in the rage of anger, and if all judges
and juries could put themselves in the place of the tempted, perhaps
capital punishment, at least for such crimes, would be annulled. The
man who threatened me was bigger than I, and I went on. And he is
still working there, taking out $100 per day, so I am told. He is in
a "pocket." Our pocket. We have discussed the advisability of using
force, but have abandoned it. Fancher says we "might get disfigured,"
for there are people here just awkward enough to hit a fellow in the
face.
We are hemmed in on all sides and soon our beach claims will be
worthless. Sunday I retorted all the amalgam we had on hand, and
eighty-five ounces of pure gold was the result. Seven pounds of the
pretty yellow stuff! I broke the big chunks as they came from the
retort into small pieces with a cold chisel. It was fascinating work
to weigh out the rare metal and lift the same when it was put into
the chamois-skin sack. I have turned it over to Treasurer Rivers, so
it is off my hands. But what is fifteen hundred dollars divided among
twenty men? It would certainly be better to divide up the company
right now, for the individuals here, but we cannot lawfully do it.
Complete desertion is the only alternative to staying with it.
Anvil City, Aug. 24.--We have left the beach claims and are on our
way to Nome River. We have leased a fifty per cent, lay on Buster
Creek, and are going to see what is in it. It is our last chance
for this year. It may turn out poor, but we have very good reports
from that section. We hope to feel assured of something good to come
back to next spring. Ice last night, and probably an early winter.
The schooner is going up to Safety Harbor in Port Clarence to remain
until October 1st, which is about as late as we dare stay here. I
must go ashore now for a boat-load of lumber for sluice-boxes.
Later.--The rats got into a box of my geese and entirely ruined
them. I do not know how much else is destroyed. I have not been so
absolutely down-hearted for many moons. All on account of those
miserable rats. I came near taking all my collection ashore and
quitting the company. But then I suppose "gold is to be desired above
all things." at least this is what I am told by wiser heads than
mine, judging by their whiteness and baldness. There is a prospect
of getting some new potatoes ashore to-night, and these will be an
all-sufficient antidote to low spirits. Somehow potatoes, and even
onions, go straight to the seat of low spirits when a fellow has been
without them a year or two. Strange to me that a man ever commits
suicide in the midst of local markets where fresh vegetables can be
obtained. Ah, we shall have a great supper to-night! One menu three
times a day--beans, dessicated vegetables, rice, dried fruit and
bacon--grows wearisome unless the appetite is awfully sharp.
[Illustration: Placer Mining, Cape Nome.]
Buster Creek, Sept. 3.--Here we are twelve miles up among the
mountains back of Cape Nome. It took two days towing up Nome River,
which is really nothing more than a creek. There were bars to drag
the boat over every hundred yards. That brought us to the mouth of
Buster Creek, three miles from here, and from there we had the sweet
job of packing up all our supplies and lumber on our backs. Rain
most of the time and nothing but green willow brush to burn. It was
very disagreeable, hard work, but here we are now, well settled,
with an oil stove to depend on when the willow wood fails. We have
a fairly good looking claim here, No. 4. Have it opened up and the
first gravel through yesterday. The riffles show coarse gold, though
in no fabulous amount. We cannot get much out before freeze-up this
year, but ought to do fairly well next summer from present prospects.
Some ice and considerable frost already. We will probably return to
the coast the last of September. The "Penelope" rode out the late
storm safely when so many other vessels were lost. My latest news is
that the rats have taken my goose box for a nesting den. One of the
boys will watch from this on. I am cooking and it keeps me jumping
sideways to feed the fourteen hungry gravel-heavers. I have to be up
at five in the morning and am seldom through until nine at night.
Have to bake every day, and have nothing larger than a single camp
stove oven to do it in. Everyone is working for all there is in him.
We hope to strike a pay streak, as they have on the claim above us,
rich enough to take out $800 per day. I have scarcely time to breathe
outside of the cook tent these days. But I frequently hear the notes
of familiar birds--golden-crowned sparrows, gray-cheeked thrushes and
ptarmigan. I shot nine ptarmigan the other evening close by. We are
feasting on fresh venison. Yesterday morning a reindeer appeared on
the hillside above the tents. Without malice aforethought one of the
boys aimed and it fell--to our lot. It is now hinted that the wild
creature was a tame reindeer, and that the Laps from over on Anvil
Creek who have the animals in charge, will most likely come to hunt
it up. If they get a peep into our provision tent we may have to pay
$100, otherwise it will be finished by us with a relish such as few
can appreciate. These Laplanders own very rich claims and, though
they are really a lower class of people than the Indians, the latter
cannot become citizens.
Last week, while we were coming up along Nome River, birds were quite
numerous, especially the smaller species in the willow thickets. I
saw or heard the yellow, black-poll and Wilson's warblers; tree,
fox, golden-crowned and intermediate sparrows, gray-cheeked thrush,
redpoll, snowy owl, flocks of golden plover and pectoral sandpipers,
one young Sabine's gull on a sand-bar: lots of large gulls, either
glaucus or glaucus-winged, and perhaps both; loons, black and
red-throated; little brown crane, pin-tails, and other ducks not
identified. The last two or three days small birds have been very
scarce. On August 27 and 28 the fall migrations were in progress.
Most of the birds were heard singing, especially the warblers, as in
spring. The ptarmigan are very nicely plumaged now in parti-colored
costume. I wish I could save some, but the L. B. A. M. & T Co. is
mining now. I can hardly decide in my own mind to stay another winter
here. I will let circumstances decide. There are hundreds of Dawson
people here who say this will be a greater gold country than the
Klondike. Some of the creeks are turning out immensely rich. One
Swede came down from his claim the other day with $88,000. He got rid
of $30,000 of it in a saloon almost immediately. It will be seen that
the saloon people are taking in most of the gold. However, I think we
are on the right track, though it may take two more years to bring us
material returns. In a few days now it will be:
"Penelope! Penelope! zip! boom! bah!
Going home from Kotzebue! rah! rah! rah!"
[Illustration]