UNDER THE TUNDRA
In a little three-room cabin in Nome, a middle-aged woman, wearing
glasses, knitted a gray woollen sock for her boy, as she called him.
"Yes", she said musingly, "my husband and I came here during the rush of
1900. My son, Leroy, had come the year before to pave the way for us, as
he called it, and this he tried his best to do. He staked some gold
claims and a town lot, and put up a one-room cabin, building on to the
latter after we arrived. His idea was to get his father and me away from
the farm (which he hated) and start us in mining in Alaska, he being
exceedingly enthusiastic on this subject and positive that we would
enjoy it as well as he did."
At the conclusion of this introduction to the story the woman laid down
her knitting and pushed her glasses up to the top of her head. Then with
an amused expression about the corners of her mouth, she said:
"The story of all the actual mining that Pa Morrison and I ever did is
not a long one, but it is one he would much rather I did not often
relate. However, as you wish to hear it, and he is too busy at his
book-keeping in the next room to know what is going on, I will tell you
how we began mining in Alaska.
"We had landed safely upon the beach with all our necessary belongings,
as well as feather-beds and pillows, also fruit-cake and other good
things for Christmas. My son had met us with open arms and shown us with
much pleasure to his tiny cabin on a nearby street. To this place all
our boxes were in due time hauled by dog-team, and a big tent set up
temporarily alongside the cabin.
"While unpacking articles to be immediately used we had not forgotten
our mining tools, gold pan, picks and shovels, as well as rubber boots,
and all were spread out in fine array in the sunshine beside the tent.
"Much of our clothing had been especially selected with a view to our
new occupation, and there were dozens of new blue and brown denim
jumpers and overalls, bandana handkerchiefs, woollen socks and shirts
for Pa, as well as short, warm dresses and stout aprons for me.
"To enumerate all would take too long. Enough to say that in our anxiety
to get to work at the real object of our coming, we rushed the
adjustment of affairs in our camp through with all speed, and two days
after landing at Nome, Pa and I started out to do some mining on our own
hook upon our first gold claim."
Here the woman paused to take breath, and picking up her knitting to
inspect it for a moment, seemed somewhat reluctant to proceed.
"Was the claim far from town?" some one asked, in order to bring her
back to her narrative, and at the same time not to appear too anxious.
"Oh, no," she said, brightening considerably. "Leroy is always such a
good and thoughtful fellow, and he had selected this cabin for us near
the west end of town, close to the cemetery, on the tundra. It was only
a short walk for us, he said, and the ground must, undoubtedly, be rich,
as much gold had been taken out of the beach-diggings next the tundra
where our claim was located.
[Illustration: "_Dressed in his fresh miner's rig_"]
"It was reported that the beach contained from one to three pay streaks
before a depth of three feet was reached; that nuggets worth as much
as twenty dollars were found in the beach-diggings, and the tundra was
good pay dirt from the 'grass roots down'.
"Well, my husband and I started for the claim, as I said--we started
Snake River bridge, Pa paying his ten cents toll, while I went across
free as was the custom that summer, and we trudged down the road on the
sandspit to the cemetery. Dressed in his fresh miner's rig, (that was an
accidental pun) taken so lately from our big packing boxes, Pa marched
with all the dignity a man of his height and thinness can assume, with a
gold pan under one arm, and a shiny pick and shovel upon his shoulder. I
followed close behind."
At this stage of the story Mrs. Morrison cast a quick glance at the door
of the adjoining room where her husband was writing. Then opening a
table drawer close at hand, she took out two kodak views and handed them
to her listeners.
"He must not know where I keep these pictures or he would burn them as
sure as fate; I have dubbed them 'before and after'."
They examined the views she handed them. A stout, resolute looking
woman with a pleased expectant countenance, short dress, huge basket on
right arm. The man beside her holding his broad brimmed miner's hat in
his hands, his unused gold pan, pick and shovel, at his feet. For a
background a tent, a bit of the river, and bridge.
In the "After" picture the scene was changed. Dejection was depicted on
both faces. Their clothing was soiled and their implements had seen
usage, but were now flung upon the ground in disorder.
"A friend took these snap-shots of us," she explained, returning the
photos to their places, "and Leroy likes to preserve them 'just for fun'
he says.
"To go back to my story, we made our way along as best we could by
inquiring (for Leroy had been obliged to go to the creeks to attend to
some work in progress; so could not go with us; in fact, he did not know
of our intention of sallying out upon the tundra), and finally arrived
at the cemetery. We spent little time in looking at the few rude
head-boards and scattered mounds of those quiet sleepers by the sea, but
bestowed more attention upon the beach-miners on our left. Here, at the
edge of the water, and even standing in the surf, were many men at work,
beach-mining with Long-Toms' or other contrivances, and all wore
high-topped rubber boots.
"Looking about for the claim in which we were so much interested, we
finally found the corner stakes, and the St. Charles cream can in which
the location notice had been placed by Leroy a few months before.
"Then Pa wanted me to read the paper to him, which I did, after seating
myself on a big hummock of tundra and properly adjusting my spectacles.
"The paper ran thus: 'We, the undersigned citizens of the United States,
have discovered placer gold in the ground hereinafter described, and
hereby claim for placer-mining purposes twenty acres on the tundra west
of Nome and 100 feet north of the cemetery.' Then followed the distance
between stakes, the name of the witness, our own names, and that of
Leroy as our agent, the date of the location, etc.
"By this time Mr. Morrison was hungry. So after replacing the location
notice on the initial stake under the old cream can, just as we found
it, we lunched heartily on ham sandwiches, doughnuts, pie and cheese. A
quart bottle of coffee had added much to the weight of the basket on the
way.
"We now turned our attention to the tundra. Of what was it composed? How
deep was it? Was it easily handled? Would it burn? Was it wet? And how
large an extent of country, or rather territory, did it cover. These
were only a few of the questions that Pa Morrison now flung at me in
quick succession, leaning as he did meanwhile on the handle of the
shovel.
"I grew impatient.
"'I really cannot answer your questions, Pa Morrison, and you know it;
but as to the extent of the tundra I think I can safely say that it
covers the whole of this gold claim and a good deal more besides, for I
can see as far as the hills yonder without my glasses that it all looks
alike,' and I tugged with might and main at some small trailing vines
imbedded in the deep mosses.
"'As to the depth of this tundra you have the shovel in your hands and
can soon investigate if you see fit to do so', I continued as Pa still
stood looking dubiously about him without so much as making a jab with
his shovel.
"'Then there is the composition of this tundra to be studied. If I
understood the flora of Alaska I would give you the desired information
quick, but I don't, and I am too old to begin to study it now. I
believe, however, that I can tell a gold nugget when I see it, and if
you will bestir yourself and turn up a few, I will agree to analyze them
to your heart's content,' giving him what was meant to be a conciliatory
smile which was entirely lost because he never looked my way.
"With that he set to work. Down into the deep moss and tangled vines of
the tundra he plunged that new and shining shovel with force enough to
jar the teeth out of his head. This was kept up for fully ten minutes,
while I rummaged around among the hummocks for the lovely many colored
mosses, and mentally tried to count the different kinds of tiny plants,
numbers of which were blossoming in artistic colors and profusion under
our feet.
"'Mary.'
"'Yes, Pa.'
"'Do you think a hole four feet square instead of six would be big
enough?'
"'O, yes, certainly. Anything, if it is only one foot square,' said I,
sarcastically, for I had a consuming anxiety to get down to those
nuggets which lay 'just at the grass roots' and Pa was so awfully slow.
"We had talked this matter over the day before, and had decided upon a
hole six feet square.
"'If I were in your place, Mary, I wouldn't be too smart,' said he
testily, and then rested again upon the shovel handle. His face was
flushed and heated. He breathed hard. Dead silence for a long minute.
"'I wish I'd brought the axe,' said he.
"'What for?'
"'To cut these beastly vines and roots with.'
"'Dear me! Shall I go home and fetch it?'
"'No, you needn't', crossly. 'By the time you got here with it you would
have to go right back to get supper. It is half past one o'clock now,
and I have been at work an hour.'
"'But you were going to work all day, weren't you?' He had scarcely made
an impression on that tundra, and not a single nugget had we seen.
"With that he planted a few more good, hard jabs into the thicket of
moss, vines and leaves, trying to get the hole four feet square anyway,
after my rather uncalled for taunt about its size.
"In the meanwhile I was not wasting my time. I was using the pick upon a
cluster of bunch grass hummocks, wishing to fill the gold pan with dirt
from underneath that I might wash it out and see if it contained
'colors'.
"Somehow I felt more subdued like, perhaps because I was growing tired;
but Pa seemed to be affected differently. I could hear him grumbling to
himself, and that was a bad sign. By and by his shovel struck something
hard. He uttered an oath.
"'Pa Morrison!' I exclaimed, 'Ain't you ashamed of yourself? To think of
your swearing like that. It's awful! Give me that shovel instantly.'
"'I won't!'
"'Give me that shovel, I say,' for we were both church members and had
been for many years, and I was inexpressibly shocked at his profanity,
and wished to remove the cause.
"'Shut your head, Mary Morrison! Whose doing this mining, will you tell
me?'
"'O, of course you are, but then I wanted to help you if I could,'
trying to speak quietly and coming close enough to take the instrument
of dispute from his hand if he would let me.
"No reply.
"'What did you strike, Pa, that made the shovel ring just now?'
"'Shovel!--ring!--It was ice! bloomin', blasted, infernal ice, I tell
you,' he shouted in a rage, standing in black muck almost to his knees,
with the same material bespattered over him from head to foot. Indeed
his red and perspiring face showed a couple of great, black smirches
with which he had unknowingly beautified himself.
"He was fairly sizzling with wrath. 'Git down here yourself, and go to
work, and see how you like it,' he shouted excitedly, forgetting his
English and everything but that we had encountered an astonishingly hard
proposition, and it had gotten the best of us. Like an old clock he was
wound up and could not stop.
"'No gold, no nuggets, no grass roots even; nothing but muck and ice!'
and another mouthful of big, strong words gurgled from that man's lips
like water from an uncorked jug.
"'Don't, Mr. Morrison, don't do that,' said I, in a voice cold as the
ice in that four foot hole, 'you may be heard by some one who will
report you to the church trustees, and then you will be expelled. At
your age it would be a positive disgrace.'
"'Shut your mouth, I tell you,' he yelled, 'I ain't no baby! I know what
I'm doing, and I know what I want to do, but it ain't mining on this
confounded tundra!'
"At this I clapped my hands over my ears to shut out such language, but
he kept on just the same.
"'Did we lease our farm for a whole year with all the machinery and
stock, pack up our household furniture and come three thousand miles
over this water like the blooming old idiots we are, to dig in a
muckhole full of ice? Did we tell our banker that he should have the
very first gold we took out of the ground to pay the two hundred dollar
mortgage on our town lots? Does this look much like lifting mortgages
from anything?'
"As I made no reply he insisted, 'Does it, I say?'
"'No, Pa Morrison, it doesn't,' I admitted, 'but wait a minute and let
me talk.'
"'Well, ain't you talking now?' he rejoined irritably.
"Without noticing his exasperating words or tone I said calmly:
"'I remember hearing Leroy say when we first arrived that the tundra is
a hard and peculiar proposition. Many have failed at mining it, but to
those who go to work at it in the right way, at the proper time it will
prove a bonanza. Now, probably you and I have not gone at it properly.'
"A surly silence ensued, during which Pa worked slowly, with anything
but a good grace. Leroy was right. The tundra was a hard and peculiar
proposition. Nothing like it had we ever seen before. For miles on three
sides of us it spread itself like a carpet of green, dotted often with
tiny pools of clear water, shining like glass in the June sunshine.
Miles away to the northward rolled the smooth-topped hills, only one of
them bearing a small, rocky crest; while further away, and forming a
background to these, lay the snow-tipped Sawtooth."
To the south of us and close at hand spread the wonderful waters upon
whose broad and beautiful bosom we had so lately sailed, and whose
gently sweeping surf was today making sweet music among the sands and
pebbles on the beach.
"Many ships lay at anchor beyond. However, it was neither the scenery,
nor the water, nor the ships that we were now called upon to consider;
but a layer of ice, the depth of which we did not know, lying between us
and the much desired golden nuggets. The ground lay level and open to
the sun, with nothing to prevent its thawing except this peculiar
blanket of tundra mosses, vines, and plants, which formed an insulator
as perfect as if made to order. It was now the middle of June. There was
no doubt but that the ice would remain as it was all summer.
"Giant powder might possibly be used, but it was dangerous and
expensive. I would never allow Father to handle the stuff. Better let it
all go forever. Probably Pa was right about our being foolish to come
here. We could go home again as many people were doing. There lay the
steamers making preparations to sail; but how our friends at home would
laugh at us!
"On the other hand was it not too soon to pronounce on this tundra, and
really no fair trial of the ground or mining? Then, too, our son
probably had his own plans for us which must be more intelligent ones,
for had he not had some experience and a year's residence in this place?
"There were the creek claims, besides. They must surely be very
different and easier to work.
"Reasoning thus I had wandered away a short distance by myself in order
to let Pa's temper cool, and had forgotten the panning I had started
out to do.
"I now returned. Taking up the gold pan I filled it with dirt and muck
from the four foot hole taken directly above the objectionable ice, and
though I found its weight almost more than I could carry, and Pa did not
offer to help me in the least, I carried it to a small pool of water at
no great distance and began to pan it.
"How heavy it was to be sure. There might be gold in it yet. I would see
presently. I had watched men panning on the beach that morning and I
believed I could do it as it appeared very easy.
"Immersing the pan in the water, after pinning my skirts carefully
higher, I began the rotary motion so necessary to separate the gold from
the sand and dirt. A moment of this employment and I was breathing
heavily and felt very warm. I put the pan down and flung off my
sun-bonnet, pulling my sleeves a notch higher before continuing. Again
the rotary movement with various dips of the edge of the big pan to let
the waste material pass away. Small pebbles showed themselves and had to
be picked out, the heavier material sinking in the natural order of
things, to the bottom.
"I was watching the outcome with great interest, though panting for
breath and covered with perspiration. Suddenly the soft earth under my
right foot gave way, and I found myself, gold pan and all, in the mud
and water up to my knees.
"I thought of Pa and his recent profanity, but I shut my teeth
resolutely together, wringing out the edges of my petticoats and pulling
my rubber boot tops still higher.
"Fishing for the gold pan I brought it to light. Of course its contents
were lost, my hands and clothes were muddied and my efforts wasted; but
I would not give it up yet.
"Another pan of the same material was brought and a second trial was
made, with success this time as the pan was not filled so full.
"Finally, after shaking, twisting, dipping, picking out pebbles, washing
off sand, and resting a moment at intervals, it was finished.
"There was gold in the pan.
"A few small 'colors', bright and shining as if made so by much scouring
of beach sand, appeared in the bottom of the gold pan to gladden my
longing eyes, and I hastened to show them to Pa Morrison, whose head and
shoulders were still visible in that four foot hole.
"'Humph!' said he, in much disgust, as I exhibited the result of my
labors. 'Is that all?'
"'Why, yes.'
"'And no nuggets?'
"'No nuggets.'
"At that he flung the pick he had been using in the ice upon the ground.
"'I'm going home', he said shortly.
"Now I hardly knew whether he intended to say he was going to the United
States, or to the little cabin and tent on Front Street, but rather than
run the risk of exploding another bomb of wrath like the last one by
asking a question, I kept quiet and made preparations to go back to our
tent.
"On the beach we washed our hands and smoothed our clothing as best we
could; but the frown which had lodged on Pa's forehead remained.
"That evening when Leroy had returned from his work and we had eaten our
eight o'clock supper with the sun still shining very brightly upon the
tent, the boy lighted his pipe and asked for the story of the day's
doings.
"I then gave it from the beginning. When I reached Pa's discovery of the
ice in the prospect hole on the tundra, Leroy laughed heartily. Then
seeing the aggrieved look on his father's face, and, I suppose, a
bothered one on my own, he became more serious, and drawing closer, took
my hand in both of his.
"'I never intended you to begin mining in that way, Mother,' he said,
simply, in a low voice. 'I want you here to help me keep house, to mend
my clothes, to bake bread and fry griddle cakes, and do the many little
things for Father and me that only you can do. In this way I can keep my
health and give all my time to my mining.'
"'I want you, Father,' he continued, laying his hand affectionately on
his pa's knee, 'to do my book-keeping, reckoning the time and wages of
my men at work on the claims. Accounts of assessment work on twenty
claims, besides new prospecting in different localities, will give you
something to do after cutting the kindling for Mother; and neither of
you need feel that you are useless nor idle. Part of these gold claims
are yours, and in your own names, and you can both make short 'mushing'
trips of inspection over the country when you like; though the new
railroad up Anvil will be finished in a few weeks, and then you can
ride. Under no consideration must either of you think for one moment of
buying steamer tickets back to the States inside of a year. At the end
of that time we will be taking out so much gold that you will not wish
to leave, I assure you. I am almost thirty years old now, Mother, and
you and Father are all I have,' he said softly, pressing my hand.
"Then I kissed his forehead and promised to stay, and I have never been
sorry. Father said he would try it a year, and then see about staying
longer, and here we are still in Nome after four years without once
going 'outside'.
"And you like it here?" they asked.
"Very much indeed, because our ground is turning out finely, and Leroy
is so good to us.
"About that tundra claim, however, nothing was ever done. Pa could never
be induced to step his foot upon it again, and being so determined in
the matter, we just let it drop.
"There it is yet, St. Charles cream can, stakes, and all; but the four
foot hole, with its icy foundations, is nowhere to be seen, having been
long ago levelled by wind and weather."
[Illustration]