CHAPTER XXIII.
C
CAPE NOME, July 20.—After an eleven days' voyage from Kotzebue Sound we anchored off Anvil City on the morning of the 20th. Those eleven days make a nightmare. A succession of head gales with dense fogs. We were almost within sight of our destination when a southeaster began to hum through the rigging and a thick fog set in. The "Penelope" hove to and for two days we experienced a most disagreeable combination of rolling and pitching, with their inevitable conditions. When the clouds finally lifted we were back in Bering Straits. The northward current is remarkably strong at this season and it is almost impossible to stem it unless there is a fair wind, which in our case did finally favor us. We found our Cape Nome representatives all here save Cox, who was left with some claims toward Fish River. All are well, but from their account they must have had some sorry experiences. Dr. Gleaves, Gale and party were lost in the overland trip and ran out of provisions, resorting to their seventeen dogs for food in the last pinch. They finally reached supplies with barely enough meat for two days longer. Close shave. The body of Dr. De France of the "Iowa" party, was found frozen in the trail in the mountains.
On the 22d the "Penelope" sailed up the coast to our claims, which are located on the beach seven miles west of Anvil City. Here we have unloaded supplies and will proceed to work the claims far enough to see what they are good for. I have not visited "town" yet, but there must be two thousand inhabitants living mostly in tents or driftwood shacks. Several warehouses have been built and two substantial frame buildings are going up. They say there are ten thousand men in this district, mostly scattered out among the hills. Five thousand claims are recorded, but of these only about a dozen are known to be of value. Four are so far being worked, but these I know to be extremely rich, for anyone can look on and see the "shining" as it is separated from the gravel in the sluice boxes. Shafer and Stevenson were at these workings a day or two ago and saw two shovelfuls taken up indiscriminately pan out one $6 and theother $8. Those rich claims are in little cañons or ravines seven miles back from the coast in the hills. This is really a gold bearing region, for one can find colors almost anywhere. We can get from twenty-five to two hundred colors to a pan on our claims here, but they are very line, and I doubt their being saved in sluice boxes. The beach claims contain plenty of gold, but it will require improved machinery to make them pay.
I have left my bird skins and everything except a single change of clothing on the "Penelope," as we all have done. But I am afraid my collection is liable to damage from rats or mould. There is no place on shore to put the stuff and no through vessels that I know of to ship it by. The "Penelope" left night before last to take a prospecting party thirty miles down the coast to examine some country there and then to visit the claims where Cox was left. Nine of us are left here, with Harry Reynolds as foreman. We are at present digging holes in various places to see if we can find the "pay streak." No success yet. The gold on the beach is not "wash" gold, but no doubt comes from the bluff which borders the beach about one hundred feet back from the surf. From this bluff the smooth tundra extends back some five miles to the hills. Anvil City is at the mouth of Snake River, which extends back through the hills and heads in the high mountain ranges which we can just see through the gap. Anvil Creek, Snow Gulch and Glacier Creek, the rich spots, are tributaries of Snake River. To the westward is Penny River, but this whole country, including thirty miles along the water front, is all staked out. The district is under military control, and twenty soldiers are stationed at Anvil City. Without them there might be trouble. It seems that the first men to this region, the so-called "discoverers," staked out as many as one hundred claims each under power of attorney. They then formed a mining district and passed a law that powers of attorney cannot hold, thus handicapping those who have come in since, so one man can take up but one claim. The other night a miners' meeting was called in town to consider the matter. A resolution he brought up which, if carried, would throw the whole district open to be restaked. The lieutenant was there and he knew that if this passed there would be serious trouble. He informed the meeting that if this resolution was brought up he would clear the house. After some deliberation the resolution was couched in a different form, disguising its intent, but the officer kept his word and ordered the house cleared. There was some hesitation and several toughs even looked resistance, but the order was given to fix bayonets. The meeting was thus broken up and nothing more has been done.
Main Street, Anvil City.
Main Street, Anvil City.
The original staking was doubtless unfair, but if the district were now reopened it would be worse. There is little lawlessness in Anvil City, on account of the militia. A good many claims have been jumped and some of them two or three times. This will give work to the lawyers. Several of our own claims have been jumped, but we are on them now and possession is nine points of the law.
July 30.—This is Sunday and a day of rest for us. We have worked pretty hard the past week. In fact this is the first mining the L. B. A. M. & T. Co. has done. Prospect holes have been dug in different parts of the claims. Uncle Jimmy and I were set to digginghole back on the tundra, and if anyone doubts the work is hard let him try it for himself. We worked three days and got to a depth of ten feet with no favorable results. The tundra is thawed barely through its covering of moss, seldom more than six inches. The rest of the way the frozen ground was as hard as rock and had to be chipped off bit by bit. The hole was about four by five feet, just room enough to wield a heavy pick. We broke the points off the pick every day. A strata of pure ice a foot thick was encountered, but most of the way we worked through a sort of frozen muck or packed mass of unrotted vegetation which, when it thaws, looks and smells like barnyard filth.
After the first day the walls began to melt and cave in little by little, so that each morning and noon we would have to bale out a foot or more of mud and water. It was about as dirty work as one can imagine. The fresh clods, as we picked them out of the bottom, were so cold that for a time frost formed on the outside just like a cold piece of iron brought into a warm room in winter. Although as cold as a refrigerator down in the pit, the perspiration poured off from us from the stifling air. Only one of us at a time could work in the hole, so we had half hour shifts. Uncle Jimmy and I. The man on the outside had to haul up the bucketfuls of dirt and water, but he otherwise rested. After our long yachting trip this work was especially hard. But such labor gives one a tremendous appetite. Jesse Farrar is cook now. Shafer has deserted the company. He has obtained a position in a restaurant uptown at $1.50 per month and expenses, with prospects of $200 next mouth. C. C. Reynolds, Dr. Coffin, Clyde, Baldwin and Colclough have left on the steamer "Albion" for home. Yes, for home! All have made satisfactory arrangements with the company. As to the rest of us who "stay by the ship," there are none but could better his condition by leaving the company. But we who have a good deal of money invested, hate to leave everything when affairs are looking better than ever before.
We are in a gold country here and none can tell what may turn up. I never saw a single color in the Kowak region, but here the sand is sprinkled with them, though not in paying quantities everywhere. I must admit that even I, who do not know what homesickness is, would like very well to be at home for a while. I am losing time now. No matter if I were shoveling gravel and digging holes, that isn't improving myself any, is it?
I am still intent upon Dutch Harbor as soon as the company leaves Alaska. I do not suppose I will ever return to Alaska again, and I think a few months among the Aleutians would be time well put in, in the natural history line.
By the way, "Uncle S.," the Quaker gold-hunter whom we had given up for lost last winter, came aboard the "Penelope" when we first anchored at Anvil City. He has bought a small steam launch and makes money ferrying people and their goods up and down the coast. The Snake River is not navigable except after heavy rains. I have also seen the "Flying Dutchman" here. He is gray. He had black hair and beard last fall. His forced journeyings over the frozen Arctic have left a witness to his hardships. The "Bear" came in last night from Kotzebue Sound, bringing eighty victims of scurvy. The sickness up there has been awful this spring and the death rate as high as ten per cent.
We hear of a great many disasters. There are but few who would spend another winter on the Kowak for a mint of gold, unless it be myself. To crown it all, we have news of a strike on the Kowak! "Nuggets as big as hickory nuts!" This story, when we are scarcely four hundred miles away from there! Somebody is starting another boom. This may start some more "fools" up there. But it will take something new to get any of us back. We have bit at "the hickory nut" once, and I do not think we shall again. We hear that the transportation companies are booming this country. It is overrun now and there is sure to be crowding. Wages are five to eight dollars a day back at the mines, but only a limited number of men can get employment at that. Expenses are high, and a man had better stick to $1.50 per day back in civilization than to come here and sleep on the damp ground in a tent without a fire and live on salt-horse and beans.
The hot weather is upon us at last and the last four days have been "sweaters." It is like an oven in the tent where I am writing. Dr. Coffin got us each a box of lemons and oranges on the "Alaska," just in, before he left. Jesse just brought in a big stew kettle full of ice-cold lemonade. Two bowls full just serve to make one want more. It tastes so good. We have had one mess of fresh potatoes and onions. We ate the latter raw with vinegar. It does a fellow good to be without such things a while, if not toolong. He knows better how to appreciate them.
And now I record a fact that ought to make every face blush that turns an upward glance at Old Glory. The United States has passed "a law," permitting; saloons in Cape Nome. The natives get all they want and are killing each other when drunk. The native girl who mends some of our shoes, came in drunk, and when sober she was asked where she obtained the liquor. She gave the name of the man. Our foreman told him that he would report him to the captain of our squad, and was offered $50 by the criminal to "keep mum."
Aug. 5.—It is nothing now but "work" from 7 a. m. to 6 p. m. After ten hours of it one is more ready to rest than to write. I do not get a minute to so much as look at a bird except Sunday, which we have voted to observe. And then there is plenty to till in every minute when one comes along, including mending and washing. But I can scarcely help seeing the birds that fly past along the beach just as if to taunt me. Bands of Pacific kittiwakes pass up and down the surf on the lookout for herrings, and an occasional glaucus, or rather the Port Barrow gull, comes sailing along. A pair of Arctic terns feeding their full-grown young, afford almost the only bird notes of any kind. The young have a pleading, and yet harshly strong, succession of calls, and hover along the beach ever ready for the fish caught in the surf by the parent birds. The precision with which the terns can drop on a tiny fish or crustacean in the boiling surf is remarkable. And yet they seem so light on the wing and rise from the water with so little apparent exertion. Long-tailed jagers are common, coursing back and forth over the tundra or poising against the wind with fluttering wings much like a sparrow-hawk. Their long, pointed, streamer-like, central tail feathers distinguish them at almost any distance from the other jagers. They feed on meadow mice and caterpillars mostly, but their habit of forcing gulls to disgorge is of frequent notice. As there are no mud flats or marshes here the waders are scarce. I saw a godwit, probably the Pacific, flying back toward the interior. Several golden plover, which I have no doubt are rearing their young, are always on the back part of our claims. Their melodious, warbling call reminds me strongly of the robin. These plover show decided preference for the dryest tundra and uplands, and at Cape Blossom I found them on the hillsides in the interior of the peninsula. One day last week while I was at work in a prospect hole back of the bluff, three turnstones lit in the mossy hummocks within a few yards of me. They were very tame and remained an hour or more near me, feeding on insects or their larvæ. I have never taken this species (the common turnstone), although I saw it at Cape Prince of Wales and Cape Blossom, and tried hard to get some specimens. I took several of the black turnstones in Sitka in 1896, and also in San Clemente Island last year. Black-throated loons are numerous and are constantly seen and heard overhead as they fly back and forth from the lakes on the tundra to their feeding grounds out at sea. This is the only loon I have seen here, although I saw the red-throated at Kotzebue. I kept special watch for the yellow-billed loon which is ascribed to this region, but have never identified it. The Eskimos make clothing of loon skins, and I have particularly examined such evidences, but have never found a scrap of yellow-billed loon skin. This species cannot therefore be very numerous. Land birds are very scarce here, probably on account of the awful barrenness of the region. I flushed one snowy owl back of camp one day, and the boys say they saw a hawk of some kind yesterday, I think from their description a gyrfalcon. I saw two juvenile Lapland longspurs yesterday feeding about the bluff, and also heard a yellow wagtail. I have noted a pair of juvenile redpolls several times along the bluff.
This, I think, comprises our avifauna up to date, and it will be seen that a collector would have rather "slim picking." They tell me that back in the hills where the ravines are lined with willow scrubs, birds are more numerous and that large flocks of juvenile ptarmigan are appearing. I would like to go back and see if this is true, but it is all "business" now. The financial prospects of our party are brightening every day. Our beach claims may become a paying proposition when properly developed. Eight or ten of us are working on one of them in a very crude fashion, using "rockers." and are taking out $50 to $60 per day. With improved machinery this would be a rich thing, but of course considerable capital would be required to start. I am "cleaner-up;" taking out the previous day's clean-up, which consists of several pans of mixed black sand and gold dust (the latter in smallest proportion), and panning it down so far as I canwithout losing any colors or fine flakes of the yellow. Then I mix in mercury thoroughly, which takes up all the dust, forming an amalgam, which is finally separated and retorted, leaving the buttons of pure gold. We are figuring on another proposition and may not continue at this much longer. We have prospected these claims enough to know their value, and this is enough for this year. There is a good deal of trouble about the strip of beach between high and low tide, some claiming it to be public reserve and open to be worked by anyone. Several "squatters" are working on our claims who refuse to get off, but the judge will settle this next week.