Chapter 25

LIGHTS AND SHADOWS OF THE MINING CAMP.

Again the boys are starting for the Koyuk River country. Although it is the twenty-eighth of January, and between twenty-five and thirty degrees below zero, nothing can deter Mr. L., who has made up his mind to go to the headwaters of the big river regardless of weather. L., B. and a native are to compose the party, and this time they are going with reindeer. They will take with them a tent, stove, fur sleeping bags, matches, "grub," guns and ammunition, not to mention fry pans and a few tins for cooking purposes. Then they must each take a change of wearing apparel in case of accident, and make the loads as light as possible. B. has made it a point to look well at his guns and cartridges, and has been for days cleaning, rubbing and polishing, while hunting knives have also received attention. The party may have, in some way, to depend upon these weapons for their lives before their return.

January twenty-ninth: Twenty-five degrees below zero, but without wind, and the boys have started off on their long trip up the Koyuk. The reindeer were fresh and lively, and when everything was loaded and lashed upon the three sleds, the animals were hitched to them, when, presto! the scene was changed in a moment. Each deer ran in several directions at the same time as if demented, overturning sleds and men, tossing up the snow like dust under their hoofs, and flinging their antlers about like implements of battle. Now each man was put to his wit's end to keep hold of the rope attached to the horns of the deer he was driving, and we who had gone out upon the ice to watch the departure feared greatly for the lives of the men interested.

At one time Mr. H., who was kindly assisting, was flung upon the ground, while a rearing, plunging animal was poised in mid-air above him; and I uttered a shriek of terror at the sight, thinking he would be instantly killed. However, he was upon his feet in an instant, and pursuing the animals, still clinging to the rope, as the deer must never, under any consideration, be allowed to get away with the loaded sleds.

When one of the boys attempted to sit upon a load, holding the rope as a guide in his hands, there would be a whisk, a whirl, and quicker than a flash over would go the load, sled and man, rolling over and over like a football on a college campus.

At this time the sun shone out brightly, tinting rosily the distant hills, and spreading a carpet of light under our feet upon the ice-covered surface of the bay. The clear, cold air we breathed was fairly exhilarating, sparkling like diamonds in the sun-beams, and causing the feathery snowflakes under our feet to crackle with a delightful crispness.

When the elasticity of the reindeer's spirits had been somewhat lessened by exercise, a real start was made, and we watched them until only small dots on the distant trail could be distinguished.

Something unpleasant has happened. M., the Finlander, told me this morning that he wants the room I occupy upstairs, and, of course, I will have to give it up. As the other rooms upstairs must be left for the men, of whom there are such numbers, there is no place for me except on the old wooden settle in the sitting room. To be sure, this is in a warm corner, but there are many and serious inconveniences, one being that I must of necessity be the last one to retire, and this is usually midnight.

For some time past I have been turning over in my mind the advisability of asking for the situation of nurse and teacher to Jennie and Charlie, and living in the hotel. Supplies are growing shorter in the Mission as the weeks go by, and my own are about exhausted, as is also my money. The children need me, and there is plenty of room in the hotel, though I am not fond of living in one.

I have consulted Mr. H., who sees no harm in my doing this if I want to. Meals are one dollar each everywhere in Chinik, and most kinds of "grub" one dollar a pound, while for a lodging the same is charged. To earn my board and room in the hotel by teaching and taking care of the two children I should be making an equivalent to four dollars a day, and I could have a room, at last, to myself. This is the way I have figured it out; whether Mollie and the Captain will see it in the same light remains to be seen.

Later: I ran over to see Mollie and her husband, and to present my plan to them. They both assented quickly, the Captain saying he does not want Jennie to stop her studies, and she is fond of having me with her. Besides, her mother wants to spend a good deal of time out hunting and trapping, as she thinks it better for Jennie, Charlie and herself to have fresh game, of which they are so fond, than to eat canned meats. I think it is better for them, and shall not object to some of the same fare myself when it is plenty. I am very glad, indeed, of the opportunity to earn my board and room in this way, for my work will only be with and for the two children, and I love them very much.

January thirtieth: A bad storm came up this afternoon with wind and snow. At the Mission one of the newcomers is making two strong reindeer sleds. He says he is used to Alaska winters, has been up into the Kotzebue Sound country, and is now going again with reindeer as soon as his sleds are finished. He is exceedingly fond of music, and enjoys my playing. I wonder if he will offer to stake a claim for me! I will not ask him.

January thirty-first: This terrible storm continues with snow drifting badly, and with wind most bitter cold. What about the boys on the Koyuk trail? I fear they will freeze to death. I have finished six drill parkies for the storekeeper, but cannot get them to him in the blizzard.

February first: I found when calling upon Jennie today that her mother was sick in bed with a very bad throat, so I spent most of the day and evening there. I did all I could for Jennie as well as Mollie, doing my best to amuse the child, who is still strapped down on her bed, and must find the day long, though she has a good deal of company. I had a first-class six o'clock dinner at the hotel tonight,--that is, for Alaska, at this season of the year.

February second: This is my birthday, and I have been thinking of my dear old mother so far away, who never forgets the date of her only daughter's birth, even if I do. I should like to see her, or, at least, have her know how well I am situated, and how contented I am, with a prospect before me which is as bright as that of most persons in this vicinity. If I could send my mother a telegram of a dozen words, I think they would read like this: "I am well and happy, with fair prospects. God is good." I think that would cheer her considerably.

It is beginning to seem a little like spring, and the water is running down the walls and off the windows in rivers upon the floors of the Mission, which we are glad are bare of carpets; the snow having sifted into the attic and melted. The warm rain comes down at intervals, and we are hoping for an early spring.

Mollie is really very sick, and must have a doctor, her throat being terribly swollen on one side. The pain and fever is intense, and though we are doing all we know how to do, she gets no better. Some men started out for the doctor at White Mountain, but there was too much water on the ice, and they returned.

February sixth: The man who made the two reindeer sleds for his Kotzebue trip has gone at last with two loads and three reindeer. He wanted his drill parkie hood bordered with fur, as I had done some belonging to others, and I furnished the fox tails, and sewed them on for him.

"Shall I stake a claim for you?" asked the man with a smile the day before he left the Mission.

"O, I would like it so much!" said I, really delighted. "I did not wish to ask you, because I thought you had promised so many."

"So I have," he replied, "but I guess I can stake for one more, and if I find anything good I will remember you."

"Shall I have a paper made out?" I inquired, feeling it would be safer and better from a business point of view to do so.

"You may if you like. I will take it," said he; and I thanked him very cordially, and hastened to the Commissioner to have the paper drawn up. It did not take long, and the man has taken it, and gone. Being an old mail carrier and stampeder of experience in this country, he ought to know how to travel, and, being a Norwegian, he is well used to the snow and the cold. He says he always travels alone, though I told him he might sometime get lost in a storm and freeze to death, at which he only laughed, and said he was not at all afraid. Two years afterwards he was frozen to death on the trail near Teller City, northwest of Nome. He was an expert on snowshoes or ski, both of which he learned to use when a boy in Norway.

February tenth: The two young men, B. and L., have returned from the Koyuk trip, having been able to travel only three days of the eleven since they left here on account of blizzards, but they will not give it up in this way.

Mollie and Jennie are better, the doctor having been here two days. For the little invalid there is nothing of such interest as Apuk's baby, and as the child is well wrapped and brought in often to see her, she is highly delighted. She holds the baby in her arms, and hushes it to sleep as any old woman might, lifting a warning finger if one enters the room with noise, for fear of waking it. Little Charlie cries with whooping cough a great deal and is taken to Ageetuk's house when he gets troublesome, as he worries both Mollie and Jennie. Under no consideration is Charlie to come near enough to Jennie to give her the whooping-cough, for she coughs badly already. She and I make paper dolls by the dozen, and cloth dresses for her real dolls, which, so late in the season, are getting quite dilapidated and look as though they had been in the wars.

Many natives are now bringing beautiful furs into camp for sale, and among others one man brought a cross fox which was black, tipped with yellow, another which was a lovely brown, and a black fox valued at two hundred dollars which the owner refused to sell for less, though offered one hundred for it. I have never seen more lovely furs anywhere, and I longed to possess them.

It seems almost like having a hospital here now, for we have another patient added to our sick list. Joe, the cook, is ill, and thinks he will die, though the doctor smiles quizzically as she doses him, thinking as she does so that a few days in bed and away from the saloons will be as beneficial as her prescriptions.

Today the hills surrounding the bay were lovely in the warm sunshine both morning and evening, pink tinted in the sunrise and purple as night approached.

Mail came in by dog-team from Nome, going to Dawson and the outside, so I mailed several letters. I wonder if they will be carried two thousand miles by dogs--the whole length of the Yukon, and finally reach Skagway and Seattle.

What a wicked world this is anyway! My two fox skins were stolen from the living room of the hotel last night, where I hung them, not far from the stove, after having had them tanned, and forgetting to take them to my room. I can get no trace of them, and am exceedingly sorry to lose them. The captain thinks the skins will be returned, but I do not.

The Commissioner from Council came into the hotel, and he, with the resident official, proceeded to celebrate the occasion by getting uproariously drunk, or going, as it is here called, "on a toot," which is very truthfully expressive, to say the least.

February eighteenth: The doctor went home several days ago. Mollie is better, and wore, at the Sunday dinner yesterday, her new grey plaid dress made by Alma, which fits well and looks quite stylish. I sat with her at the long table which was filled with guests, employees and boarders--a public place for me, which I do not like over much, but what can I do? The two Commissioners are sobered, look sickly, and more or less repentant; the resident official declaring to me he would now quit drinking entirely, and buy me a new silk dress if he is ever seen to take liquor again.

I had nothing to say to him, except to look disgusted, and he took that as a rebuke. The other Commissioner was exceedingly polite to me when he came into the living room to bid all good-bye, and said if, at any time, there was anything in the way of business transactions he could do for me, to let him know; he would be delighted--as if I would ever ask any favor of him!

The weather is blustery, like March in Wisconsin. Mollie asked me to go upstairs with her, look at rooms, and select one for myself, which I did, deciding to take a small unfurnished one (except for a spring cot, mirror, and granite wash bowl and pitcher), as this will be easily warmed by my big lamp, and it has a west window, through which I will get the afternoon sun.

I cleaned the floor, and tacked up a white tablecloth which I had in my trunk, for a curtain; spread my one deer skin rug upon the floor, made up the cot bed with my blankets, opened my trunk, hung up a few garments, and was settled. This is the first spring bed I have slept upon since Mr. H. took the velvet couch away from the Mission. I found the boarded walls very damp, as was also the floor after cleaning, but my large lamp, kept burning for two hours, dried them sufficiently, and I am quite well satisfied.

Ageetuk has been papering the sewing-room with fresh wall paper, and it looks better, but it has made a good deal of confusion all round, and there are numbers of people, both native and white, coming and going all day long.

February twenty-third: Yesterday was Washington's Birthday, but quiet here. Today Mollie and I took Jennie and Charlie out on a sled with Muky to push behind at the handle-bar through the soft, deep snow. Mollie sat upon the sled, and rode down hill twice with the children, Muky hopping on behind; but I took a few kodak views of them, which I hope will be good. I also received some mail from the outside which was written last November.

Some of the men in the hotel have tried to play what they call "a joke" on me. The steward of the house has a key which unfastens the lock on my door, as well as others; so they went into my room and tied a string to the foot of my bed, first boring a hole through the boards into the hall, and running the string through it. This string, I suppose, they intended to pull in the night and frighten me; but Mollie and I happened to go up there for something and found it.

I was indignant, but everybody of whom Mollie inquired denied knowing anything of it, and I said very little. Going to my trunk afterwards, I found that the lock had been picked and broken,--a pretty severe "joke," and one I do not relish, as now I have no place in which to keep anything from these men. If they enter my room whenever they choose in the daytime, what is to prevent them when I am asleep? I took Mollie upstairs and showed her the broken lock, and she stooped to brush some white hairs from her dark wool skirt.

"Where they come from?" she asked suddenly. Then, picking at the reindeer skin upon the floor under her feet, she said, nodding her head decidedly, "I know. He--Sim--come to me in sewing-room,--hair all same this on two knees of blank pants. I say, 'Where you get white reindeer hair on you, Sim?' He say, 'I don't know.' Sim make hole in wall, and string on bed for you, Mrs. Sullivan. He make lock peeluk, too," and Mollie's face wore a serious and worried expression.

"O, well, Mollie," said I, "don't worry. I shall say nothing to any of the men as they are mad at me now."

Mollie nodded significantly and said: "Your fox skins peeluk, Mrs. Sullivan. Sim knows where--he never tell--sell for whiskey, maybe," and Mollie turned to go, as though he were a hopeless case, and beyond her government.

"Yes, Mollie, I think so; but you can not help what these bad men do. I know that, and do not blame you."

"My husband very sorry 'bout fox skins. He cannot find--he no blame," and she seemed to fear that I would attach some blame to the captain.

"No, indeed, Mollie, I don't think your husband can help what they do. I should not have left my fox skins hanging in that room, and will be careful in future, but if they come into my room they may steal other things, and I do not like it."

"I know, I know,--Sim no good--Joe no good--Bub no good," and she went away in a very depressed state of mind to Jennie and Apuk's baby.

Of course Mollie told all to the captain, who immediately accused the men in the bar-room, and they all swore vengeance upon me from that on, so I suppose they will do all they can to torment me.

We are having a sensation in Chinik. The "bloomin' Commissioner" is about to be deposed from office, for unfitness, neglect of duty, and dissipation; and a petition is being handed around the camp by the Marshal, praying the Nome authorities that he be retained. The honest storekeeper refused to sign it, as have many of the Swedes. The Commissioner swears by all that is good and great to quit drinking, and be decent. Time will tell--but I have no faith in him.

Mollie goes often these days to look for foxes and to shoot ptarmigan, taking with her a dog-team, and a native boy or two with their guns. When it is bright and sunny, I take the two little children out in the fur robes on the sled, with a native to push the latter, and I enjoy the outing fully as well as they. Jennie is put to bed again on her return, and the weight--a sand bag--attached to her foot, according to the doctor's orders.

The weather is very springlike, and we have wind "emeliktuk," as little Charlie says when he has a plenty of anything. Snow storms are sandwiched nicely in between, but many "mushers" are on the trails. Mollie gets now and then a fox, either white or crossed, and one day she brought in a black one.

Liquor is doing its fiendish work in camp each hour of the twenty-four. Some are going rapidly down the broad road to destruction; a few turn their backs upon it, and seek the straighter way. Some half dozen of the men headed by Sim and Bub are drinking heavily most of the time, gambling between spells for the money with which to buy the poison.

Very late one night a party of drunken men pounded with their fists upon my door.

"She's in--hic--there, boys," said one of the men in a halting way customary with tipplers.

"Bust in the door!" blurted another.

"Drive her out'n here, Bub, ye fool!" yawned another, almost too sleepy for utterance.

In the meantime I lay perfectly still. Not a sound escaped me, for although my heart beat like a sledge hammer, and I was trembling all over, I knew it was best not to speak. After a little more parleying they all went off to finish their "spree" elsewhere. Next day I reported the affair to the captain, who, with his wife, in their ground floor apartments in the farther end of the building, had not heard the noise of the night before. Of course the men were now furious, denying everything, calling me a "liar," ad infinitum.

A fine-looking young man, a dentist and doctor, claiming to come from an eastern city, while sitting at the table last evening, after much insane gibberish, fell back intoxicated upon the floor, and lay insensible for some time. He was finally, when the others had finished eating, dragged off to bed in a most inglorious condition, to suffer later for his dissipation. O, how my heart ached for his dear old mother so far away! If she had seen him as I saw him, I think she would have died. It is better for her to believe him dead than to know the truth.