The Providence news. (Providence [R.I.]) 1891-1906, 1900-08-06

my camp outfit. The mercury was about
above zero that September day. and the
wind blew so hard that had TO pile froz-
en- clods of earth about the tent sides TO
| keep il from blowing over.
'"Then we began our search for gold
placer mines. We separated and went
wandering through the gulches and along
the frozen creeks that empty into the
Snake and Nome rivers Aour TO seven
miles back from the seacoast.
1T takes a better talker than / am to
tell really what painful, battling difficult
ties we pioneers I'm that virgin gold field
had TO combat while we sought locations
along the creek benches. where the rich
est gravel might be washed for It's golden
particles Imagine the hardships OF one
who pans for gold In the sides of creek
of half-frozen water. amid bowling
piercing gale when the mercury Is below
the freezing point.
Fancy how much one endures who
tramps day after day through snow,
breaks away ice to pan the gravel be-
meath for gold. and then goes to a tent
home at night To cook a meal OF stale
bacon or salt pork over a smoky bonfire.
1T is a wonder that we pioneers at
Cape Nome lived through all our priva-
tions and hardships. Every one of us did
more during those first few weeks at Cape
Nome to coax our deaths by rheumatism,
scurvy, pneumonia. and stomach diseases
than most men do in the course of long
warfare.
"On oct. T. 1895. after had panned hun
dreds OF times for gold in several dozen
localities. found beneath thin crust OF
ice on Anvil Creek gravel that yielded
labout five pennyweights OF gold-worth
about A.15-to each pan. That was the
richest / had found. l was half a rifle
( m any other human being, and ! had
a clear right there.
II was wildly excited, and, forgetting
all about the pain and hard work. made
several dozen trial paintings for gold I'm
that locality. Ii was wonderfully rich
everywhere. i dug down three feet in the
ice and thawed the gravel over a bonfire
that l kindled at the rear of the creek.
II got half an ounce of gold-worth sS--
in two pans of gravel.
DREARINESS OF ARCTIC WINTER.
1.-THE man on the Bertha who had grub
staked me had to be remembered, ac-
cording to the laws of gold miners. He
had started me up the ladder Of fortune,
and i located claim for him that he
sold for $1,000 last summer. when he
might have held on and got twice that
sum. When the claims were properly
staked out the winter came on in dead
earnest One day l. worked out on the
claim amid bowling gale of ice and
snow, while the temperature must have
been fully 40 below zero.
I'VE all had abandoned gold washing
for the winter and settled down to exist
five months. or until warmer weather
would return. that in the annual thaw we
might prosecute placer mining.
%, the dreariness. melancholy and
privations of that first winter on the arc
tic Cape Nome! We simply existed more
like animals than human beings For
a a.Fc Of ,tsr n
I'VE ate half cooked food for weeks at
time, and we became so Drowned by
the smoke from the floors of our tents
that We looked like the Eskmos about us,
and were smoketanned like hams We
kept track OF the days by marking them
off calendar. We exercised our every
faculty and invention to devise schemes
to keep our minds awake.
For days the temperature ranged from
40 to even so below zero.
II never took off my fur suit during
December, and lay in bed to keep warm
during much of that month. Frosted
ears and cheeks were common i'm our
party, and l used to dream that my feet
were frozen and my companions were
about TO hack them off to save my life
THE sun for ten weeks in midwinter
was TO be seen only about three hours
out OF every twenty-four. Even then II
was hazy, bleary round ball. hung In
the deep blue sky. 1t seemed as IL we
never could endure life until warmer
weather came, and we might be released
from our tent prisons among the snow
and ice.
II believe that we would have given up
but for the knowledge that we had loca-
ted claims upon the richest placer dirt
ever known, and that at last smiling for
tune had opened the door to each of us
poor cusses. We began mining on April
2G and by May 2. 1899. we were getting
our gold dust and nuggets I'm quantities
every day. The news OF the gold fields al
Cape Nome had been carried all over
Alaska during the winter months.
when spring came there was a rush
OF gold-hungry men to Cape Nome. over
1000 arrived there In June alone, and
some 5000 arrived at Nome last summer
IL was one short season of wild excite
ment from the time of the first thaw iast
year until tho whole country was hs III
in the arms OF the snow and ice king"