The Savannah morning news., 1901-01-06

There was no wood but willow bushes as
big around as ones thumb. They pros
pected on the creek, and then they went
back to Checkers Town-as the settle
ment at the mouth of the Kougarok was
called. OF the fifteen hundred people who
had been there short while before, only
about sixty were left. In a few days
more, one of the miners told me, there
would have been none left. They recorded
their claims, each one thousand feet long,
and named the creek Garfield Creek"
They took back what provisions they could
carry over the seventeen miles of tundra
and sluce-boX lumber. Sluice-boxes are
generally only set up when there is more
gold than a rocker can handle. Everybody
at Checkers Town also went uD and
siaked the rest of the creek. They are
now glad they happened to be there.
Among them there was a woman, who
ran an eating house at Checkers Town.
I saw her a month later with hands
covered with diamonds bought in Nome.
Not half of those who made the strike
knew anything of mining. Four of them
were a party who had started to work
upon the beach. They had chosen what
seemed the best spot they could find.
When they got down to bedrock, so one
of them told me- they found an old min
ing pan and a broken shovel. That dis
gusted them: Nome was fraud. But,
having some provisions felt, they resolv-
ed, before returning home, that they
would try to reach some place where no
one had been before them. Consequently,
they kept going when the crowd of STAN
peders were returning and advising every
one else 20 do the same. They own four
of the richest claims on Garfield Creek.
Port Clarence After the Stampede.
r .o,ohod port -Iarapce on Sentember
Is, q couple of weeks after the stampede
was on from Nome. Three or four small
steamers were making regular trips,
carrying passengers and loaded with sup
plies, store outfits, saloon and gambling
fixtures-a sure sign that the strike was
genuine A town had been started on
Grantley Harbor, containing over two
hundred tents, a dozen saloons and stores,
and the usual restaurants and bunk
houses. 1t bears the name of Teller city
The late stragglers were coming IN from
Camp Kougarok, verifying the news that
on Garfield and Quartz creeks very rich
strikes had been made. They were the
most wretched-looking lot of men l ever
saw-unwasbed, unshaven, hair uncut,
covered with verm.n, clothes dirty and
ragged, toes out of shoes, soles worn
though: 1 thought how few of those who
might some day hear of the fortunes
made by this or that man would be will
ing to face the hardships the whole APP
pearance of. these men plainly showed
them to have endured. In the short space
of time that elapsed before the food
washed their works away four or five
claims on Garfield Creek which l posi-
tfvely know of, turned out four, six and
even twelve thousand dollars. Remember
this: they but scratched their ground.
From the surface down they had found
rich prospects, and ones as high as forty
dollars to the pan. Two claims-Nos.
and T. below Blowtcher's Discoyery-had
been staked for man at Nome; and that
man-with fifteen years mining expert
ence in Alaska, but accepting the general
belief that Nome was ''ro good"-had
sold the claim. and one next 20 IL. for
one hundred dollars each. The men who
did the locating not having compiled with
the local regulations about recording the
claims were jumped. No has taken out
four thousand dollars.
while these things were happening on