The Nome nugget., 1903-11-14

is one long business day from May til
 September, with excellent sleeping
 weather the rest of the year. This
 Nome of ours is certainly the ancient
 capitol! We have the aggregated
 beauty and chivalry of the Seward
 peninsula here in the winter socia
 season. The blushing candled maider
 is here from Candle City of the north,
 as is also her chaperOn the more mature
 dame from Teller who is always telling,
 also here gather the solemn belles from
 Solomon, named after him of riches of
 old; these, all of them are here with
 their parkas and laundry. Say, Dick, you'd have your name stricken purpose ly from the passenger list Of any steamer in port for winter of this. There is more poker played in Nome to the square circle than anywhere else on earth except Kentucky. Any night or day in the week the devotes of the national game can find his limit by very slight inquiry among his acquaintances, and sit in either a saloon or mansion for the same stakes; or if the devotee is of a changeable nature he can drop into a good solo game for any old thing chip any time he wants to, most any where. Say, Dick, old fellow, have you ever forsaken home, relatives and kindred for that festive solo game? know you haven't, poor fellow, for you live too far east. You've hunted geese in Kansas wheat fields, Dick? You re- member tho gander-the long-necked rubber who was always on watch to give the honk at the slightest alarm? Well you can go to any cigar store in Nome and right now l2 am. or l2 pm, find fellow rubbering uneasily, clink ing chips near the counter with a con- tinued glance behind. Dick, he's the gander. All you have to do is to walk right by him to the rear wheat field Sid, Lloyd, Binns, etc, etc., ct al. ct vir, at half-a-dozen little tables, with three or four fellows at table. You fall into a chair and the gander brings you the necessary tools eleven little blue, red or yellow chips, and ten little white ones. Immediately you forget left dear little wife in a cozy cottage immolating her life for your ragged presence: you forget all this as com pletely as though unconscious and go after the first "widow that comes along with no other excuse than a frog" By and by the domestic candle snuffs out and your neighbor lends a helping hand and comes for a rescue and arouses you from your stupor. You yawn and look at your watch and are unable to tell whether it is 5.3O am. or pm. If solo was played in South Da kota like it is played here the whole population would be divorced in three months.
 Say, Dick, have you ever tried min ing life? No? Well, l knew you hadn't. You can talk about the guy that delves two thousand feet beneath the surface of the earth, or climbs the distant cliff into the heavens for the precious metal. He's kindergarten in the business compared with one of our blizzard, wind-cured, winter-dump miners. l met one the other day fresh from his glacier. I asked him why he stuck to mining so long when he had been un successful in the summer seasons, and he said: "Pard, I've been at the biz three winters and kinder like the job. Once in while l get cold feet-'speci- ally when 1 work on top of the shaft all day when the wind blows 60 below zero overhead where the trees ought ter be, an then have to quit once a day to eat some frozen meat and bread and to thaw out some coffee for lunch-but say young man I am going to stay with the gold hunting biz here till l throw five sixes." And he will, too, God bless him.
 Say, Dick, how would you like to make human horse of yourself and strap three months provender and a cOnplete camp equipment on your manly frame and with muckluked legs and feet stalk out thirty or forty miles on storm-swept, blizzard-beaten, un- used trail? You pass? So do l, Dick, but these stalwart mushers are the builders of this far-north Arctic world. They have the Crusaders, Puritans and Pilgrims of old done lap and day. For my part like tireside too well to go a-hunting gold under twenty-foot drifts.
 Until again, goodbye, Dick I'm now