The Lamar register., 1922-01-11

of the volcano and sloped sharply
down to the sea Twenty-one men, a
lad and a woman, they went at the
despoiling of 1t with sort of obses-
sion, led, rather than driven, by Lund,
who worked among the rest of them
like Hercules.
The mems fancy estimate of mil
lion dollars began speedily to seem
small as the work progressed, system
atically stripping the rocky floor of all
its shingle, foot by foot, and cubic
yard by cubic yard, crndling it In
crude rockers, fluming 1t, vaporlzing
the amalgam of gold and mercury.
and adding pound after pound of
virgin gold to the sacks in the schoon-
er's strong room
They worked at first In alternating
shifts of four hours, by day and night.
under the sun, the moon. the stars and
the flaming AURORA. The crust was
drifted here AMI there where ii had
frozen into conglomerate, and explod-
ed by dynamite, carefully placed so as
not to dislodge the misses of ice that
overhung the schooner Fires to
thaw out the ground were unavailable
for sheer lack o. fuel; there was no
driftwood between these forestless
shores. What fuel could be spared
was conserved for use under the boil
ers that melted lce to provide water
for the cradles and fumes, and help
to cook the meals that Tamada pre-
pared out-of-doors for the workers.
Buckets of coffee. stews. and thick
soups of peas and lentils, masses Of
beans with plenty of fat pork. these
were what they craved after hours of
tremendous endeavor Despite ths
cold. they sweated profusely at their
tasks stripping of over-garments as
they picked and shoveled or crow
barred out the rich gravel.
Through all of 1t Lund was supreme
as working superintendent. There was
no job that he could not, did not, handle
better than any two of them, and
though Rniney could see a shrinkage,
or compression. of his bulk, as day
by day he called upon il for heroic
service, he never seemed to tire. "Got
to keep 'em AT it," he would say in the
cabin. mo time TO lose. an the odds
Luck. That's what we got to count
on. but we don't want them thinkin'
that. If the weather don't break-an'
break jest right-as soon as we've
cleaned up, we're stung. Though I'll
blast way out of this shore ice, II
1t comes To the worst. / saved out
sOlne dynamite ON purpose"
With Lund handling all of the
men as a unit. II was not long before
the shovcIs began to scrape on the
bare rock that underlay the gravel at
tide edge, and work swiftly back to
the end of the U. The outdoors
kitchen had been established on top of
the promontory between the schooner
and the beach. primitive arrange
ment of big pots slung from tripods
over fires kindled ON fiat area that
was partly sheltered from the sea and
the prevailing winds by outcrops of
weathered lava.
At dawn the men trooped from the
schooner to be fed and warmed and
then they flung themselves at their
task. The more they got out the
more there was in it for them. But
and they knew it. Only Deming
worked with one hand the handle of
the force bellows, or fed the fires, and
sneered.
On the fifteenth day, with the work
better than half done, with more than
a ton of actual gold in colors, that
ranged from flour dust to nuggets. In
the strongroom, the weather began to
change. 1t misted continually and
Lund. rejoicing, prophesied the break
ing up of the cold snap.
By the eighteenth day a regular
Chinook was blowing, melting the
sharper outlines of the icy crags and
pinnacles, and providing streams Of
moisture that in the nights now grad
ually growing longer, glazed every yard
of rock with peril.
The men worked in muck with
their rubber sea-boots worn out by
constant chatting, sweaters torn, the
blades of their shovels reduced by the
work demanded of them. the drills
shortened by steady sharpening, gone
like the spare flesh of the laborers,
who, at last began to show signs of