394 CONQUERING THE ARCTIC ICE 



We had gone up the river, with high timber on both sides ; we 

 had crossed portages and run down steep hills ; we had passed 

 native houses as fast as the dogs could run ; we had flown across 

 lakes fringed with beautiful, graceful birch trees, and over 

 Tundra, where the trail, like a long white streak, disappeared 

 in the far horizon. And towards night, when nearing the 

 " Old Woman," we had come into timberland again, where the 

 trail was like a ditch, with high banks on either side. The 

 weather was splendid, clear, and only a light wind rocked the 

 tops of the trees gently to and fro, shaking off the snow from 

 the ice-covered branches which gleamed and glittered in the 

 fading sunlight. 



The telegraph station at the " Old Woman " was a pleasant 

 place, large and clean, with the " ticker " sounding to me like 

 the voice of an old friend through which I could communicate 

 with people thousands of miles away, in pleasant places where 

 I myself longed to be. 



It is strange to hear the ticker incessantly at work, sending in 

 news to the papers of Nome or telling of business transacted 

 through its medium, and that in a country which until a few 

 years ago was unexplored and practically unknown, where 

 previously people would never have dreamt of living. 



My thoughts went back to the days when the gold was found, 

 when thousands of men of all sorts and conditions flocked 

 into the region of the gold-diggings. Towns sprang up round 

 them, large stores were opened, the noise from saloons and 

 dancing-halls broke the silence which from the beginning of all 

 things reigned supreme over the vast stretches of Alaska. 

 Business throve, and soon the slow dog sledges were no longer 

 the fitting bearers of news ; the pioneers, who had conquered 

 the country with pick and shovel, clamoured for something 

 better. Then troops were sent from the Straits to cut a trail 

 through the country, telegraph poles were erected along it, 

 wires were stretched between these all the way from the Pacific 

 to Nome, cabins were built with only twenty miles between 

 them, and stations with forty miles, and one day a message 

 flashed from one end of the country to another. 



And all this for the yellow metal found on the beach of Nome, 

 along the rivers or on the bedrock ; the yellow metal which 

 drives men mad, for which crimes are committed, homes laid 



