king
woman with a pleased expectant countenance, short dress, huge basket on
right arm. The man beside her holding his broad brimmed miner's hat in
his hands, his unused gold pan, pick and shovel, at his feet. For a
background a tent, a bit of the river, and bridge.

In the "After" picture the scene was changed. Dejection was depicted on
both faces. Their clothing was soiled and their implements had seen
usage, but were now flung upon the ground in disorder.

"A friend took these snap-shots of us," she explained, returning the
photos to their places, "and Leroy likes to preserve them 'just for fun'
he says.

"To go back to my story, we made our way along as best we could by
inquiring (for Leroy had been obliged to go to the creeks to attend to
some work in progress; so could not go with us; in fact, he did not know
of our intention of sallying out upon the tundra), and finally arrived
at the cemetery. We spent little time in looking at the few rude
head-boards and scattered mounds of those quiet sleepers by the sea, but
bestowed more attention upon the beach-miners on our left. Here, at the
edge of the water, and even standing in the surf, were many men at work,
beach-mining with Long-Toms' or other contrivances, and all wore
high-topped rubber boots.

"Looking about for the claim in which we were so much interested, we
finally found the corner stakes, and the St. Charles cream can in which
the location notice had been placed by Leroy a few months before.

"Then Pa wanted me to read the paper to him, which I did, after seating
myself on a big hummock of tundra and properly adjusting my spectacles.

"The paper ran thus: 'We, the undersigned citizens of the United States,
have discovered placer gold in the ground hereinafter described, and
hereby claim for placer-mining purposes twenty acres on the tundra west
of Nome and 100 feet north of the cemetery.' Then followed the distance
between stakes, the name of the witness, our own names, and that of
Leroy as our agent, the date of the location, etc.

"By this time Mr. Morrison was hungry. So after replacing the location
notice on the initial stake under the old cream can, just as we found
it, we lunched heartily on ham sandwiches, doughnuts, pie and cheese. A
quart bottle of coffee had added much to the weight of the basket on the
way.

"We now turned our attention to the tundra. Of what was it composed? How
deep was it? Was it easily handled? Would it burn? Was it