by the
girls until severe cold forces them into the native boots of reindeer
skin.

In her rooms at the hotel Mollie sits with Alice each day on the fur
rugs, cutting, sewing and beading moccasins and moosehide gloves. A
regular workshop it is. Boxes of thread, beads, scraps of fur, whole
otter skins, paper patterns, shears, bits of hair and fur scattered upon
the floor, and the walls covered with hanging fur garments; this is the
sewing-room of the captain's wife as it is now each day when I go there.
The room contains two large windows, one on the north side and one on
the west, at which hang calico curtains tied back with blue ribbons in
daytime. These women work very rapidly, with the thimble upon the first
finger and by pushing the three-cornered skin needle deftly through
skins they are sewing. The thread they use for this work is made by them
from the sinews of reindeer, and takes hours of patient picking and
rolling between fingers and palms to get spliced and properly twisted,
but when finished is very strong and lasting. Their sewing and bead work
is quite pretty and unique, and is done with exceeding neatness and
care, though not much attention is bestowed upon colors.

Friday, December seventh, has been a busy day all round. L. and B.
started off early after breakfast on a prospecting trip, and the girls
kept at their sewing. Mr. H. came from the Home to get the sewing
machine and some lumber, and was packing up nearly all day, so that we
are still quite unsettled, but it is much pleasanter for him to come to
a warm house and where he gets hot meals after his twelve miles over the
ice with the deer or dogs.

He left here at four in the afternoon and had been gone only an hour
when Mr. F. and another man came from Nome, on the way to the Koyuk.
Getting well warmed and eating a hearty supper, which was much enjoyed
after some days on the trail, they started with two reindeer and as many
sleds for the Home, which is on the way to Koyuk. Another hour passed
and two women and their guide from White Mountain came in, these
belonging to the same party as the last men going to the Koyuk, and
these three had to remain over night as it was too late to push on
further. The men brought their fur robes and blankets from their sleds,
threw them into the bunks in the west room, and called it a good lodging
place compared to the cramped and disorderly roadhouses upon the trails.

December eighth: We had a fire fright th