arracks, then
farther east, where a rough stretch of ground lay unused. Here could be
seen policemen and soldiers, evidently in the midst of some performance
not on their daily routine.

A number of prisoners wearing the regulation garb of
convicts,--pantaloons of heavy mackinaw, one leg of yellow and the other
of black,--were carrying long, rough boxes, while others were digging
shallow graves.

Upon inquiry I found that what the miner had said was true. Three
prisoners, two of them Indian murderers, with another man notoriously
bad, had indeed been hung about eight o'clock that morning in the
barracks courtyard. In less than two hours afterward they were interred,
and in as many days they were forgotten.

By the middle of July, 1899, the steamers leaving Dawson on their way
down the Yukon to St. Michael and the new gold fields at Nome, were well
filled with those who were anxious to try their luck in Uncle Sam's
territory where they can breathe, dig, fish, hunt, or die without buying
a license.

By August the steamers coming from St. Michael brought such glowing
accounts of the Nome gold fields, that while few people came in, they
carried as many out as they could accommodate.

By September the rush down the Yukon was tremendous, and of the twelve
thousand people in Dawson many hundreds left for Nome.

When, after six weeks spent in curiously studying conditions and
things,--not to say people,--in the great mining camp, it was decided
that I should accompany my brother down the Yukon to Cape Nome, and so
"out" home to San Francisco, I felt a very distinct sense of
disappointment. The novelty of everything, the excitement which came
each day in some form or other, was as agreeable as the beautiful summer
weather with the long, quiet evenings only settling into darkness at
midnight.

In September came the frosts. Men living in tents moved their little
Yukon stoves inside, and brought fresh sawdust and shavings from the
mills for their beds. Others packed their few possessions into small
boats, hauled down their tents, whistled to their dogs, and rolling up
their sleeves, pulled laboriously up the swift little Klondyke to their
winter "lays" in the mines.

Hundreds were also leaving for the outside. Steamers, both large and
small, going to White Horse and Bennett, carried those who had
joyfully packed their bags and smilingly said good-bye; for they were
going home to the "States." How we strained our eyes fro