en
I saw "Little Casino" standing by the bar and drinking her whisky
straight. Then I felt sure that the dear ones at home would have been
sorrowfully, painfully astonished thus to see their little one, whom,
perhaps, they fondly imagined softening and delighting with song and
merriment the rugged natures of the rough miners.

It would have been asking too much of Alaskan weather to be allowed to
journey on as far as Nome without some setback. This was soon apparent
when a storm of wind and rain came up which held me at Chenik for three
long and dismal days. It blew as it can blow only in Alaska. The wind
literally drove nearly all the water out of the shallow bay, so that one
morning the unusual sight of a beach and bar extending almost across to
the other side presented itself. I very vividly recall one evening at
that forlorn place, when the renowned Dexter himself and a crowd of
satellites and bar-room loafers were gathered about the table playing a
game of "freeze-out" poker. Business was slack, and the urbane
bartender, whom the favored addressed as "Eddie," and who, arrayed in a
pink-and-white sweater, was wont to flourish behind the bar, admiring
himself in the glass and brushing his slick hair between drinks, was one
of the select party. It was a terrible night outside. The men, now and
then during a pause, would voluntarily remark, or interrogate one
another, as to where they'd like to be,--in what city, restaurant, or
theater,--or (one fellow in particular, and for my special benefit)
would predict that the storm was likely to continue for a week or more.
The howl of the wind, which the Malemute dogs tried to rival, suddenly
found another competitor, which, dirge-like, a whooping sort of wail,
accompanied by the moans and groans of a pedal organ in agony, was
traced to the story above. It was the "operetta" in action--perhaps
thinking of home. At any rate, she felt badly; and the crowd showed its
sympathy by a raising of voices and yowling like the dogs outside, and
wondering what she had eaten for dinner to cause such evidences of pain
and suffering.

On the _Elmore_, which still had a monopoly of the traffic, I reached
Nome at last, and repaired to the Golden Gate Hotel, which, razed to the
ground by fire during the winter, had risen phoenix-like from the
ashes, a credit in structure and appointment to almost any community.
With its boarded streets, excellent water-supply, cold-storage plants,
fire-engine