Every dog was taken,
many went without dogs, and even the women and children and weaklings
hit the three hundred miles of ice through the long Arctic night for
the biggest thing in the world. It is related that but twenty
people, mostly cripples and unable to travel, were left in Circle
City when the smoke of the last sled disappeared up the Yukon.
Since that time gold has been discovered in all manner of places,
under the grass roots of the hill-side benches, in the bottom of
Monte Cristo Island, and in the sands of the sea at Nome. And now
the gold hunter who knows his business shuns the "favourable looking"
spots, confident in his hard-won knowledge that he will find the most
gold in the least likely place. This is sometimes adduced to support
the theory that the gold hunters, rather than the explorers, are the
men who will ultimately win to the Pole. Who knows? It is in their
blood, and they are capable of it.
PIEDMONT, CALIFORNIA.
February 1902.
FOMA GORDYEEFF
"What, without asking, hither hurried WHENCE?
And, without asking, WHITHER hurried hence!
Oh, many a Cup of this forbidden Wine
Must drown the memory of that insolence!"
"Foma Gordyeeff" is a big book--not only is the breadth of Russia in
it, but the expanse of life.
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