After covering more than a hundred miles eastward, they found themselves in the midst of seventy or eighty other prospectors, and turned back to a spot on the map labeled Cape Nome, which would always be a curious place. There was a Cape Nome, and a Nome River, far apart and in no way connected. Later there would be a Nome City, miles removed from either of the first Nomes. When Skjellerup's team reached the cape, there was of course no town in the vicinity, only a handful of tents, but here they camped, finding nothing. Edging gingerly to the west, they returned to Nome River and again found only disappointment. At this point Arkikov, who fancied himself the expert miner in the trio, insisted that they hurry back to Council City and establish a claim, good or bad, but Skjellerup dissuaded him, and without much hope they and their reindeer wandered on to where the Snake River entered the sea.
It was probably the animals that accounted for the good fortune which was about to overtake them, because on a day in late September three agitated Swedish immigrants, who knew even less about mining than they, came in whispers to consult with Skjellerup in broken English: 'You Norwegian? Like they say?' When he replied in good Swedish that he was the man who had made the rescue run to Barrow, they sighed with deep relief and asked: 'Can you keep a secret?'
'Always have.'
'Are you willing to help us? If we count you in?'
'What's happening?'
Peering about to be sure no one from the tents along the shore was looking, the leader of the Swedes produced in the palm of his left hand a spent cartridge, and when he removed the protective wrapper and tilted the cartridge, a flow of golden dust and small pellets rolled out into the palm of his hand.
'Is that gold?' Skjellerup asked, and the three Swedes nodded.
'Where from?'
'Sssshhhh! We found a creek. It runs with gold. It's unbelievable, really.'
'Why do you tell me?'
'We need your help.'
'To do what?'
Again the Swedes looked about: 'We found the creek, but we don't know what to do next.'
It was fortunate that they had come to Skjellerup, for he was the kind of man who knew a little about everything, but not the kind who was arrogant about any of it.
He knew, and that was enough.
'I think that within a certain time you have to hold a public meeting, because others have a right to know. Give them a chance to stake their claims. And you have to stake your discovery claim with great accuracy. Then you file some papers. And if you fail in any one of these, you lose everything.'
'That's what we feared.'
'Who else knows?'
'Nobody, but men have been sneaking around up there. Soon everyone will know.'
Lars Skjellerup was one of the ablest men on the gold fields that year, and now he proved it: 'I'll help, but I want the right to stake my claim, and tonight.'
'That's what we intended,' the Swedes said with an honesty that could not be questioned, except that Skjellerup did question it, thinking: That's what they say now, since I've asked. Wonder what they'd have said if I hadn't?
'And for my two partners. We're a team, you know.'
'Your name again? Skjellerup? Somebody warned us we can claim only one site each, two for me because I found it. The other claims have to go to somebody. Might as well be to you and your partners.'
One of the Swedes asked: 'And who are those partners?"When Skjellerup introduced the Lapp and the Siberian, the other Swedes muttered: 'Could be trouble. We're all foreigners.' It turned out that the leader and one other Swede were naturalized, but that did leave four foreigners among the first six claimants.
'I think the law is clear,' Skjellerup assured them. 'Anyone in good standing can file a claim. We'll soon find out.'
After a few casual inquiries, they learned that a mining district could be declared in a public meeting if six miners were present and if knowledge of the strike was circulated, but none of these six knew the precise procedures and especially not the intricacies of filing a claim.
'We must trust one other person,' Skjellerup said. 'You choose.'
By the great good luck that sometimes watches over Swedes and other sensible people, the leader chose an older mining man, down on his luck but a veteran of many honorable battles. Up to now he had always reached the next auriferous area, as a gold field was technically called, six months late. Fate was now about to knock on his door three days early.
John Loden, himself a Swede of some generations back, knew exactly what to do, and advised that it be done with dispatch: 'Announce the meeting. Publicize it. Have your claims in order. Then stand back as the stampede begins.'
The meeting was held in a tent at the spot where the Snake River emptied into the Bering Sea, and eleven selected men were present, word of promising developments having been quietly circulated. Loden chaired the session and asked repeatedly for assistance from the floor. Two of the prospectors knew more mining law than he, and it was merciful that they were present, because in the wild days to come, their testimony that everything had been done legally was going to be significant.
When the four newcomers heard the seriousness of the seven who were in on the secret, they became wildly excited: 'Where is the strike?' and 'Are there real colors?'
'In good time, gentlemen, in good time.'
When all details were in order, insofar as the members could determine, Loden turned to the major Swede and said: 'Tell them!'
'We have struck real colors, an important find, on Anvil Creek.'
'Where in hell's that?'
'Up where the big rock hangs over. Looks like an anvil.'
One of the listeners yelled, another cheered, and a third shouted: 'Jesus Christ, here we go!' The fourth man, more practical than the others, went to the door of the tent and fired his revolver three times in the air to alert everyone in the tents:
'Major strike! Anvil Creek!' and some forty wild-eyed miners rushed out into the October night to stake their claims under a harvest moon.
Five, Six and Seven Above were staked by the Norwegian Skjellerup, the Lapp Sana and the Siberian Arkikov, and while men along the little stream cheered and fired guns and danced jigs together, Arkikov, in the moonlight, panned the first sand from his claim. It left gold dust at the bottom worth seven dollars.
The three partners were going to be very rich.
THE SITUATION IN THE NEWBORN TOWN OF NOME WAS technically much as it had been along the Klondike following that fabulous strike: gold had been found, but so late in the year that no ships could bring stampeders through the icebound Bering Sea. The big push would be delayed ten months; however, miners already in the region were free to rush in and stake claims, and this they did, so that a real town began to develop, with a narrow Front Street running along the bleak waterfront.
In July 1899, when the big ships began crowding in with prospectors, Nome quickly became the largest city in Alaska, with no less than eleven bars, each of which claimed to be 'the best saloon in Alaska,' so an enterprising newcomer opened a still bigger bar, naming it proudly 'Second Best Saloon in Alaska.' One of its noisy patrons was a braggart from Nevada called Horseface Kling, who boasted that he 'knew more about mining law than any son-of-a-bitch in Alaska,' and he was so self-assured that hangers-on began taking him seriously.
'No Russian has the right to come over here and claim on good American mining sites,' he bellowed, and as soon as he saw that he was gaining support, he added: 'I'm gonna by damn 'propriate Seven Above which that Siberian is holdin' illegal.' When this appealing battle cry was cheered, he assembled an armed posse, marched to the creek, and took possession.
He apparently did know something about mining procedures, for as soon as he returned to town he gathered his gang about him, appointed a chairman, and convened a general miners' meeting on the spot, which enthusiastically authorized the takeover. 'You will all testify,' he said at the conclusion of the meeting, 'that everything was done legal.' And as his men shouted their approval, Seven Above was
ripped out of Arkikov's hands and deposited in those of Horseface Kling.
The effect on Arkikov was staggering. He had come to Alaska under pressure of performing public service; he had behaved well here; he had participated in the famous mercy run to Barrow; and he had been instrumental in establishing and developing Anvil Creek, and now to have the rewards of his industry torn away was intolerable, and he began to haunt the saloons, asking: 'Can do this America?' and people told him:
'This ain't America, it's Alaska.'
The theft stood, and after days of fruitless appeal, he met with his two former partners, warning them: 'Me Russian ... pretty soon they do same to you Lapp, then you Norwegian,' and seeing the reasonableness of his prediction, they began to carry guns and bought him one.
Sure enough, as soon as Horseface Kling had his possession of Seven Above digested, he began pestering folks in the Second Best Saloon with complaints against 'that damned Lapp, little better than a Russian, who came over here and stole our good claims.' This time he was arguing on behalf of his partner, one Happy Magoon, a big man who smiled constantly, and after another miners' meeting, Mikkel Sana was dispossessed of Six Above, and it was made pretty clear in the Second Best Saloon that the Norwegian Lars Skjellerup was going to be next.
It soon became apparent that Happy Magoon, now the owner of Six Above, was a stupid man not able to think clearly and that Horseface Kling had used him merely as a front for stealing a fine claim. When rumors started to circulate against 'that damned Norwegian,' Skjellerup and the three Swedes could see that they were going to be next, and that before long Horseface was going to be sole possessor of seven fine claims on Anvil Creek.
How could such flagrant lawlessness be tolerated? Because the United States Congress still refused to give Alaska a sensible government. The region continued to struggle along as the District of Alaska, but what it was a district of, no one could say, and it was still hamstrung by the old Oregon territorial law that had been outmoded at the time of its imposition. Had Congress said: 'Let Alaska have the same laws that pertain in northern Maine,' it might have made sense, for the two types of land and problems would have been roughly similar, but to equate Alaska with Oregon was preposterous. Oregon was an agricultural state with spacious fields; if there was any flat land in Alaska, it was probably terrorized by grizzly bears. Oregon had been peopled by God-fearing men and women who brought with them a New England Puritan dedication to organized life and work in settlements; Alaska, by drifters like John Klope from a rundown farm in Idaho and rascals like Horseface Kling from temporary mining camps. Oregon, in other words, was a beautifully controlled area which had aspired to be another Connecticut as soon as possible, while Alaska was determined to remain unlike any other American region as long as possible.
But you had to be on the scene to appreciate the real insanity of life in Alaska, and no better laboratory for analysis than Nome could have been found. Since the old Oregon territorial law had not provided for the establishment of new towns like Nome, the burgeoning boomtown could not elect a city government, and since the law did not provide for health services, none could be authorized in Nome; everyone in the town could throw his bathroom slops where he damned well pleased. Craziest of all was the circular insanity which still prevented courts from trying criminals. Oregon law clearly stated that no man could be a juror unless he proved that he had paid his taxes, but since there was no government in Alaska, no taxes were collected.
This meant that there could be no trial by jury, which meant that ordinary courts could not exist.
And this preposterous state of affairs meant that criminals like Horseface Kling could commit their thefts with impunity. The famous boast of frontier brawlers in times past, 'No court in the land can lay a hand on me,' had become a reality in Alaska. The stolen mining claims now belonged to Horseface, and their former owners had no court to which they could appeal.
However, justice of another kind was available, and had an impartial observer familiar with frontiers studied the Anvil Creek dispossessions, he might have warned: 'Of all the men in this corner of Alaska to steal from, those three have got to be the most dangerous!' and he would point to the dour, self-reliant Norwegian, the steel-sinewed Lapp and the wildly imaginative Siberian to whom anything was possible. He would point out: 'These men have traversed great distances unafraid, slept unprotected in blizzards at sixty-below, and saved Barrow. It seems highly unlikely that they will allow a braggart from Nevada to dispossess them of rights which they gained the hard way.' But less sagacious men in the Second Best would point out: 'In Nome there is no law.'
On 12 July 1899, Horseface Kling was found shot to death at the entrance to his mine Seven Above, and shortly thereafter a grinning Happy Magoon was quietly told: 'You no longer own Six Above.'
No one discovered who had done the shooting, and no one really cared, for by this time it was clear that Horseface had intended sweeping up everyone's claim, so his death was not lamented. And when the industrious Lapp, Mikkel Sana, recovered his ownership of Six Above, no one protested, for it was now recognized that he had more than earned the right to hold that claim.
However, when the Siberian Arkikov tried to move back onto Seven Above, the original protests were revived, and in a raucous miners' meeting it was again decreed that no Russian could hold a claim on Anvil Creek, and he was once more evicted.
This time the rugged fellow was completely distraught, and again he moved from bar to bar trying to elicit sympathy and support, but now a rumor started circulating:
'It was the Siberian who murdered Horseface,' and the very men who had applauded the death of the usurper resented the fact that a Siberian had slain an American, and he became something of an outcast. His two partners tried to console him with a promise that they would share their profits with him, but this did not pacify him, and he continued to rant about the fact that this should never have happened in America.
But he was at heart an incorruptible optimist, and after several days of venting his resentment, he grabbed his prospecting gear and started up the valley cut by the parent stream, Snake River, testing the gravel in even the tiniest tributary.
He found nothing, and as dusk approached on the third day he came back to Nome disconsolate and seething.
What happened next can be appreciated only by another miner, but Arkikov had his prospecting toolsa fifty-cent pan and a sixty-cent shovel he had plenty of time, and he certainly had a wild lust for gold, so with no further streams to prospect, he looked at the endless stretch of beach before him and he cried with the soul of a true miner: 'Whole goddamn ocean ... me look.' And he began to sift the sands of the Bering Sea.
Such things had happened before. Some men, drifting down the Mackenzie from Edmonton, had prospected every creek along the way. Others, near death from starvation, had paused in the mountains to prospect some errant stream. And now the Siberian Arkikov was prepared to prospect the whole Bering Sea. It was irrational, but to him it made sense.
He did not have to move far along the empty beach, for in his second pan, there in the quiet dusk with curlews overhead, he came upon one of the strangest finds in the history of mining. His pan, when washed in seawater, showed colors, and not just flecks, but real, substantial grains of gold.
Unwilling to believe what he saw, he poured the gold into an empty cartridge, then dipped again and once more found colors. Again and again, almost insanely, he ran along the beach, dipping and testing and always finding gold.
July sunset at Nome in those days before time was fiddled with came at about nine-thirty, so all that evening, in the gray-silver haze while the sun toyed with the horizon, this wild Siberian ran along the beaches, dipping and testing, and when night finally fell he had a story to relate that would astound the world.
He whispered it first to his partners, at a table in the Second Best Saloon, for if they had been faithful enough to promise him a share of their wealth, he must reciprocate: 'No look round. No speak.
r /> Me find something.' Quietly he handed the cartridge to Skjellerup, who furtively inspected it, whistled softly, and passed it along to Sana, who did not whistle but who did raise his eyebrows.
'Where?' Skjellerup asked without changing expression.
The beach.'
These two tested miners were the first to hear that the beaches of Nome literally crawled with gold, and like everyone who followed, they disbelieved. Clearly, Arkikov's misfortunes had addled his brain, and yet. .. there was the gold, clean and of a high quality. He had got it somewhere.
They would mollify him, urge him to keep his voice down, and when he was tranquil they would ask: 'What stream did you find it in?' But even after they had tried this tactic, they received the same answer.
'You mean the beach? The sea? Waves?'
'Yes.'
'You mean some miner lost his poke on the beach and you found it?'
'No.'
'What part of the beach?'
'Whole goddamn beach.'
This was so incredible that the two men suggested: 'Let's go to our digs and talk this over,' and when they did, Skjellerup and Sana found that Arkikov was locked into his story that the common, ordinary beaches of Nome teemed with gold.
'How many spots did you try?'
'Many. Many.'
'And all gave colors?'
'Yes.'
The two men considered this, and although they were inwardly driven to reject the report as improbable, there in the cartridge rested a substantial amount of gold.
Putting half into his hand, Skjellerup held it toward the Siberian and asked: 'If the sands are filled with this, why hasn't anybody else found it?' and Arkikov gave the resounding answer that explained the mystery of mining: 'Nobody look. Me look. Me find.'
It was now midnight, and since the sun would rise at two-thirty, Skjellerup and Sana decided to remain awake and go out in the earliest dawn to test the truth of their partner's implausible yarn. 'We mustn't work near each other,' Skjellerup warned, 'and don't let anyone see us actually panning. Pick up driftwood maybe.'