mproved,--many new cabins and several
more stores had sprung up,--but I could obtain no concrete explanation
from my partner, its president or mayor, why, during my absence, the
city's main thoroughfare had not been asphalted. My letters from the
"outside" telling of the time of my departure, and those intrusted at
Nome to pretended overland travelers, all came some time after my
arrival, but I was, nevertheless, expected to appear upon the scene any
day in early July.

In very short order I was again in the traces of Alaskan harness and
developing with my partner a certain team-work in our household duties
as well as in legal and mining matters. We were truly "hewers of wood
and drawers of water," and we enjoyed excellent health, although we did
our own cooking. Perhaps our best parlor trick was what we were pleased
to term "the poetry of motion." This took place after the mahogany had
been cleared for action, when one of us, presiding over a pan of hot
water, fished out from under the soapy suds some utensil and passed it
along to the other, who, accepting gracefully, gave it a polish in
transit and flourished it onward to its allotted place. Toward the end
of the season a neighborly little woman, the New England wife of a
miner from Maine, brought us some pastry which delightfully suggested
the land of the Puritans. She sympathetically remarked that she would
have performed many similar acts had she known we were doing our own
cooking. I must admit that we _bought_ our bread. Before I left Council
we were guests at a dinner-party given by this hospitable neighbor, and
rarely have I enjoyed a meal more. The home was most comfortable and
roomy, and we ate from pretty china which this little housewife had
brought all the way from New England. This goes to show that people can
now live comfortably and well in that remote country, if they only will.

The winter of course had been very long and tedious, and, in many ways,
a most trying one; but it was surprising to learn how lightly clad one
can safely and comfortably move about with the thermometer ranging from
30 deg. to 60 deg. below zero. This is due to the dryness of the cold. For
instance, at 30 deg. below, and with no outer garments other than flannel
shirt and overalls, one would perspire freely in chopping wood. With
hands and feet warmly protected, and winter underwear and wind-proof
outer clothes (drill coat and ordinary overalls), _and exercise_, one
can comfo