ng a mixed population largely composed of
unscrupulous elements, an indescribable mass of legal matters, already
accumulated and ever increasing.

When in Washington in the winter of 1899, I became interested in Cape
Nome. I met there an able young attorney from the Pacific coast, who
among the first had gone to Nome, where he had practised his profession
with great success and secured interests in some promising properties.
He was then in Washington in the interest of Alaskan legislation. The
prospects for great legal complications in the new country were highly
encouraging. Lieutenant Jarvis of the United States revenue service, a
man of sound judgment and few words, who so signally distinguished
himself in 1897 by his overland expedition and rescue of the crews of
whaling-vessels ice-bound in the Arctic seas, had been the chief agent
of the government at Nome the preceding year. He not only corroborated
what I had already heard, but gave the impression that the story had not
half been told. My brother and I decided to make the venture, and to be
content with a safe return and a fund of experience, to offset the
uncertain rewards of business and law practice during the dull summer
months. He took up surveying, and I spent all my spare time in studying
the elaborate codes of laws which Congress was then enacting for Alaska,
as well as substantive mining law and all available information
pertaining to that little known or understood country.

In San Francisco there were many signs of the Nome excitement. "Cape
Nome Supplies," in large print, met the eye frequently. One ran across
many who were going, and heard of many more who had already started for
the Arctic gold-fields. All indications pointed to the advent of a small
army of lawyers and doctors on the shores of Nome. But, though there was
a stir in the atmosphere, the excitement was nothing compared with that
at Seattle, which is the natural outfitting-point for Alaska; for San
Francisco has had a long experience in these "excitements," and treats
each recurring one with comparative indifference. We took everything
with us,--tents, stoves, provisions, all sufficient to enable us to live
independently for three or four months,--not to mention the "law
library" and surveying apparatus.

The _C.D. Lane_ was the ship, named after its owner, the prominent
mining man, who had backed up his belief in the genuineness of the new
country by investing in it a great deal of