TARAWA LEADER
Published Every Thursday at Xanana, Alaska.
V*l. 2 SAM J. CALLAHAN. EDITOR No. 14
Oso. M. Arbucklo. Manager
SUBSCRIPTION RATES:
One Year.$10.00 I One Month. 1.00
Six Months. 5.00 I Single Copy.2">
Advertising Rates on Application.
THE NEED OF COURT SESSIONS HERE
The contention by the Chamber of Commerce that
terms of the district court should be held at Tanana has
had its logic forcibly demonstrated during the present
closed season by the movements of the United States deputy
marshals. For months at a time one or more of them were
on the trail to or from Fairbanks on account of business at
Tanana or points beyond. During the last open season
their coming and going was perhaps more frequent. While
of course from a people’s viewpoint the matter is looked at
principally as affecting their own convenience, it would
appear that economy and dispatch of business would be
cause the Department of Justice to change the present plan.
In the past few days a number of Koyukuk mining
men were in Tanana and manifested a deep interest in the
matter. To them a chance call to court as it is at present
located would be a calamity, and actions at law are so costly
that it is cheaper to suffer great wrong than to seek legal
redress. All that the people here can do is to assure them
that the matter will be laid before the proper authorities,
and that favorable consideration is hoped for.
THE UNEXPECTED BN GREAT SALT LAKE
It is surprising to learn that Great Salt Lake is now
higher than at any other time within the memory of white
men. Such is said to be a fact. Six years ago it was an
nounced positively that the lake was drying up, and that
it was only a question of two or three decades before one of
America’s great natural features would disappear.
The present swelling of the lake is not due to heavy
rains, but is apparently in conformity to its “habit.” Ac
cording to Indian tradition, s.iys an Outside paper, it has
a regular rise and fall, each extending over a period of
thirty or forty years. The lake has not been known to civ
ilization long enough for these statements to be verified by
scientific observers, but the legends of primitive and savage
people are usually based on fact.
The phenomenon of Great Salt Lake finds its parallel
elsewhere. It has been shown that the Great Lakes them
selves have a steady rise and fall, although in their case it
is slight, and at some points the sea is known to be en
croaching on the land while at others the order is reversed.
Rash observers announce startling discoveries and predict
great disasters, but the face of nature makes permanent
changes so slowly that man cannot tell any difference in
hundreds of years.
A FRONTIER
INCIDENT
Calamity was the name of a man who lives in the gold camp of
Cummins City. He has another name, but nobody seems to know
what it is. It has been torn off the wrapper someway; and so the
boys call him Calamity.
He is a man of singular mind and construction. . The most no
ticeable feature about Calamity is his superstitious dread of muscu
lar activity. Some people will not tackle any kind of business en
terprise on Friday. Calamity is even more the victim of this vague
superstition, and has a dread of beginning work on any day of the
week, for fear that some disaster may befall him.
Last spring he had a little domestic trouble, and his wife made
complaints that Calamity had worn out an old long-handled shovel
on her, trying to convince her about some abstruse theory of his.
The testimony seemed rather against Calamity, and the miners
told him that as soon as they got over the rush a little and had the
leisure they would have to hang him.
They hoped he would take advantage of the hurry of business
and go away, because they didn’t want to hang him so early in the
season. But Calamity didn’t go away. He stayed because it was
easier to stay than it was to go. He did not, of course, pine for
the notoriety of being the first man hung in the young camp, but
rather than pull up stakes and move away from a place where
there were so many pleasant associations, he concluded to stay and
meet death calmly in whatever form it might come. One evening,
after the work of the day was done) and the boys had eaten their
suppers, one of them suggested that it would be a good time
to hang Calamity. So they got things in shape and went down to
the Big Laramie bridge. Calamity was with them. They got
things ready for the exercises to begin, and then asked the victim
if he had anything to say.* He loosened the rope about his neck a
little with one hand, so that he could speak with more freedom,
And holding his pantaloons on with the other, he said:
“Gentlemen of the convention, I call you to witness that this
public demonstration toward me is entirely unsought on my part.
I have never courted notoriety.
“Plugging along in comparative obscurity is good enough for
me. This is the first time I have ever addressed an audience.
That is why I am embarrassed and ill at ease.
“You have brought me here to hang me because I seem harsh
an$l severe with my wife. You have entered the hallowed presence
of my home life and assumed the prerogative of subverting my
household discipline. It is well. I do not care to live so long as
my authority is questioned. You have already changed a submis
sive wife to an arrogant and self-reliant woman.
“Yesterday I told her to out and grease the wagon, and she
straightened up to her full height and told me to grease it myself.
“I have always been kind and thoughtful to her. When she
had to go up in the gulch in the winter after firewood, my coat
shielded her from the storm while I sat in the cabin through the
long hours. I could name other instances of unselfishness on my
part, but I will not take up your time.
“She uses my smoking tobacco, and kicks my vertebrae into
my hat on the most unlooked for occasions. She does not love me
any more, and life to me is only a hollow mockery.
“Death, with its wide waste of eternal calm, and its shoreles ,
sea ef rest, is a glad relief to me. I go, but I leave in your midst
a skittish and able-bodied widow who will make Rome howl. I be
queath her to this camp. She is yours, gentlemen. She is all I
have to give, but in giving her to you, I feel that my untimely
death will always be looked upon in this gulch as a dire calamity.
“The day will come when you will look back upon this awful
night and wish that I were alive again; but it will be too late. I
will be far away. My soul will be in the land where domestic in
felicity and cold feet can never enter. Bury me at the foot of
Vinegar hill, where the sage hen and the fuzzy mumble bee may
gambol o’er my lowly grave.”
When Calamity had finished, an impromptu caucus was called,
arid when it was adjourned, Calamity went home to his cabin to
surprise his wife. She hasn't fully recovered from the surprise as
we go to press.—Bill Nye.
i
Oscar Bergman. Joe Ko ninsky, George Shirley and Jimmy
Lawrence are old Kamparters who are reported to be in on the fat
part of Plat creek, Iditarod. A. V. Thorns, who recently came out
of the lower country, brought news indicating that their ground
will yield big.
George Shirley, on 35 a Hunter creek, has a shaft down 100
feet, with no signs of bedrock. The deepest hole heretofore put
down in that vicinity was 55 feet, and everybody is wondering what
the outcome will be. He is now in wash gravel, with a good many
boulders.
Christian Du bach, representing St. Joseph (Mo.) people, will
install a steamsliove! on Hunter creek this summer. He has tele
graphed Prank & Graham to put 1,000 cords of wood an the
ground this summer. His company holds leases from O. B. Allen,
Ballou & Mann, Ernest Floyd, Louis Iverson and Frank & Gra
ham—the understanding being that the owners receive 10 per cent,
and are not debarred from work until the company moves onto
each of the respective claims. It is believed the company has a
tine chance to make money.
O. C. Clemens, 3 a. Hunter, would not lease his ground on the
above terms, and is taking out a winter dump. He has been pay
ing expenses off pannings and pickups.
frank <Sr Graham will have three Kpla^li (lams on Little
Manook the coming summer. They have 7000 feet of ground ex
tending down stream from the upper end of 1-a. These men are
expert in the splash-dam process, and now that they have a clear
tield for their waste they are sure to get satisfactory results.
Climie, Cummings & Nelson, 8 a. Little Manook, have a dump
of about 20,000 buckets. Their pickups so far have amounted to
$700. No. S has been worked since !98, and is credited with having
much gold left.
E. II. Chapman and Tom Evans have out a very good dump
on 2 a, Little Manook.
On D.nvson creek, Charley Johnson, Buck & Kaasen and Berg
man Bros, all have out dumps. While they will do fairly well, re
sults will not equal what the dirt indicated early in the winter.
Over on Quail, Cassidy & Olson expect to take out consider!
ble money the coming summer. Last fall the two men shoveled in
$1,400 in 20 days, working in the water backed up from Trouble
some. With an adequate drain much better results would be had.
The ground has been prospected 1,500 feet up from the mouth, and
is very uniform. It is shallow, and the only thing that seems to
stand in the way of its yielding handsomely is a good bedrock
drain.
Tate & Nixon are taking out a grubstake dump at the month of
Florida creek, seven miles from Rampart. They are hard-rock
prospectors, and it is known that rich silver float picked up in the
district has impressed them greatly. However, no one knows what
progress they have made in looking for the ledge. Silver nuggets
are occasionally found in creeks near Rimpart —something rare in
mineral deposits.
John Hays Hammond has just organized a §15,000,000 com
pany to install an immense irrigation project in the Yuqui valley
of Sonora, Mexico, which is now covered with cactus and mesquite
and has long been considered habitable only by the warring Yaqui
Indians. Besides Mr. Hammond, other capitalists who are inter
ested in the proposition are Harry Payne Whitney, Leigh Hunt,
who has been interested in some big Chinese and Egyptian propo
sitions; Cortland E. Palmer, L. G. Sinnard, former president of
the National Irrigation congress, and the Richardson brothers of
Los Angeles, who secured the original grant for a railroad along
the west coast. More than 1,000,000 acres of land wilt be made
susceptible to cultivation by this project.
Wouldn’t Stand for the Hindus
Portland, Ore., March 29.—Three hundred Hindus were driven
from the village of St. John’s and this city last Thursday morning
because they had m vd3 themselves obnoxious to the employes at
the mills for working for less money than was being paid to the
white labor. On the night previous an attack wras made on the
men by the white laborers at the St. John’s mills and they had to
seek the protection of the police. They decided that rather than
risk another attack they would leave.
GOLDEN NORTH CAFE
Carrying tire Best Supplies on the Market
OYSTERS, FISH AND GAME
IN SEASON
Centrally Located. In Connection with Grand Hotel.
ED Y. LEE, PROP.
wr
tbSSl
Northern Commercial Co.
STAGE LINE
Carrying U. S. Mail. Passengers and Express
CONNECTIONS THROUGH TO VALDEZ
FOR RATES APPLY TO
CEO. J. MILLER, First Door Below N. C. Store
Going Outside This Winter? Subscribe for Leader
HOT SPRINGS’ NEWEST HOTEL
F.rst-CIass Restaurant Frink . S anl r, Prep
CAMP GIBBON NO. 25, Arctic Brother
hood, meets every Monday night
in A. B. Hull, corner Second si.
and Campbell ave. at 8:.'!0 o’clock.
Visiting Arctics cordially invited to at
tend the meetings of the Camp.
Pull. GAI.LAHER, Arctic Chief.
J. Russell Walls, Arctic Rec.
Subscribe
FOR THE
Tanana Leader
$1.00 Per Month
When You Go to California Where Every Month
is June, Travel on the
CALIFORNIA
LIMITED
' ff Only Train in Southern California, via. Any Line,
' Exclusively First-Class Travel
EAST OR WEST
g? THE COMFORTABLE WAY IS VIA. THE
I Great Northern
Railway
close: connections
To All Points East or West, With Two Modern Oyer
land Trains in Either Direction Daily.
FOR FULL INFORMATION ADDRESS
F. I. Whitney, Passenger Traffic Manager, St. Paul, Minn.
—O R
S. 0. Ycrkes, Assistant Gen. Pass. Agent, Seattle, Wash.