But I was getting my congregation together, and so was happy. A goodly proportion of Christian men and women are always found in these gold camps, and they are very willing workers. Before Sunday came I had found an old acquaintance, Minor Bruce, whom I had known fifteen years before when he was a trader in Southeastern Alaska. He offered me the use of the loft over his fur store. Mr. Fickus, the man from San Francisco, to whom I have made reference in a former chapter, fixed up some seats. I got my organ carried up the ladder and found singers. "Judge" McNulty, a lawyer friend who was handy with crayons, made fancy posters out of some pasteboard boxes I had got from the store.
The floor of Bruce's store was cluttered with Eskimo mucklucks, bales of hair-seal skins, and other unsavory articles; and an old Eskimo woman, who had her lower lip and chin tattooed downwards in streaks after the fashion of these people, sat among the skins, chewing walrus hides and shaping them into soles for mucklucks, while the congregation was gathering. One usher received the people at the store door, steered them carefully between the bales and skins, and headed them to another who helped them up the steep stairway, while a third seated them. We had a good congregation and a rousing meeting. Our choir was one of the best I ever heard. Our organist and leader was Dr. Humphrey, a dentist, who had been director of a large chorus and choir; Mr. Beebe, our chief baritone, had sung in the choir of St. Paul's Episcopal Church of Oakland, Cal.; and there were other professionals. I give these details as a typical beginning in a frontier camp. There is always fine talent of all sorts in a new gold town.
Let me give right here two or three instances of the bread of kindness "cast upon the waters" and "found after many days." Nowhere is this Bible saying oftener realized than in the friendly wilderness.
One of the first men I met at Nome was an old Colorado miner, whom I had known at Dawson. I had done him some kindness at the Klondike camp during the illness and after the death of his nephew. When he found me at Nome he greeted me warmly. "You're just the man I've been looking for. I know you don't do any mining, but I'm going to do some for you. I expect to go 'outside' in a few days. You come out on the tundra with me to-morrow, and I'll stake some ground for you; then I'll take your papers out with me and try to sell the claims."