However, the first move to be made was to find our freight and baggage, and a spot upon which to pitch our tents, and the sooner that was done the better, as the test and cleanest camping places were fast being appropriated by the newcomers hourly landing. It was not easy to find a clean, dry spot for a tent, as I had found the day before that the black, soggy soil was hardly free from frost a foot down, and this made it everywhere marshy, as the water could not keep down nor run off where it was level. Some one on the steamer who had been in Nome before had advised us to pitch our tents on the "Sandspit" at the mouth of Snake River, as that was the cleanest, driest and most healthful spot near fresh water that we could find; and my mind was made up that it was to the Sandspit I would go. Many had been the warnings from friends before leaving home about drinking impure water, getting typhoid fever and other deadly diseases, and without having any particular fear as to these things I still earnestly desired a clean and healthful camping place. This, then, was the way I planned during most of the first night after landing at Nome. If I slept it was towards morning, when I had become accustomed to the regular and stentorian snores of the old judge; or when, for a few moments, after turning in his sleep, his snorts and wheezes had not yet reached their loudest pitch; and when my wishes had shaped themselves so distinctly into plans for work that I felt relieved and full of confidence, and so slept a little. [Illustration: LIFE AT NOME.] Next day I looked for my father. At the landing, on the streets, in the stores, at all times I was on the lookout, though it was a difficult matter to find any one in a crowd such as that in Nome. I saw several acquaintances from Dawson the year before, and people from different steamers that I knew, but not my father. At nine o'clock next morning three of us started out to find the Sandspit, with, if possible, a good camping spot to which we could take our freight as soon as it was landed, and part of our number was detailed to stay at the landing while we investigated. Down through the principal thoroughfare we pushed our way, now on plank sidewalk, now in the middle of the street if the walks were too crowded; but going to the west end of town till we came to Snake River Bridge, where we crossed to the Sandspit. At the toll-gate we easily passed, as all women were allowed to go over free, men only being charged ten cents toll. Here we quickly found a clean, dry place on the river bank a hundred feet below the bridge and two hundred feet from the ocean, which we chose for our tents. Now arose the question, would any one have any objection to our pitching our tents temporarily? Seeing some men striking camp near by we asked them. They told us that we could get permission, they thought, from an old captain near by on a stranded boat, now being used as an eating-house, and to him we went. He was not in.