Next morning all felt fresh and invigorated. The sun shone brightly. In the roadstead two miles away lay several newly arrived steamers, their deep-toned whistles frequently sounding over the intervening waters. It was a beautiful sight and welcome sound. How easily the long and graceful breakers rolled and broke upon the sands. With what music the foam-tipped wavelets spread their edges, like the lace-trimmed ruffles on some lady's gown, upon the smooth and glistening beach. How the white tents everywhere looked like doves of peace just alighted, and the little boats danced up and down on the river. I was glad to be there. I enjoyed it. Nothing, not even the hard work, the storms, nor the bitter Arctic winter which came afterwards ever effaced from my memory the beautiful pictures of river, sea and sky repeatedly displayed during those first novel and busy days at Nome. CHAPTER X. THE FOUR SISTERS. It was during the first excitement of the gold discoveries in the Klondyke that four sisters left their home in Chicago and started for Dawson. They were young, hopeful, ambitious and handsome. They owned a town lot in the city, but they had not the means with which to erect a building upon it, and the money would never be forthcoming if they remained where they were. The ordinary salary of a working woman in office or store was not sufficient to allow them more than a trifle above necessary living expenses, and they could see themselves old, wrinkled and grey before they could hope to attain their desired object. Reaching Dawson safely, as they did after weeks of peril and many novel experiences, they set to work at what seemed to them at the moment the most lucrative labor of which they were capable. They were fitted for laundry work only by being well and strong physically, and by having a willingness to do whatever they first found to do. This proved to be work at the wash-tub. Here the four women labored month after month with a will, with the result that at the end of a year their bank account was not insignificant, they owned several gold claims, and in all the mining camp there were none who did not respect the four sisters. Then came their first dark days. It was midsummer. Down among the grass roots and between the rocks of the hillside back of the famous camp, there trickled numerous fresh water springs, pure and cold when they left their sequestered sources among the seams and fissures, but gaining nothing of purity when spread out upon the little plain now thickly dotted with cabins.