As the girl quickly tossed off the liquor, I groaned aloud, awaked from my trance, and fled to my room, where I bolted the door, and fell upon my knees. God forgive her! What a sight! I wanted to rush into the bar-room, seize the young girl, and lead her away from the place and her companions, but I could not. I had barely enough room for myself. I had little money. What could I do for her? Absolutely nothing. If I went in and attempted to talk with her it would do no good, for she was drunk, and a drunken person cannot reason. The men would jeer at me, and I might be ejected from the place. Finally I went to bed. At midnight the singing and shouting ceased, the people dispersed, the bartender put out the lights, and locked the doors. For the first time since reaching Nome, my pillow was wet with tears, and I prayed for gold with which to help lift these, my sisters, from their awful degradation. It was well towards midnight, and I had been asleep for some time. My subjective mind, ever on the alert as usual, and ready to share enjoyment as well as pain with my objective senses, began gradually to inform me that there was music in the air. Softly and sweetly, like rippling summer waters over mossy stones, the notes floated upward to my ears. The hands of an artist lay upon the keyboard of the instrument in the room beneath. I listened drowsily. With the singing of brooks, I heard the twitter of little birds, the rustle of leaves on the trees, and saw the maiden-hair nodding in the glen. I was a little child far away in the Badger State. Again I was rambling through green fields, and plucking the pretty wild flowers. How sweet and tender the blue skies above! How gentle the far-away voice of my mother as she called me! They were singing softly now,--men's voices, well trained, and in sweetest harmony: "I'm coming, I'm coming, My ear is bending low. I hear the angel's voices calling Old Black Joe." They sang the whole song through, and I was now wide awake. Familiar songs and old ballads followed, the master hand at the keys accompanying. "We are going outside on the Ohio tomorrow," said one in an interval of the music, "and then, ho! for home again, so I'm happy," and a momentary clog dance pounded the board floor. "Have a drink on it, boys?" asked a generous bystander who had been enjoying the music. "No, thanks, we never drink. Let's have a lively song now for variety," and the musician struck up a coon song, which they sang lustily. Then followed "America," "Auld Lang Syne," and "'Mid Pleasures and Palaces," the dear old "Home, Sweet Home" coming with intense sweetness and pathos to my listening ear. No sound disturbed the singers, and others filed quietly out when they had gone away. "God bless them, and give them a safe voyage home to their dear ones," I breathed, with tears slipping from under wet lashes, and a great lump in my throat.