I paid my landlady and she put my blankets by her stove to dry. I paid another dollar and a half for a supper of beans and flap-jacks--the first food I had tasted for three days. I slept soundly that night on the floor, without a care or anxiety. The next morning I paid another dollar and a half for breakfast, and could not resist the temptation of purchasing a Seattle paper (only three weeks old--what a luxury!). I had just twenty-five cents left--and I was a stranger in this strange corner of the earth! I could not help laughing at my predicament as I entered the Alaska Exploration Company's store. A bearded man standing by the stove bade me "good-morning." "You seem to be pleased about something," he said. "Have you struck it rich?" "Well, yes!" I replied; "a rich joke on me," and I told him of the fix I was in. "What? You are Dr. Young?" he exclaimed, shaking me heartily by the hand. "Why, I'm a Presbyterian elder from San Francisco." The man's name was Fickus, a carpenter, who had come to Nome to build the store and warehouses of one of the big companies. He had held the first religious meetings in the new camp and had found quite a circle of Christian people. He offered to lend me money, but I refused to take it. "No," I said, "let us wait and see what happens." Something happened very quickly. While we were talking a young man entered the store and came up to me. "I understand that you are a minister," he said. "Yes," I replied. "What can I do for you?" "You can marry me to the best woman in Alaska." "Is she here?" I asked, with a triumphant smile at Fickus. "Oh, yes; she came on the last boat from Seattle." "When do you wish the ceremony to take place?" I inquired. "Right now," he replied. "You can't tie the knot too quickly to suit me." I followed the eager young man, married him to a nice-looking girl who was waiting in a near-by cabin, received a wedding-fee of twenty dollars, and returned to my newly-found friend with the assurance that my wants were supplied until my outfit would come ashore. This was my introduction to the second great gold camp of the Northwest--the raw, crazy, confused stampede of Nome. II THE ANVIL