Jimmy was long deposed from his ineffectual leadership and a little dog named Kewalik--the one I obtained at Kikitaruk--was at the head of the team. Kewalik had never seen so many houses before; hitherto almost every cabin he had reached on his journeys had been a resting-place, and he wanted to dive into every house we passed. At Candle and Council both, our stopping-place had been near the entrance to the little town. But now we had to pass up one long street after another and I had continually to drag him and the team he led first from a yard on this side of the road and then from one on the other. The dog was perfectly bewildered and out of his head by the number of people and the number of houses he saw. We were indeed a sorry, travel-worn, unkempt, uncivilised band, man and dogs, with an old, battered vehicle, and we felt our incongruity with the new environment as we entered the metropolis of the luxury and wealth of the North. Here we passed a jeweller's shop, the whole window aglow with the dull gleam of gold and ivory--the terrible nugget jewellery so much affected in these parts and the walrus ivory which is Alaska's other contribution of material for the ornamental arts. Here we passed a veritable department store, its ground-floor plate-glass window set as a drawing-room, with gilded, brocaded chairs, marquetry table, and ormolu clock, and I know not what costliness of rug and curtain. It was all so strange that it seemed unreal after that long passage of the savage wilds, that long habitation of huts and igloos and tents. Hitherto we had often been fortunate could we buy a little flour and bacon; here the choice comestibles of the earth were for sale. I looked askance at my greasy parkee as I passed shops where English broadcloth and Scotch tweeds were displayed; at my worn, clumsy mukluks when I saw patent-leather pumps. But Nome knows how to welcome the wanderer from the wilderness and to make him altogether at home. There could be no warmer hospitality than that with which I was received by the Reverend John White and his wife, than that which I had at many a home during my week's stay. Nothing in the world could have caused the building of a city where Nome is built except the thing that caused it: the finding of gold on the beach itself and in the creeks immediately behind it. It has no harbour or roadstead, no shelter or protection of any kind; it is in as bleak and exposed a position as a man would find if he should set out to hunt the earth over for ineligible sites. But Nome is also a fine instance of the way men in the North conquer local conditions and wring comfort out of bleakness and desolation by the clever adaptation of means to ends.