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VI. E X C U R S I O N Thursday, December fifth.—November thirtieth we arose before daylight. It was a mild, still morning and the melting snow dripped from the trees. Without breakfast we set about at once to carry our things over to the boat. Olson was aroused and turned out to help. There's always much to be carried on a trip to Seward; gasoline, oil, tools, my pack bag—containing clothes, heavy blankets, and spare boots,—and the grub box Olson had given me packed with mail, books, grub, and the flute. The engine was in good order and started promptly. So away we went out over the bay just as the day brightened. It was calm and beautiful. The sun from below the horizon shot shafts of light up into the clouds, gray became pink, and pink grew into gold until at last after an hour or more the sun's rays lighted up the mountain peaks, and we knew that he had risen. It continued calm and mild all the way, but nevertheless I caught myself singing "Erlkonig," such is my anxiety at carrying Rockwell with me. Rockwell enjoyed the trip wrapped up in a sheepskin coat of Olson's. We stopped at a fishing camp for a moment's chat from the water. The man living there had just caught a good-sized wolverine. We declined breakfast and hurried on. In Seward we stored our things in Olson's cabin, a little place about eight feet square, and started for the hotel. One of our friends met us with a shout. "Well, you've had good sense to stay away so long!' 93 Influenza, I then learned, had raged in Seward, there having been over 350 cases; and smallpox had made a start. But the deaths had been few and it was now well in hand. However, I shunned the hotel. A little cottage was generously put at our disposal and we were soon comfortably settled there with our mail from home spread before us. I left everything of mine at the hotel untouched and we continued to wear our old clothes throughout the stay. At midnight I went with Otto Boehm to pull the dory up above the tide and overturn her, and then continued letter writing until three-thirtyA. M. December first and every day of our stay at Seward was calm and fair. We kept house in our cottage, I continually busy writing and doing up Christmas presents, for a steamer had entered on the thirtieth and was due to leave Sunday night, the first. Rockwell found the boys of Seward more friendly and spent the day going about out of doors. That night I played and sang at the postmaster's house and had a fine time. The people of Seward are friendly without being the slightest bit inquisitive, and they are extremely broad-minded for all that their country is remote from the greater world. I don't believe that provincialism is an inevitable evil of far-off communities. The Alaskan is alert, enterprising, adventurous . Men stand on their own feet, and why not? The confusing intricacy of modern society is here lacking. The men's own hands take the pure gold from the rocks; no one is another's master. It's great land—the best by far I have ever known. What a telltale of reaction from our lonely island life is this roseate vision of the little city of the far northwest! We came in time to see Seward quite differently and, with confidence in Alaska, to believe it to be in no way a typical and true Alaskan town. The "New York of the Pacific," as it is gloriously acclaimed in the literature of its Chamber of Commerce, numbers its citizens perhaps at half a thousand—the tenacious remnant of the many more who years ago trusted our government to fulfill its promises to really build and operate a railroad into the interior. One's indignation fires at the recital of the men of Seward's wrongs,—until you recollect that Seward was built for speculation, not for industry, and that by the chance turn of the wheel many have merely reaped loss instead of profit. There are no resources at that spot to be developed and there is consequently no industry. Seward is planned for growth and equipped for commerce. Wide avenues and numbered blocks adorn the town-site maps where to...

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