| IDITAROD PIONEER j
Published Every Sunday Morning at Iditarod, Alaska.
FRANK E. BECKER. EDITOR
I'll I Coo. M. Arbucklo. Publisher 13
SUBSCRIPTION RATES:
One Year $10.00
Six Months. 5.00
One Month 1.00
Single Copy. 25
Advertising: Rates on Application.
WHY WASTE THE ENERGY?
Iii view of the fact that we have bo much “fighting”
whiskey around this town, it has occurred to us that it
would be a very clever idea to incorporate the business, and
reduce this barroom scrapping to an economic basis, and
not only provide a likely fund for a public and meritorious
cause, but at the same time give the people a run for their
money.
In carrying out this idea we would dig a pit at some
centrally located point with raised seats on either side.
When word came that somebody wanted to fight in anyone
of the saloons, the drunks could be thrown in the pit by
special messengers and told to go to it, while the public
crowded to the gates to get their money down.
The advantage of the pit would lay in the fact that it
might prevent the gore from spattering on the spectators, and
-would also atford much better opportunities for the good,
old-fashioned, rough house, kicking, biting, gouging
matches, known as a general survival-of-the-littest. It would
be good also to have a few heavy spittoons about, and an
iron railing to give the roughhouse artists the proper en
vironments and encouragement. Having battered a vic
tim's head against a uuspidore until he is insensible, the
man still on his feet can kick him with so much greater
neatness and dispatch.
A bottle here and there, handy to the reach ot the con
testants, was also considered very nice in them days. A
well-directed blow with a bottle delivered so that the bottle
will break, tear oil the victim’s ear, lacerate his visage and
raise large contusions on his head, is considered very edi
fying to saloon hangers-on for it generally puts one man all
to the bad and messes the place up nicely.
A touch of real esprit de corps not to say eclat and
e pluribus unura is given to any fighting duet if, when one
man goes down in the broken glass, the other jumps on him
with heavy boots and grinds it in. Some prefer to vary the
finale by chewing contentedly on the victim’s finger or ear.
However, this is merely a matter of taste, as both methods
can be used to advantage and are guaranteed to produce a
thrill in any audience, no matter how blase.
Free-for-all combats are even more exciting, for on the
occasion of such delectable events, a whole bunch of bel
ligerents souses could be dumped into the pit at once.
These are never dull and would always draw large houses
if the crowd could be informed in time. To do this how
ever we might institute a sort of alarm system which would
not conflict with the present fire alarm.
A dog wagon or two could be provided for carrying
away the disabled, and the proceeds of the scraps might be
given to a hospital.
‘WHAT SO FAIR AS A DAY IN JUNE!”
Early last week we had our mind made up to write a
touching little ballad on wintry days—one of those Seeing
Nellie-Home thing*—when “on the snow the bright stars
glittered,” and its “Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the
way.”
We had heard that there was excellent skating on the
lagoons back of town, where in the exhilerating breath from
the frosted hills one could slide his ringing way while the
ice cracked and the skates clanked merrily. This was all
very fine and we began to wonder why we left those skates
back in the closet at home, stored with the Panama hat of
the vintage of umpty-eight.
Just then it started to rain. All night the gentle pat
ter droned on the tin roof at our lodging house, mixed with
the stirring chorus of “Havana” next door, and all this
thought of wintry days went glimmering as airy persiflage.
In their stead came visions of returning argosies,
SPKCTAL SALK
Ladies’ Tam O’Shanters, $1.50
Ladies’ Newports, $1.50 to $2.50
i. GOLDSTEIN, FRONT STREET
Don't Forget Ladies’ Utz At Dunn Shoes
Telephone 36
Drugs, Perfumes
Rubber Goods, Stationery
Cigars, Cigarettes
Tobaccos, Pipes, Cutlery
Photographic Supplies, Printing and Developing
Thermos Bottles
CIRCULATING LIBRARY
Riverside Hotel
PIONEER HOTEL OF THE IDITAROD
ROOSVIS AND SPRING BUNKS
HOME FOH THE BOYS
Best Accommodations at Moderate Prices. Phone 44 A. F. Morgan, Manager
RICHARDS
WILLOW STREET
{steaming on the broad bosom of the swelling river, anxious
1 friends gathering on the beach to welcome long absent
I ones, while sacks of beans and crates of bacon garnished
: the busy docks.
Now it's winter—now it’s summer. Now you're frozen
'in—now you ain’t. A man don’t know whether to order a
hot scotch or a mint julep. What t’ell, Bill. Pass me my
mackinaw—also my mackintosh.
CHECH A KG DOES
; DECKHAND STUNT
Steamboating on the Iditarod may not be as picturesque as in
j the old days on the Mississippi but it certainly if more profane—in
! the opinion of one ehechako deckhand. He was one of the flotilla
' whose boats were beached at Dikeman when the river began to
freeze last week. Most of the crews attempted to come back via
j the gasoline route. Halted by ice jams at various points along the
{river, the wearied “mushers” have been straggling in over the
trail ever since.
The ehechako thought the limit of possibility in cuss words
j had been reached when he had become trained to jump out of a
j hard board bunk along side the hot boiler and help load on wood.
| This always occurs exactly an hour and fifteen minutes after the
| mate had told the hands to “turn in” and take a rest. It always
happens also, that the woodchopper has piled the cord or two on a
bank fifteen or twenty feet above the level of the decks. About the
time the ehechako had learned to wake from an exhausted sleep,
pull on wet shoes, and skate up and down an icy plank—inclined
at an angle of forty five degrees—meanwhile nonchalantly juggling
! three sticks of cord wood over one shoulder and another under the
opposite arm, he began to understand why Iditarod steamboat men
use such extremely lurid language. But his education in higher
profanity was only begun. He was yet to learn what those who go
| down to the river in steamboats think of gasoline “put puts.”
When the good ship Little Delta was pulled up on the beach
I for her winter’s rest, after three sweating, struggling, pulling,
| pushing and cussing days, there was an evening of rejoicing. The
j captain told of how he used to do it on the Mississippi and the
crew told fairy stories. It is one of the captain’s boasts that he
| has not had his hat off—he sleeps in it, a derby at that—since the
season began except when a high wind blew it off. Ditto clothes
and shoes. He always ran the boat while there was a spark of
light in the sky and the crew have sad reason to know that he
would reach out and ring the “jingle” in the engine room before
he was out of his bunk in the pilot house—and the first faint light
of dawn not yet streaking the horizon. But bygones were bygones
and there was much amiable conjecture as to whether a gasoline
boat would get through safely to Iditarod City before the river
froze over. »
Skipper Herman Dietz, proud possessor of a gasoline engine
purchased from Stein of the late launch Bella S, swore solemnly
the next morning that he could do it.
“You py me d’ gasoline,” he said, “and I’ll take you up.” In
cidentally tiie gasoline cost $14. Likewise grub was purchased and
the first section of the crew set forth merrily. The others came
along in later launches with more steamboat men and gasoline
captains who already had beached their boats. Harry, a thin
Englishman of the Delta crew with an abiding distrust for gasoline
engines predicted disaster.
Three miles up the river the first jam was encountered. By
shoving and pulling and poling, with a line out, a little launch was
sma lied through. The chechako distinguished himself by step
ping overboard on a nice, smooth looking bit of bank—and sank up
to his knees in mud- He also was pulled out and the expedition
proceeded. Then the volunteer at the wheel took her up the wrong
channel and the trouble began right. It proved eventually to be
sand in the water pump but the distracted skipper did not find that
out until late in the evening, after the gasoline engine had been
carefully dissected. Luckily, one of the party had a tent and a
Yukon stove. Camp was pitched and supper cooked while the
[skipper and the chechako, whose knowledge of gasoline engines
was confined to pleasure launches, took out the entrails of the
balky machine, extracted the appendix of the pump, and an
nounced that “she” would run again. “She” did early the next
[ morning—for about five minutes. The rest of the day was spent
in taking “her” apart and putting “her” together again.
The exasperated skipper’s temper was not improved by the
| cutting remarks of the steamboat men. His arms were about worn
off trying to start her by turning over the flywheel and his vocabu
lary of Dutch cuss words exhausted. Kindly suggestions that he
'ought to have an ax to “fix” the engine seemed not to be well re
[ceived. Harry, the thin Englishman, would announce loudly and
mournfully to every sympathizer on the banks of the river that
1 “this ’ere ingin is all right. All this ’ere ingin needs is a new .lock,
stock and barrel.” After the feed pipe had been taken off and ex
| amined, the pump reset again, the carburetor cleaned, and the
! magnet tested, with about a million other things known only to
l gasoline engineers, the skipper finally decided that the eccentric
| was not working in accord with the piston (whatever that is). In
j poking a long twenty-penny nail down a knot-hole of the cylinder
j head, he let the nail fall in. There was nothing to it then but to
i perform another capital operation on the engine by taking off the
! top of its skull and removing the brains.
At this juncture, about twelve miles from Dikeman, another
j big ice jam was encountered. Also, a big gasoline boat, the Co
j lumbus, looking much like a huge Noah’s ark, hard and fast
I aground on a sand bar. The entire crew of the gasoline boat, the
! passengers and wood choppers in the vicinity were commanded to
help her off, including the chechako who was getting pretty mad
i and tired by this time. But the Delta’s hardy captain took com
mand of the operations and after much toil, the big boat was
j shifted over safely to a bank and beached. The grateful captain
I of the Columbus maintained that she had a fine gasoline engine —
J except it was busted and wouldn’t run. The operation of getting
! her off was largely accomplished with a “Spanish windlass” of
which the chechako had a holy terror. The determined little
captain by means of this infernal machine wound two small trees
; into a big rope tied from the boat to the bank, and the strain on
that rope caused the chechako’s hair to stand straight up every
j time he passed under the sticks. But- the boat came off.
The end of the voyage came a mile further where two other gaso
line boats were found drawn up on the beach, their owners having
|discovered an impassable ice jam in front. The launch Estella
jcame up at this juncture with another section of the rivermen from
| Dikeman. The disabled gasoline boat was assisted to the beach
land all the “put puts” w'ere drawn ashore in a line. There is a
1 veritable mosquito fleet camp at this point. All that was required
I for a town was a joy joint and lot stakers. The chechako had be
j come so used to sleeping six in a row in the little tent that he
didn’t mind it at all that night with the little Yukon stove inside
! red hot it was comfortable enough on top the Yukon “feathers.”
Those who had not a tent shivered around the camp fires and dis
: cussed the imminent scarcity of grub in the camp. The next morn
ing the mush to Idit? rod City began. The rivermen set out in
j parties of two and three and four and hit it up over the winter trail
i trail slashed by Surveyor Kobe and his men. Of course, there were
! numerous other adventurers on the trail, but if you want to hear
j some real Iditarod river profanity, ask one of the steamboat men
! about a gasoline boat.
The winter is coming, so get your
homes made comfortable while you can
get the material. Anderson Bros. &
Nerland, wallpaper, paints, sash, doors.
Save the pieces 1 broken lenses re
j placed at Simpson's.
Eyes examined free—Simpson's.
LOST—Four clogs from Discovery Ot
ter. Description as follows: Light
weights. half fox, tiuiicl and wild.
“Buck,” white; “Jack," white with
brown spots; “Baldr,” white and
yellow; “Whitey," malamute, gray
atd white. Reward if returned.
Geo. F. Kilroy, Boulder.
PROTECT
Yourself for Next Season by ordering your Goods from us now. We wifi guarantee
to save you at least 25 per cent, on the present prevailing prices, and we will further
guarantee to Sand your Goods here not later than July 2 direct from San Francisco
via. St. Michael
WE REPRESENT SOME OF THE LEAPiXO FIRMS ON THE PACIFIC FOA^T IX THEIR RESPECTIVE LINKS, AND
('AN AND WILL DELIVER THE POODS. OPR QUOTATIONS DEADLY FTRNIISHEP PATRONS AT ANY TIME
BAR RETT & LEWi N
direct representatives for
Tillman & Beiulel, Wholesale Groceries, Liquors and Cigars (including the Famous Budweiser Beer), San .Francisco,
N. K. Fairbanks Co., Soap, Lard, Cottolene, Etc., Chicago. Studebaker Bros. & Co., Wagons, Sleds, Autos, Etc.
Gorham Rubber Co., Rubber Goods, Hydraulic and Steam Hose, Chemicals, Etc,, San Francisco.
Anton Bock & Co., Bock Cigars, New York. Edward Wolf Co., Manila Cigars, San Francisco.