shaking it wildly and threatening to bowl it over. He drove, in horizontal sheets, the fine, flour-like snow, shooting it through batten-crevice, door-crack and keyhole; and, finding myriad small apertures in the shake roof, sifted it down upon my face. He piled it in fantastic whirls around the house, selecting the side on which our one small window was, to bank it highest, so that he might shut out our light. He sent the red spirit in the thermometer tube down, down, down-ten below zero, twenty, thirty when it stormed, and forty, fifty, sixty below when it was still, and the black deathmist brooded over the icy wastes and men breathed ice-splinters instead of air.

The fuel supply for the Nome camp was very poor and scanty. Men were digging old, sodden logs of driftwood out of the snow, and hauling this sorry fire-wood twenty miles by hand. Coal was scarce and sold by the ton for $150.00, or by the bucket for ten cents a pound.

Having had experience with typhoid epidemics and other sicknesses in the Klondike Stampede, I had laid in a good supply of nice foods for the sick, such as malted milk, the best brands of condensed milk,

tapioca, farina, and other delicacies; but all of these had been given away before my own illness, and there was a scarcity of such articles in the stores.

But my friends, women and men,—indeed, everybody in the camp seemed interested in me and anxious to do something for mearose to meet all these emergencies and "ministered to mine infirmities." The Odd Fellows supplemented the efforts of the convalescent, but still shaky Perrigo, and cut the wind-packed snow into bricks and built it around the house, until it looked like a veritable Eskimo igloo. igloo. It was It was much warmer after this was done.

The doctors at Nome all prescribed a diet of milk and whiskey for their fever patients. Upon the news of my illness circulating in the camp a dozen bottles of different brands were at once sent to me. Billy came, examined, smelled at, and tasted these liquors, with the air of an expert. Then he bundled all the bottles into a gunny sack and carried them away, saying, "He's not going to have any of this dope. I've got some of the pure stuff, made in Ireland." And he brought me an ample supply for all my needs, and a gallon of pure alcohol for sponge-baths.

The Odd Fellows organized wood-cutting "bees" for my benefit, and daily carried water from the well for Mrs. Perrigo's use. The women collected food and milk from their own stores and those of others, and brought them to me. The fellowship of the wilderness, the finest in the world, had its full exercise for my benefit there at Nome. I doubt if there was a person in all that great camp who would not have given me cheerfully his last can of milk.

As the fever progressed and my condition grew more serious, the daily visitors were restricted to two-Mrs. Strong and Bunch-grass Bill. The lady looked after matters of business, my letters, and information about other sick people. Billy, with his soft, low voice and gentle manner, hovered over me, sitting for hours at my bedside, lifting me in his two big hands with infinite care and deftness. Never did son

care for father with more tender solicitude and fuller devotion than did this Irish Catholic saloon-keeper, this "bad man" of the western frontier, for me-a Protestant preacher.

There were many malamute dogs at Nome, great, beautiful, wolf-like beasts, and

the "malamute chorus " was much in evidence in the late hours of the night. One, in particular, which was tied up not far from Perrigo's cabin, tuned up regularly every morning at three o'clock with his highpitched tremolo, waking every dog within a mile, until all were howling, and keeping it up till daylight. There was no sleep possible for me while this concert was in progress, and I used to lie awake for hours, waiting fearfully for the leader to begin, and to cower in my robes with nervous chills coursing down my spine at every renewal of the long-drawn cadence, "Oo-0-0-0-0, 00-0-0-0-0, ow, ow, ow, ow."

My fever would always rise with the commencement of this discordant chorus and increase as long as it continued, and the doctor on his morning visit would find me exhausted and trembling. The words of Clarence would chase each other through my brain:

"With that, methought, a legion of foul fiends
Environ'd me, and howled in mine ears
Such hideous cries, that, with the very noise
I trembling wak'd, and, for a season after
Could not believe but what I was in hell."

Mrs. Perrigo told Billy of the nuisance. He stayed up that night until the leading canine musician shrieked his solo to the moon. He followed up the sound until he found the dog, roused the grumbling owner, paid the high price asked for the animal, led him down the beach half a mile, and shot him.

An errand of an opposite character also fell to Billy's lot. The barracks which housed a squadron of United States soldiers was less than a block from the cabin in which I lay. Every night at eleven o'clock a bugle of remarkable sweetness and expression would blow "Taps." I would listen for the soothing melody, and when it would sound I would turn over in my robe and obey its command, " Go-o-o to sle-e-ep."

Lieutenant Craig, the commander of the post, ordered the discontinuance of "Taps," thinking it would disturb me and the other sick people. That night I waited, as usual, for the "good-night " bugle, and when it did not sound I grew anxious and distraught. I thought my watch was wrong or the bugler must be sick. I grew excited, restless and feverish, and passed a sleepless night, missing my accustomed lullaby. We told Billy;