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Rex Beach. The Looting Of Alaska
The Looting Of Alaska
Table of Contents
Chapter 1 The Golden Opportunity
Chapter 2 A Suborned Judiciary
Chapter 3 The Receivership Business
Chapter 4 The Reign Of Terror
Chapter 5 Aftermath and Retrospect
THE END
Отрывок из книги
Rex Beach
Published by Good Press, 2022
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With the spring of 1899 came a horde of strangers. These were the less adventurous ones, who had not risked the long winter trip by dog team. The first spring steamers, loaded to the gunwales, brought them down the Yukon, while the rickety fleet of stern-wheel, side-wheel, gasoline, and steam craft, which had been knocked together overnight for the Klondike rush two years before, brought back the crowds they had taken into the Canadian fields. The news of the Nome strike had reached the States, and some few came up by ocean steamer from Seattle and San Francisco, but not many. It was too new as yet. Some Swedes had rocked out a few thousand dollars in the late fall—that was all. There was nothing definite. Not so with Alaskans. They knew what those scanty yellow ounces meant and they came by steamer, by skiff, by skin boat and kyak. No man walks here in the summer—the distances are too magnificent. A city grew between dawns, a city of gleaming white canvas which hardened to frame and zinc as the weeks passed. Although the land was as barren of timber, the beach was piled high with driftwood, and as the days grew long and the nights warm, life was pleasant.
Gamblers and women were close upon the heels of the first comers, as is ever the case. Saloons and dance halls appeared. Music and the rattle of dice sounded through canvas walls. The workers swarmed over the hills, and although the signs of gold were everywhere, there was no vacant ground left. The Swedes had taken it all. Now began the trouble which led to the great conspiracy at Washington.
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