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"Flour that we had shipped from Seattle, and which cost over $5 per
barrel, cost as much more for freight to this place. But as we sold it
for over $40 a barrel before it left the dock, we had nothing to
complain of; and it was very poor flour at that, not fit for bread, and
hardly suitable for the plainest kind of cooking.

"As for our restaurant, we started it with the idea of giving people
good home cooking, and we can hardly serve the people, they come so
fast. The restaurant is open day and night, and the tables always full.
At first we got a good price for our meals, that is, from $1.50 to $2.50
for a dinner. But there is more competition now, and prices have gone
down.

"The town is still filled with gamblers, and is a mining town in every
sense of the word, although the troops keep the rough element in fairly
good order. The town is particularly lonely for refined women, as there
are very few here, and very little in the way of amusement for them.

"It is not so very cold. I have seen as severe weather in the States;
and the thermometer rarely goes below 15 degrees below zero, and that is
not so bad. But there is very little sun, and this we miss the most. We
work by lamplight day and night.

"Whatever people may say about the Klondike, there is still plenty of
gold there; and although we are making a barrelful of money here at this
business, we will very probably 'up stakes' and go to the diggings.
Every boat that arrives is loaded with gold-hunters, and Skaguay is
crowded. Hundreds of people are camped between here and Chilkoot Pass,