BUNCH-GRASS BILL

Although I had often met him on the streets of Dawson in '98, I had not come into hand-shaking contact with Bunch-grass Bill until my first week at Nome. Of all the social orders whose members gathered together in clubs for humane work during the epidemic of typhoid fever, the first to organize, besides being the strongest and most active, was the Odd Fellows' Club. It was already organized when I arrived and, as I belonged to the order, I was present at the second meeting. The young lawyer who was president of the Club, taking me around the little circle of earnest men, brought me to a black-haired, black-eyed, sturdily-built and singularly handsome young Irishman by the name of Billy Murtagh.

"Billy owns and runs the 'Beach Saloon,' and goes by the name of Bunch-grass Bill," introduced our president. "I don't know how he got into the Odd Fellows, under rules which bar saloon-keepers and bad men. But he's in, and we'll not turn him out of the Club, at least so long as this distress continues."

Bill made no reply to this rather uncomplimentary introduction, but shook hands with Irish heartiness and looked at me with level gaze. "I've seen you in my saloon at Dawson," he said.

The others laughed, and the president chided, "You oughtn't to give a preacher away like that, Bill."

Taking a closer look at the young man, a scene at Dawson a year earlier flashed upon me. I was collecting money to pay the passage on the steamboat bound down the Yukon of some poor fellows who were broken and sick, and who must go "outside" or die. I made the round of the saloons and gambling halls, and going into one of these places was curtly refused by one of the partners. The other, who was this young man, came up and quietly said to the cashier, "Weigh him out two ounces ($32.00)."

"Oh, I remember you now, and your two ounces," I said to Bill; and to the others, "I can vouch for his knowing the Second Degree of the order, at least."

I was made chairman of the Relief Committee of the Club, and found work a-plenty cut out for me. Although the members of the Club did not look with indifference upon any case of distress, yet its prime object was to look up and help the sick Odd Fellows. I prepared a bulletin and tacked it up in the stores and saloons, directing that any cases of distress among the members of the order should be reported to the Committee. As the typhoid epidemic increased in virulence, the Club found its hands full.

A day or two after this first meeting, I was passing Bill's saloon when he called me in.

"I've just heard of a sick man," he reported, "and I think he's an Odd Fellow." Then, after a pause, he added, "But if he isn't that doesn't make a —— bit of difference."

He led the way along the beach for half a mile or more, to an isolated tent, where we found the typhoid case. Billy stayed until he made sure that the man was well cared for in the charge of friends and a good physician. Then he took me aside and slipped a twenty-dollar gold piece into my hand. "Use that for him," he directed.

The next day I had to raise a hundred and fifty dollars to send an old miner who was poor and crippled "outside." I marched at once to the "Beach Saloon." "Billy," I said, "this old-timer has blown in all his dust for booze; and it's up to you who have got it from him to take care of him now."

"That's right," he promptly answered. "There's ten saloons; what would be my share?"

"An ounce," I replied, passing him the paper.

He weighed out the gold dust. "Wait a while before going on. I'll pass the word down the line," he said.

Half an hour afterwards I stopped again at his door. "They're all ready," reported Bill. "If any of them guys don't come across, just tell me."

They all "came across," and thereafter, until I left Nome, all the saloon-keepers met every demand I made upon them without question. When a man had been impoverished or made sick through drink I went to the saloons, only, for his relief. In other cases I made a general canvass. When collecting money for church purposes I went to everybody, except the saloon-keepers and their following.

The day before my second meeting with the Odd Fellows' Club—a rainy, blustering day—I came to Bunch-grass Bill with a greater demand.

"It is you I want this time, Billy, not just your money," I said. "There is a sick Odd Fellow in a tent almost a mile from here. He is alone and lying in a puddle of water. Get your gum-boots and find three or four other stout men and come with me."

Bill agreed at once, found a man to tend his bar, secured a squad of strong and willing men, a stretcher from the army post and a good physician and went with me on the errand of mercy. He worked all day in the mud and rain. He carried the sick man to the warehouse which we had turned into a temporary hospital, visited all the stores in an attempt to find mattresses, and, failing in that, bought eight large reindeer skins and piled them on the floor for a bed, bought underwear, dry blankets and other comforts for the sick man, and laid in a supply of delicacies for the use of the hospital. In all, he spent over fifty dollars and a whole day of strenuous work upon the case.

When I asked him at dusk if he were not tired he laughed: "Never had a better time in all my life."

That night was the regular weekly meeting of the Club. I made my report, which was quite long, and mentioned many distressing cases, showing an alarming increase of the typhoid. Then I asked for a rotary relief committee of three to be chosen at every other meeting, and a permanent relief committee of two.

"I've found the biggest-hearted man in all Alaska," I said. "His business and mine are not quite the same. In fact I have been all my life fighting saloons and saloon-keepers, and I expect to keep on fighting them until I die. But this man's heart of love for his fellow-men fights his business harder than I can."

Then I related some of the things Billy had done during the past week, and ended my speech by asking that he be put on the permanent relief committee with me. "We two will find the sick and cut out the work for the rest of you," I promised.

The Club applauded, much to the confusion of Bill, who tried his best to shrink out of sight. One of the boys reported next morning.

"Say, Doctor," he began, "you sure scared Bunch-grass Bill near to death last night. Tickled, too. He asked us all to come in and have one on him. He doesn't know anything else to do when he feels good. 'That's a new one on me,' he said. 'I never had anything to do with a preacher in my life. Didn't like 'em. Kept shy of 'em. But if Father Young sees fit to come into my saloon—and he's in it every day—I'll go with him wherever he wants me to go—even if it's to his church.'"

That touched me, for I could sense something of the sacrifice it would involve. It would be far easier for Bill to start on a three-thousand-mile winter mush on snow-shoes, over unbroken trails, than to step inside of a Protestant meeting-house.

From that time on, Bill was my right hand. As the number of typhoid victims increased, he made his saloon an intelligence office, finding and reporting to me all new cases. The example of the Odd Fellows stimulated the various social orders represented in the camp—the Masons, Knights of Pythias, Elks, Eagles, and others—to a like humane work; and Bill looked up their sick members and reported to their committees. He saw that all the sick had medical attention, and guaranteed the payment of scores of doctor's bills. Each steamboat that left Nome for the "outside" carried a number of convalescents and broken-down and moneyless men, and funds had to be raised for their passage. Bill headed nearly all of these subscription lists, as well as those for fitting up the four temporary hospitals we opened and filled with sick men.

Being for over six weeks the only clergyman in that whole region, I conducted all the funerals. One week I had eleven—all typhoid cases. Bill attended them all, looking after the digging of the graves and making coffins, and often acting as undertaker.

Now, I am not setting up my saloon friend as a saint. Quite the contrary. I suppose he had been guilty of every crime mentioned in the Decalogue. He had never known any home life, but had knocked about from camp to camp of the western frontiers ever since boyhood. His ideas of morality, therefore, were very vague. He was said to have been "run out" of several towns in Montana and Idaho. He had a violent temper and, as the phrase went, was "quick on the trigger." Rumor said that he had the blood of more than one man on his hands; although it was claimed, in every case, that he had not sought the quarrel. He sold whiskey and drank it, gambled and swore habitually without a thought of any of these things being wrong. He was simply an uncultured, ignorant, rough-and-ready, Irish-American backwoodsman.

But to those of us in the raw camp of Nome who witnessed Bill's untiring kindness and self-sacrifice during those weeks of distress, his faults faded into the background behind the light of his many good deeds. St. Peter says, "Charity covers a multitude of sins," and surely Bill's charity "abounded" overwhelmingly, putting out of sight much of the evil in his life.

As for me, I shall always think of him as one of the most loyal, devoted friends I ever had, and the saver of my life. For after seven weeks of most strenuous and wearing work, I was suddenly stricken down with the typhoid myself. The blow came when I was fairly drowned in the multitude of my duties. I was raising the money to send out on the steamboat four or five men who must leave the country or die—poor fellows whose vitality was so low that they could not combat the cold and storms of a Nome winter. I was also preparing another warehouse-hospital. So great was the demand for space for the care of the sick that I had felt compelled to take into my own ten-by-twelve tent three men sick with the disease. So crowded was the tent that I had to sleep under the bed of one of them. Billy Murtagh and others of the Odd Fellows' Club warned me against thus exposing myself to the infection, but there seemed to be no other way. Billy brought me all his remaining Apollinaris water that I might not have to drink the impure seepage of the tundra. Some of the brothers carried me pails of water from the one well which had been recently put down.

While I was in the midst of the canvass for funds, and in the bustle of preparation for the departure of the last steamboats, I had a terrific headache for several days. I was besieged day and night by friends of sick men for places to put the stricken ones where they could be cared for. The life of a number of these men seemed to depend on my keeping on my feet. I had no time to be sick. I kept away from Billy and my other friends, for fear they might forcibly interfere.

But one of the Odd Fellows saw me as I was coming out of a store with a subscription paper in my hand. He looked at me for a moment and hurried to the "Beach Saloon."

"Bill," he shouted, "get a doctor, quick, and go to the parson. I saw him just now staggering along with his face as red as fire and his hand to his head. He's got the fever, sure."

Billy came running down the beach with Dr. Davy at his heels and caught me as I was entering my tent. Without ceremony they picked up the sick man who was in my cot and carried him to another tent near by. Then, in spite of my protests, they undressed me and laid me in my blankets. I was half delirious and stubborn. I fought them.

"This is all nonsense, Doctor," I protested. "I have only a headache. There is no time to fool away. These men must go out on this steamboat, and the money is not raised. Let me alone."

Dr. Davy finished his examination and turned to Bunch-grass Bill. "He has a bad case of typhoid," was his verdict, "and ought to have been in bed three or four days ago. Find a house to put him in and a woman to nurse him."

Bill had one of the softest and sweetest voices I ever heard. He came to me and laid his cool hand on my forehead. "Don't you worry about those men, Father," he said gently. "I'll attend to that. Now who do you want to nurse you?"

"Mrs. Perrigo," I replied. "She has just built a new cabin. I helped her with it. Her husband is recovering from the fever."

Soon the good woman was in my tent, eager to serve. I was carried through a driving snow-storm to her cabin. It was a rude affair built of rough boards set upright and battened with narrow, half-inch strips. A single thickness of building-paper poorly supplemented the inch boards. But cold and uncomfortable as it was, it was the only available shelter. I had them bring my tent and make a storm-shed of it in front of the door. There, for more than two months, I was to lie helpless.

My friends told me afterwards of the consternation that my illness caused. I was chairman of all the general relief committees—those of the town council, the citizens, the mission, the Odd Fellows. That the leader should thus be laid aside seemed a greater calamity than was actually the case. For Mr. Wirt of the Congregational Church arrived with lumber to erect a hospital, and Raymond Robins, a young man of great earnestness and talent, who has since arisen to national prominence, came with him to help in Christian work.

The night after I was taken to the Perrigo cabin, there was a meeting of the Odd Fellows' Club. Billy Murtagh was present and made his first public speech. As my illness and the general situation was discussed he rose to his feet, the tears streaming down his face. He seemed unconscious of them—or, at least, unashamed.

"Fellers," he faltered, "I'm hard hit. This gets me where I live. Now I'll tell you this: you fellers can look after the other sick folks, and call on me when you need any money. But I want you to leave Father Young to me. I've adopted him. He's my father. All I've got is his. If there's anything in this camp he needs, he's goin' to have it."

Ah, that long, desperate fight for life! The stunning pain in my head, the high fever, the delirium, the nervous terror, the deadly weakness, the emaciation, the chills and nausea! I was badly handicapped in my fight. The two months of wearing work and strain which preceded my illness had exhausted me, body and mind—there was no vital reserve to draw upon.

I was in a little, cold shanty, twelve feet square, crowded and unhealthy. Two people besides myself must live in that tiny room—sleep there, cook there. The savage arctic winter raged against us, howling his vengeance upon our impudence in thus braving him, unprepared. He made every nail-head inside the house a knob of frost. When my blankets, damp with the steam of cooking, touched the wall, he clamped them so tight one must tear the fabric in pulling it free. He made my clothing, stowed under the cot, a solid lump of ice. He asphyxiated us with foul gases when the door was closed, and filled the room instantly with fine snow from the condensation of the moisture when it was opened. He charged constantly upon the thin shell of the house with his high October and November winds, 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 death-mist 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 me—arose 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. 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 high-pitched 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-o-o-o-o, oo-o-o-o-o, 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:

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; he went to see the Lieutenant, and the next night the lovely, soothing phrase sounded forth on the still night air, and I slept.

Taps.
Listen

Another cause of nervousness and anxiety arose, requiring the efforts of both Mrs. Strong and Billy Murtagh to solve the difficulty. I was paying my nurse, Mrs. Perrigo, five dollars a day, which was almost all she and her husband had to live on. They had been eating for a year and a half a food outfit designed for only a single season, and there was but little of it left. Mr. Perrigo, who was a Yankee tintype-picture peddler and knew no other trade, had tried his best to be a gold-miner; but, in common with the rest of the forlorn "Kobuckers," had made nothing at all. His wife, who had been a bookkeeper in Boston, valiantly took up the trades of waitress, washerwoman and cook in the Arctic wilderness, but there was but little money in that disappointed crowd. Almost immediately after landing on the "golden sands" of Nome in August Mr. Perrigo was stricken with the fever. With the fearful prices that prevailed, my five dollars a day was little enough to feed them and meet the monthly payments on their house.

I had accumulated $125.00—mostly wedding fees—when I was taken sick. It melted away like a spoonful of sugar in a cup of hot coffee. Every Monday I must have thirty-five dollars for my faithful nurse. I placed in Mrs. Strong's hands for sale my Parker shotgun, my typewriter, my gold-scales, my extra overcoat, all gifts from friends. She got good prices for them, and for the few articles I could spare from my food supply—but still the phantom weekly payment menaced me. When I closed my eyes the figures—$35.00—big and lurid—stared at me, and in my delirious dreams became red goblins, mocking me.

A splendid woman, member of the church which assumed my salary, had given me two beautiful wolf robes. I was lying in the heavier one. I delivered the other to Mrs. Strong. "Sell it for me," I requested. "You ought to get fifty or sixty dollars for it."

A week passed—then another. Mrs. Strong reported she "was holding the robe for a higher price." The crisis I had dreaded had arrived. My money was gone. I had none to meet next Monday's payment.

"Sell the robe for what it will bring," I directed Mrs. Strong. "I must have the money."

"I'll sell it on Saturday," she promised.

Monday morning Mrs. Strong marched in with a large canvas money-bag in her hand. With Mrs. Perrigo's assistance she counted out the money, which was mostly in silver coins. Then she wrote in large figures, "$158.50," and pinned the paper on the wall by my head.

"Where on earth did you get that money?" I cried.

"Why, for the robe, of course."

"You never got all that for it."

"Yes, I did," she affirmed.

Then the truth dawned upon me. "Mrs. Strong!" I exclaimed, "you raffled the robe!"

"Yes," she laughed. "What are you going to do about it?"

Then she explained. Finding it impossible to get a fair price for the fur blanket she and Bunch-grass Bill had laid their heads together. They knew that I would not consent to a raffle, so they kept the matter quiet. Bill displayed the robe in front of his saloon. Shares were offered at fifty cents each. My lady friends of the mission sold tickets. Bill bought fifty and others of my friends did almost as well. Their purpose if they won the robe was to give it back to me.

What could I do? To rebuke their kindly deception would be ungracious indeed. With brimming eyes I thanked my friends, and Mrs. Perrigo got her money.

But the greatest of Bunch-grass Bill's many acts of kindness towards me remains to be told. As Dr. Davy had said from the first, mine was "a bad case." I had seven and a half weeks of high fever before it broke, whereas the usual limit of fever was three weeks. I reached the extreme of emaciation and weakness. I could hardly lift my hand. When they bundled me in a blanket like a baby and hung me on the hook of a big steelyard I weighed sixty pounds! I was long in the Valley of the Shadow of Death and reached its utmost boundary, until the very waters of the dark river lapped my feet.

"Well, Bill," said Dr. Davy with a sigh, as he was returning one morning from his call upon me, and stopped, as was his custom, to report to the "Beach Saloon," "I'm afraid it's about over. I don't think Dr. Young can last much longer. He can retain nothing on his stomach. We've tried all the brands of condensed milk in the camp to no avail. Everything comes up the instant it is swallowed. There are many internal complications, and he may go off any hour in one of those deathly convulsive chills."

"Big Wilbur," who reported the scene to me afterwards, said that Bill's face "went white as chalk, and then flushed red as fire." He jumped at the doctor as though he were going to assault him.

"By God," he cried, "he's not goin' to die. We'll not let him, Doc. See here: When I had the fever at Dawson, what saved me was cow's milk. Now, there's a cow here. You come with me, and we'll go see her."

"That cow," explained Wilbur, "was a wonderful animal. Her owner sold twenty gallons of milk a day from her, and she didn't look as if she gave one. Bill knew the owner was doping the milk with condensed milk and corn-starch and water and other stuff. So he strapped on his two big guns. He's great for bluff, is Bill. Doc. and I went along to see the fun. We found the owner in the stable 'tending to his cow. Bill didn't beat around the bush any.

"'You look here' he said. 'Your cow's givin' too darned much milk. Now this man I want it for is my father, an' he's got enough microbes in him already. Doc. here, analyzed your milk; didn't you, Doc?' (Doc. Davy was game, and nodded.) 'He says you put tundra water and all kinds of dope in it. I'm goin' to keep tab on you, an' if you dope my milk—well, you know me! It don't make no difference what you charge—a dollar a bottle or five dollars a bottle—my father's got to have pure milk. Understand?'"

For three months Billy went to the stable every day and superintended the milking. At a cost to him, sometimes, of three dollars for a pint bottle, and never less than a dollar a bottle, the "bad man" brought me every day, with his own hands, a bottle of fresh milk. When Bill and the doctor came in with that first bottle Mrs. Perrigo carefully raised my head and gave me a brimming glass of the rich milk. I drank it all and dropped off to sleep. I needed no more whiskey. The turning point of my illness was that glass of cow's milk. Bill's big bluff saved my life!

To show the rough, yet fine sentiment of the man, let me tell one last word about the lone cow. She went dry before spring, and, as the camp was crazy for fresh meat, the owner butchered her. One of the Odd Fellows told me. Said he, "Bill just went wild when he heard of it, and we had all we could do to keep him from going gunning for the man who killed the cow that saved your life. Why, that man would lay down his life for you, and laugh while he was doin' it."

I would I could tell of Bunch-grass Bill's conversion and entire reformation, but this is a true story, and I never heard that he ever got so far as that. This much, however, I am proud to tell. One day in the spring of 1900, when the army of gold-seekers was beginning to land on the "Golden Beach," I was standing with Bill near his saloon. On a sudden impulse I spoke to him.

"Billy," I said, "I love you, but I don't like your business. It's a bad business. See what it has done to lots of good fellows around here. You are too big for that game. I wish you'd drop it and do something that's clean—that doesn't hurt anybody."

Bill made no reply, and I supposed my words had been fruitless. But in a few weeks one of my friends informed me that Bill had sold out and had gone to gold-mining.

"That's good!" I exclaimed. "Did he give any reason?"

"Yes," the man replied, "Bill said you told him to."

When I was returning to Alaska in 1901, I bought a nice buffalo smoking-set at the Pan-American Exposition and took it to Alaska for Bunch-grass Bill. I did not see him, as he was mining at a distance, but I heard of his pride and pleasure as he displayed the gift and talked affectionately of "Father Young." He left Alaska that summer, and I have heard vaguely of his presence in the Nevada gold-fields. But wherever he is, I pray that God may bless and save the Irish saloon-keeper, who loved me and saved my life.

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