carpenter's wife began to cook for them, in
a tent. The miners gave her a lot, and the
carpenter put up a log hotel for her. There
she sometimes fed a hundred and fifty men
a day. Miners came in on snowshoes from
their placer claims twenty miles away to buy
fresh bread from her, and paid for it in gold.

That winter Tiny kept in her hotel a Swede
whose legs had been frozen one night in a
storm when he was trying to find his way back
to his cabin. The poor fellow thought it great
good fortune to be cared for by a woman, and
a woman who spoke his own tongue. When
he was told that his feet must be amputated,
he said he hoped he would not get well; what
could a working-man do in this hard world
without feet? He did, in fact, die from the
operation, but not before he had deeded Tiny
Soderball his claim on Hunker Creek. Tiny
sold her hotel, invested half her money in
Dawson building lots, and with the rest she
developed her claim. She went off into the
wilds and lived on it. She bought other claims
from discouraged miners, traded or sold them
on percentages.

After nearly ten years in the Klondike,
Tiny returned, with a considerable fortune,

[[339]]

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v?