This is the shortest day of the year. We only have five hours of so-called daylight now, and it is rather gloomy. The thermometer registered 50 below today and it is about that now. Our holes were pretty well frozen up today so we couldn't do much in them.

Preston and I don't get along as well as two little doves. He knows it all and so do I. And then the work on this claim seems to be a blank anyhow. The reports from Little Manook Jr. make me desperate. Why does the gold come so near me, and not near enough for me to get it. I dunno. Maybe tis Kismet. I'd like to be at home tonight.

—Hunter Fitzhugh, letter in the form of a diary.

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