Gus murders Rose and runs to Russia. What were they doing in Alaska in
the second decade of the 20th Century? Gus Priesner is a coal miner from
the Ruhr Valley. A Prussian who served in the Kaiser's Navy in 1900, he
goes to Canada prior to World War I. Enroute to the Klondike, he meets a
Boer War veteran, changes direction, and becomes a copper miner in the
Alaskan wilderness. A strike at the mine changes his focus, and he
becomes a druggist, dispensing medicinal alcohol during Prohibition.
Rose Silberg is a Long Island socialite who resolves to find her fortune
in the wide-open town of McCarthy Alaska, near the Kennecott Copper
Company's mine. She does, and becomes the most expensive madam in the
Alaskan Territory. Rose and Gus are thrown together by an influenza
quarantine in 1918. He needs her money for an expensive shipment. She
needs her money to "go home" to Long Island. The lifting of the
quarantine brings the situation to a head. Gus runs to Russia. This
story tells what happened to McCarthy Rose.
