E-Book, Englisch, 444 Seiten
ISBN: 978-1-4553-5072-8
Verlag: Seltzer Books
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Klondike Nuggets And How Two Boys Secured Them By Edward Ellis
published by Samizdat Express, Orange, CT, USA established in 1974, offering over 14,000 books Westerns by Edward Ellis: Adrift in the Wilds Camp-Fire and Wigwam The Cave in the Mountain Cowmen and Rustlers The Daughter of the Chieftain Deerfoot in the Mountains Footprints in the Forest The Huge Hunter The Hunters of the Ozark In the Pecos Country The Land of Mystery The Lost Trail Oonomoo the Huron The Phantom of the River The Story of Red Feather Through Forest and Fire Two Boys in Wyoming feedback welcome: info@samizdat.com visit us at samizdat.com First published by: DOUBLEDAY & McCLURE CO. NEW YORK 1898 Copyright, 1898, by Doubleday & McClure Co. CHAPTER I. THE GOLD-HUNTERS CHAPTER II. AT JUNEAU CHAPTER III. UP THE LYNN CANAL CHAPTER IV. THE AVALANCHE CHAPTER V. THROUGH CHILKOOT PASS CHAPTER VI. A SIGNIFICANT DISCOVERY CHAPTER VII. THE PLOTTERS CHAPTER VIII. ON LAKE BENNET0 CHAPTER IX. INTO BRITISH TERRITORY CHAPTER X. AT WHITE HORSE RAPIDS CHAPTER XI. ON THE YUKON CHAPTER XII. AT DAWSON CITY CHAPTER XIII. ON THE EDGE OF THE GOLD-FIELDS CHAPTER XIV. PROSPECTING CHAPTER XV. A FIND CHAPTER XVI. THE CLAIM CHAPTER XVII. CHAPTER XVII. A GOLDEN HARVEST CHAPTER XVIII. A STARTLING DISCOVERY CHAPTER XIX. THE TRAIL INTO THE MOUNTAINS CHAPTER XX. A SOUND FROM OUT THE STILLNESS CHAPTER XXI. A TURNING OF THE TABLES CHAPTER XXII. A LION IN THE PATH CHAPTER XXIII. A GENERAL SETTLEMENT OF ACCOUNTS CHAPTER XXIV. CONCLUSION KLONDIKE NUGGETS AND HOW TWO BOYS SECURED THEM CHAPTER I. THE GOLD-HUNTERS.
Jeff Graham was an Argonaut who crossed the plains in 1849, while he was yet in his teens, and settling in California, made it his permanent home. When he left Independence, Mo., with the train, his parents and one sister were his companions, but all of them were buried on the prairie, and their loss robbed him of the desire ever to return to the East. Hostile Indians, storm, cold, heat, privation, and suffering were the causes of their taking off, as they have been of hundreds who undertook the long journey to the Pacific coast in quest of gold. Jeff spent several years in the diggings, and after varying fortune, made a strike, which yielded him sufficient to make him comfortable for the rest of his days. He never married, and the income from his investments was all and, indeed, more than he needed to secure him against want. He was now past threescore, grizzled, somewhat stoop-shouldered, but robust, rugged, strong, and, in his way, happy. His dress varied slightly with the changes of the seasons, consisting of an old slouch hat, a red shirt, coarse trousers tucked in the tops of his heavy boots, and a black neckerchief with dangling ends. He had never been addicted to drink, and his only indulgence was his brierwood pipe, which was his almost inseparable companion. His trousers were secured at the waist by a strong leathern belt, and when he wore a coat in cold weather he generally had a revolver at his hip, but the weapon had not been discharged in years. There were two members of that overland train whom Jeff never forgot. They were young children, Roswell and Edith Palmer, who lost both of their parents within five years after reaching the coast. Jeff proved the friend in need, and no father could have been kinder to the orphans, who were ten and twelve years younger than he. Roswell Palmer was now married, with a son named for himself, while his sister, Mrs. Mansley, had been a widow a long time, and she, too, had an only son, Frank, who was a few months older than his cousin. The boys had received a good common-school education, but their parents were too poor to send them to college. Jeff would have offered to help but for his prejudice against all colleges. The small wages which the lads received as clerks in a leading dry-goods house were needed by their parents, and the youths, active, lusty, and ambitious, had settled down to the career of merchants, with the hoped-for reward a long, long way in the future. One evening late in March, 1897, Jeff opened the door of Mr. Palmer's modest home, near the northern suburb of San Francisco, and with his pipe between his lips, sat down in the chair to which he was always welcome. In truth, the chair was considered his, and no one would have thought of occupying it when he was present. As he slowly puffed his pipe he swayed gently backward and forward, his slouch hat on the floor beside him, and his long, straggling hair dangling about his shoulders, while his heavy beard came almost to his eyes. It was so late that the wife had long since cleared away the dishes from the table, and sat at one side of the room sewing by the lamp. The husband was reading a paper, but laid it aside when Jeff entered, always glad to talk with their quaint visitor, to whom he and his family were bound by warm ties of gratitude. Jeff smoked a minute or two in silence, after greeting his friends, and the humping of his massive shoulders showed that he was laughing, though he gave forth no sound. "What pleases you, Jeff?" asked Mr. Palmer, smiling in sympathy, while the wife looked at their caller in mild surprise. "I've heerd it said that a burned child dreads the fire, but I don't b'lieve it. After he's burnt he goes back agin and gits burnt over. Why is it, after them explorers that are trying to find the North Pole no sooner git home and thawed out than they're crazy to go back agin! Look at Peary. You'd think he had enough, but he's at it once more, and will keep at it after he finds the pole--that is, if he ever does find it. Nansen, too, he'll be like a fish out of water till he's climbing the icebergs agin." And once more the huge shoulders bobbed up and down. His friends knew this was meant to serve as an introduction to something else that was on Jeff's mind, and they smilingly waited for it to come. "It's over forty years since I roughed it in the diggings, starving, fighting Injins, and getting tough," continued the old minor musingly. "After I struck it purty fair I quit; but I never told you how many times the longing has come over me so strong that it was all I could do to stick at home and not make a fool of myself." "But that was in your younger days," replied his friend; "you have had nothing of the kind for a good while." Jeff took his pipe from the network of beard that enclosed his lips, and turned his bright, gray eyes upon the husband and wife who were looking curiously at him. They knew by the movement of the beard at the corners of the invisible mouth that he was smiling. "There's the joke. It's come over me so strong inside the last week, that I've made up my mind to start out on a hunt for gold. What do you think of that, eh?" And restoring his pipe to his lips, he leaned back and rocked his chair with more vigor than before, while he looked fixedly into the faces of his friends. [Illustration: JEFF.] "Jeff, you can't be in earnest; you are past threescore--" "Sixty-four last month," he interrupted; "let's git it right." "And you are in no need of money; besides it is a hard matter to find any place in California where it is worth your while--" "But it ain't Californy," he broke in again; "it's the Klondike country. No use of talking," he added with warmth, "there's richer deposits in Alaska and that part of the world than was ever found hereabouts. I've got a friend, Tim McCabe, at Juneau; he's been through the Klondike country, and writes me there's no mistake about it; he wants me to...