Klondike Nuggets | Page 2

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 join him. I'm going to do it, and your boy Roswell and his cousin Frank are to go with me. Oh, it's all settled," said Jeff airily; "the only question is how soon you can git him ready. A day oughter be enough."
The husband and wife looked at each other in astonishment. They had not dreamed of anything like this; but if the truth were told, Mr. Palmer had been so wrought up by the wonderful stories that were continually coming from Alaska and