Klondike Nuggets | Page 2

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,