Evening star., 1898-10-08
BACK FROM THE kLONDIKE

About q month ago." said a diamond
drummer, who stopped in Washington on
his way from the Pacific slope to his New
York headquarters a couple Of days ago.
T went down from Portland Ore, to San
Francisco via the Coast Like When the
train left Portland there was only one oc-
cupant Of the sleeper with me. He was a
| man Of middle height. with broad shoul-
ders, slightly stopped, finely shaped head,
| and large, roughened hands. He had, too,
a pair of deep-set brown eyes, with some
shrewd crows feet slanting away from
them at the sides. He was a man, should
Judge, of about forty-two years of age and
he. wore ordinary suit of dark store
clothes, a makeup tie and somewhat worn
soft black hat. His linen was scrupulous-
ly neat and clean. Before l got into con-
versation With him. he struck me as, say,
prosperous proprietor of q brick yard,
who lad himself known the meaning of
| abor with the hands, or a well-to-do paving
contractor. or something like that.
He struck me as being rather diffidant
man. and as, owing to the nature of my
business. l naturally loquacious sort
OF chap. l myself started the travelling
craftsmanship with him. He was at the
outset the only other passenger with me,
as l say, and / had to talk with somebody
50 l leaned over the seat-my fellow-pas-
senger sat directly in front of me-and Of
fered him my flask. He turned around IN
MS seat ana SnlEnRly declined my invita-
ton to take a drink out of it. The man
had peculiar sort of winning smile.
L find that I'm not quite so young a
man as 1 used to be- he said, and very
little liquor uses me up. For this reason |
had to give it up a while back-not that
have any sort Of prejudice against ii. How
ever, 1 smoke a great deal more than L
ought to. and / was just about to go to the
smoking compartment for a cigar
Il Joined him in the smoking compart-
ment for a smoke. and l hadn't been there
with him for more than ten minutes be-
fore began to revise my first-thought-out
notions concerning him. | began to wonder
what manner of man he was. He wasn't
a taiker-rather, he was an unusually quiet
sort of man, and upon looking back to the
experience l remember that 1 did most of
the talking and he most of the listening.
But what the man cid say was full of in
telligence, horse sense. humor and IN In
cisive, yet not bitter, kind of sarcasm. /
have been on the road too long to believe
in this business Of exchanging cards with
chance travelling companions, and appar-
emily my sleeper mate had the same idea,
for neither of us made any sort of attempt
to learn the identity of the other. We just
smoked and talked away, and for my part,
/ enjoyed the mans common sense shrewd
way of handling subjects-rather a quaint
way he had, in fact and no fiubdub what
soever.
I'VE talked upon general matters. espe-
clally upon the future of the Pacific coast.
On this subject he displayed a rather inti-
mate knowledge. and in treating of the
mining possibilities of the country he an
peared to be especially at home.
Did you ever do any gold mining YOUR
self? | happened to ask him.
Yes, little he replied, and he went
on talking of the worked-out placers along
the California rivers.
noticed that when we got to talking of
news subjects Of the day he seemed to lag
someW hat. Finally l asked hIm If he had
read OF such and such thing about a week
before.
9 No he replied. haven't been reading
me papers much lately I've been too busy
Tell me about it
In fact he was way behind on the news
OF the day, and il struck me as rather
strange that a man of his unusual inteui-
gence should permit himself to thus lose
track OF what was going on in tue world
| thought that he must be a very busy man
indeed.
"A few hours out of Portland = talka-
tive young chap got on at one of tie way
stations He was son of the big mer-
chant OF his town, we gained from his
talk-he Joined us Immediately in the smok-
ing compartment and drifted into the cor
Ner5aton-and he had some strong ideas
about matters Two days before a big
steamer load of Klondike miners had ar
rived at Portland from Skaguay. Only n
few of the goldseekers had brought auv
dust back, and most of the miners had
very bitter hard-luck tales The yol;no
man mentioned this.
think said he, that any man of
hSt'iti WIN ) CdtbdDle or earning a
dollar a day in the country and climate he
was born in. and who goes jamming off
to the k'ondike. with five to one against
his ever getting back alive and hundred
TO one against his returning with the health
he started out with. Just for the sake OF
hunting a little yellow dust, is a fool
MY frie nj In the store clothes smiled in
a reflective kind of way.
don't know but what you're right
son, said he
L enjoyed the c6mpanionship of the quiet
man In the smoking compartment and in
the dining car all the way down to San
Francisco. It's always satisfaction to
me to meet and talk with a genuine man
there seem to be so few of EN- nowadays.
He was going TO the Palace Hotel in
Frisco. and SO was I. We got into the
Palace bus together when the train pulled
into San Francisco He walked UP to the
desk of the hotel a bit ahead of me- and the
cheerful way with which the hotel clerk
grabbed his hand, before he had a chance
to register, was caution.
Why, Mr.. Ladue. m certainly glad to
see you looking so tip-top,' said the clerk
to my quiet travelling companion, and in
sembled around him and carried him off to
the middle of the rotunda of the hotel.
'Ladue? Ladue? said | to the hotel
clerk when | registered Seems to me I've
heard that name somewhere
Well If you haven't seen it said the
clerk to me, you've been camping out
that's all. That's Joe Ladue he man who
practically found the Klondike ana he's
only got dozen or so of millions. He 1ust
got back to Portland from Alaska A few
days ago."