The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1901-05-31
A
Million Dollar
Check.
BY S WARMAN.
Copyright, 1901, by Cy Warman.

FTA TWO prospectors had three
claims in a new camp in Brit
E5TSzSE ish Columbia, but they had
tSSsAy not the $3.50 to pay for having
them recorded. They told their story to
Colonel Topping, author of 1.-The Yel-
lowstone Park" The colonel advanced
the necessary amount. In time the
prospectors returned So of the loan and
gave the colonel one of the claims for
the balance, but more for his kindness
to them, for they reckoned it a bully
good prospect. Because they consider
ed it the best claim in the camp they
called it lie Roi. Subsequently the
colonel sold this king" that had cost
him $3.50 for $4,000.
The new owners of lie Roi stocked
the claim, and for the following two or
three years when a man owed debt
that he was unwilling to pay he paid it
in lie Roi stock If he felt like back
ing doubtful horse, he put up hand
full of mining stock to punish the win
ner. There is in the history of this in
teresting mine story of a man swap
ping d lOl VI Lac IlUl SlOClA lJI IL UullC.
The former owner of the donkey took
the stock and the man it came from
into court, declaring that the paper
was worthless and that he had been
bunkoed AS late as 1894 Il man who
ran restaurant offered 10000 shares
of LIE .Roi stock for four barrels of Ca
madam whisky, but the whisky man
would not trade that way.
In the meantime, however, men were
working in the mine, and now they be-
gan to ship ore. 1t was worth S27 a
ton, and the stock became valuable.
Scattered over the northwest were J00,-
900 shares that We're worth 100000.
Nearly all the men who had put money
into the enterprise were Yankees-min-
ing men from Spokane, just over the
border. These men began now to pick
up all the stray shares that could be
found, and III little while e;ght-tenths
Of the shares were held by men living
south OF the line. At Northport, in
Washington. they built one of the finest
smelters in TIE northwest. hauled their
ore over there and smelted it. The Gre
was rich in gold and copper. They put
in a 300 horsepower hosting engine
and a 40 drill ;:;r compressor, The lar
gest in Canada, taking all the money
for these improvements cut of the
mine. The thing was 4 success, and
news of it ran down to Chicago. A par
ty of men with money started for the
new goldticlds, but as they were buy
ing tickets three men rushed in and
took tickets for Seattle. These were
mining men, and those who had bought
only to British Columbia cashed in,
asked for transportation to the coast
and followed the crowd to the IIlon-
dixie.
In that way LIE Roi for the moment
was forgotten.
The lieutenant governor of the North
west Territories, who had been a jour
nalist and had nose for news, heard
Of the new camp. All the while men
were rushing to the Klondike, for it is
the nature of man to go from home for
a thing that he might secure under his
own vine.
The governor visited the new camp.
A man named Ross Thompson had
staked out town at the foot of lie Roi
| dump and called it Rossland. The gov
ernor put men to work quietly in the
mine and then went back to his plank
palace at Regina, capital of the North
west Territories-to capital that look
ed for the world like Kansas frontier
town that had Just ceased to be the
county seat. Here for months he wait.
ed, watching the Imperial limited cross
the prairie, receiving delegations Of