The Pensacola journal. (Pensacola, Fla.) 1898-1985, 1910-06-12


|E@W smoked and lounged
- about the balsam-scented
lportage-end while Timber-Line Ike rip-sawed
and whitfield and adjusted a patch emitting
varied and blasphemous CALCULATIONS on the
linordinate destructiveness of bears in general
as he worked.
why'd that bear-cub bite holes in boat
bottom, anyhow" inquired the City Man.
aus emery ALFRED cussedness!" ex-
iplained Sunset Brisco. "Allow there amt
ia meaner animile on four legs than bear!"
(which same reminds me o. that Kippewa
Sout6t o. mine," ruminated the man. called
iBeasley, bending low over the frayed end of
ia tump-line he was trimming.
"a she-bear's sure mischeevious as
foondn," put in bearded sage who was
Intending shoe-pack with thread and needle.
| "And reckon Andy Wachett were as i'll
fused by one O. them four-legged varmints as
Eany man who ever chawed bannock," COM
tmented Sunset Brisco.
"Me and Andy and a ex-eatin' house man
tcalled Bill Weinert had drifted down from
tSkaguay in the off season." began Sunset.
1--WE were beatin' it for the Fort Lizard coun-
Try. Been tipped off about color-signs in the
upper foothills. But we scratched for two
Hundred miles without a grain o. dust, and
we were sore and lean as shotes when we
bumped into Free Trader named Tiernan.
HTiernan allowed he'd hay-raked that foothill
country for ten years and knew it like
fmother-in-law. Said he'd give us his Upper
Elbow gold-claims for our two old guns and
zone hundred and sixty-seven cartridges, all
told.
n ANDY, who was great studier, sat down
7end fggered out them two guns was worth
leleven dollars. The ammunition, bein'
canadian and nine-year DID, by record, was
worth good dollar and half, easy. That
made twelve dollars and fifty cents for gold
SClaim. We kicked agin gvin' up the guns,
In God-forsaken country like that But,
Jas Andy explained, we'd only been usin' 'em
for tent mallets, and they weren't much
lbetter'n a couple of axes, any time, in the
weapon line. s5
candy had way O. fggerin' things out for
hissef. He was about as close-runnin' and
long-winded studier, was Andy, as ever
firted a pan. Whenever he saw hisself
buckin' up against trouble he just sat and
whitfield and worked his face and smoked
and then leaned back and looked at his
thumbs, kind o. wistful and dreamy-ey
But he sure stuck to them problems, till he
had EN- roped and hog tied, every time
$50 after we'd talked it over, and Andy'd
done an hour or two more o. studyin', the
swap with Tiernans settled, and off we starts
for the hills. We gifts credit, and teams and
RATS In with us two barrels o. pork, and -four
and sugar and tea, key o liquor, and
Im'Iasses, and plug -tobacco-and Andy bein'
strong on fruit, havin' once had touch of
lscurvy up in the Yukon, we likewise takes in
Esix sacks of evaporated apples.
az allow it was Andy did all the studyin'
lfor that party. He studied out the right
location for the shack He studied out a
lscheme o. dove-tailin' the tamarack legends,
land how to flume little uphill spring in
Through the roof 50 we'd have water on hand,
lsnowed-under or not, and how to beam and
wall off the upper part O. that safety-deposit
lshack for the water-tank and grub, with a
lseif-lockin' trap-door. And I guess Andy
was some justified in takin' the pride he did
lin that venture, SEEM we struck pay-dirt
the second day Quit
"But there was one thing Andy couldn't
study out, When we'd worked down to our
first pocket, and when we'd located our best
payin' placer gravel, our problem was to git
our dirt where fuel was, to thaw it. and where,
likewise, there was plenty o water to do the
washin' out. Andy was for buildin' run
way and car round the side O. the hill to the
Little Elbow. But the point that stuck him
was just where he'd git power to haul that
car. She'd go down with her own weight,
o. course, but how was she goin' to be hauled
back1 That was Andy's stickler, and the
longer he studied over it the harder it seemed.
The third day O. work Andy allowed he
wasn't satisfied with the one-horse way we
were doin' our minimize wanted to operate
that claim m up-to-date and expert style. AT
nights, when Bill and me were playin' cut
throat euchre, Andy'd sit in corner O. the
shack, whittlin' and viewin' his thumbs, first
one side and then the other, all the while
studyin' out that transportation problem O.
his.
"Then, at the end Of our first week o.
prospectin' he got something new and unex-
pected to study over. 1t was she-grizzly,
She dropped in, free and off-handed, when we
all were down washin' up gravel. She took
NE