The Oroville weekly gazette. [volume] (Oroville, Wash.) 1905-19??, 1913-09-05
CHASING RAifa6oWs

Probably there is nothing that so
arouses the cupidity. A.icn who have
-i,axad-alA.ei..4- sa.i. s',s es.---i..s,A--of
gold as the report u Q nov and, especi-
ally where hope has been played with
in a country where the metallic richness
is found in placer deposits. Any one who
has ever had taste of placeh mining,
or has lived within the atmosphere of
mining camps knows how such reports
find circulation and the sensation created
when the whisper goes the rounds that
fresh ground has been discovered. The
The placer MINER always on the qui vive
for new strikes. is the most gullible in
dividual extant. He falls for almost any
kind of story in which the discovery
of new washings is the key note. The
more mythical the location, the more un-
reasonable the alleged richness, the
quicker is he to take the bait. 1t is hard
to keep secret real or imaginary rich
strike, for subsequent events often prove
that the report of placer finds that have
led crowd a merry chase existed only
in the imagination. At first 1T Is only
the covert hint thrown out by some
miner who has drifted in from pros
pectins tour. Or the discoverer let's in
friend on the find, and that friend let's
in others. There is always a leakage,
and the greater the mystery as to the
source of the original announcement the
greater the furor created The news
gradually works around until it is every
body's property, and the stampede is on
without any one taking the time or
trouble to investigate the authenticity
of the rumOr. But with the vision of the
yellow metal working fever in the blood
men are not wasting time studying out
the plausablity of a gold strike. The
one passion uppermOst is to get there,
and get there with the least possible
waste of time. The first on the ground
have the best chance in the lottery of
claim stalking, and no hardship is SO great
as to deter the follower of stampedes
from hustling for the gold. And the
further away the alleged discovery and
the harder 1t is to get there the more
keen the pan shaker to make the trip.
Alaska has been the home of the
stampede in late years since the fine
tooth comb process has worked out the
southern country and periodically news
comes down from the frozen north that
another strike has been made and the
rush is on. The last to stir up the
blood of the man seeking the golden
fleece, and start crowds tramping into
the Businesses of the interior of Alaska,
is the Shushanna strike. Ignorance of
the topography of Alaska prevents any
statement as to just where Shushanna
is located in that land of marvellous
wealth and rough and stern frigidity,
but it is long miles and many of them
from the outer fringe of civilization. That
iS al or nc
rhythemical Campbell so aptly puts it,
Its distance lends enchantment to the
view," and the application is just as per-
tnent to placer mining as it is to land
scape The coast papers insist that the
| alleged Shushanna strike is not myth
but then the suspicion is aroused that
| because any stampede towards Alaska
| means dollars that were not taken from
| the earth to the business men of the
| coast cities the papers of that part OF
the country are willing to verify an
| Alaska strike even if there be little
evidence to justify verification. There is
n resident of Oroville who is of the
| opinion that Shushanna is false scent
but expects it to be played up so long
| as there is n chance to induce OutfittnE
| at the coast marts where Quitting IL
| generally done. Dick Butler, of thi,
| place, spent a number of years in Alaska
has been tarred by the stampede trick
and while he did not lose anything b,
hitting the hills in the wake of tn,
placer chaser he has seen enough dis
appointment to know that every reported
rich discovery is not prize package HI
was in Seattle when the first vague rum
ors of the Shushanna find filtered int
that city, and being a man of quicl