The weekly Alaska citizen., 1920-01-19
est. Louis Globe-Despatch.)

SudTleS opduu, d Tedl bOuIuou6n from the klondike. with his face scanned and reddened by 22 years of and vigorous at 54 years. stopped in at the Post-Dispatch yesterday to see how 1t had changed since he last visited 1t, 25 years ago. and incl dentally told tale of adventure in the gold fields that makes some of the frontier fiction look pallid and stale.
 He has been snowbound, eaten raw dog meat, worked for grub stake, struck 1t rich, been cheated out, of everything. struck it rich again. fought rife battle with claim jump CTS, smashed bank that tried to law" him out of his claim and all the rest of it. At present he is visit. ing his brother-in-law, Porter Jones. of Kirkwood. but he is going back to Alaska in March.
 Spann was born over In Venice. H., and lived there until he ran away from home at the age of IS. He knocked around the country until in | 1896, he found himself in Walla Walla, Wash. working as railroad me chanic.
 Had Dead Man's Map.
 "One of my best pals" he said, was Burt Coile, a train dispatcher. His dad was an old timers from the Klondike. One day an old prospec- tor was hauled into a hospital in Walla Walla, ready to cash in. Be fore he died he sent for Burt's dad and gave him a map of claim in the Omenika country, up in British Columbia He said he hit 1t rich down there, but got sick on canned meat and had to come out He told Burt's dad he could have the claim.
 Well, none of us knew anything about prospecting. but 1t looked good to us so Burt and myself and an other fellow got 27 ponies and a stake and lit out on the 150o-mile overland trail in June of '96.
 we couldn't make 1t thru Forest fires turned us off from the Omenika country, and we decided to push on for the Klondike. A blizzard caught us and all but one of the ponies died. We had to leave most of the grub behind We shot porcupines and ate the meat raw. and both my partners got meat fever. We made 1t to a sediment, and left them there and pushed on. I got there"
 Made Strike In 1905.
 Spann sketched rapidly over the vicissitudes which marked his search for gold up to 1905, when he made a strike on Dome creek. He sank shaft more than 100 feet deep to bed rock.
 There's where began taking or money" he said. My partner and m' took out $4,000 in two weeks. and w, were just getting started when the bank tied us up with an injunction It seems the bank claimed some sort of title on our claim. We busted the injunction and in three weeks we took out $3S,oo0 more and they tied us up again.
 Then the lawyers and the judges began squabbling over 1t and took to the hills and left 1t with my law yer l made a little strike now an' then and came back to pay 1t to my lawyer.
 Well. sonny. 1t took just IF year for the judges to figure out that w was entitled to our claim. Then we went back to work the hole, and what do you reckon we found? The damn thieves had sunk hole on the next claim, tunneled under UP and took about $350,00O out of there.
 bOu8ut NIdI1 VUUpSV0s "My pal, Caribou Bill' Dietering and me still had little fraction of a claim right near there, and we started sinking a hole on 1t. The second day We seen 15 gunmen mo- seyin' around and Bill and me got our rifles and went down to where our men was diggin'. Jack Rideno' was the chief gunman.
 "'Where you and Bill a-going to?' he says to me and Bill; and I says: Why, jest down the creek a ways to see if we could scare up a rab- bit,' I says, slippin' a soft-nose shell into my gun.
 "'Well. I wish you luck he says ) and turned to go.
 "T drawed bead on another one of them and told them to put , up their hands. When I done that Ridenour reached for his gun, and Caribou let him have 1t. right under the arm. He dropped him. and the rest of them run.
 "The U. 8. Marshal come up there right shortly and told me was un. der arrest. told him l wasn't un' der no arrest until I called up my