The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-01-24

American New,papsrs Aiiances fcF All
 By TEX. RlsKARp
 We were sitting around stove one night in a combination hardware, gro- cery, feed. clothes, and liquor store in Henrietta, when one of tho cattiemen got letter from Jim Roberts, who had left his ranch in 1890, to go up to Alaska. .s@: fy.s
 was tho town marshal of Henrietta then, wearing q blue uniform, broad brimmed hat. gold star and everything. And. let me tell you, was getting any excitement for, . mp1th.
 'Listen what Jim sayssS b4id the man who had got the 1ettsra s'$o cola up there that he wanted t6s climb in the stove on top of the firesshut one feller said 1t wouldn't do no good 'cause some fool'd come along and leave the door open" ,,f$. as
 group, "and they. tell mo whisky freezes up there % hard that you can carry 1t around In your pocket like Q plug of tobacco an! bite off . chew whenever you feel like it."
 wait minute, fellows" begged the reader. cor Jim says he was in on a gold strike and they .dug out mofen fifty thousand dollars worth of gold in week." W
 The crowd then went into a lengthy discussion of what they'd do if they had . million dollars. like they thought wal" declared an old man named Banks when 1t came to him, q reck'n went" -.
 4 Tho old fellows talked on about the money, but young fellow named Will Slack and myself got to thinking about Alaska. The upshot of 1t was that we decided to hook up together and go after gold. It wasn't long before we were on our way.
 In 1895 we landed at Juneau, Alaska, but found we hadn't really got started.
 Five Miles Uphnl FcfsTa Week
 Tosbegin with, we had tosget years supply of grub and take 1t over the side-about forty miles.
 One night Slack came in after talk ing to prospector.
 Man." he said. "do you know that after we climb that mountain over all that ice we got to hitch ourselves up and pull a sled more'n three hundred miies?"
 That made us think. But being young and full of pep we planned to try it.
 First, we had to carry our stuff up the side of that steep mountain five
  That was a job. We had to take a small load and then make another trip until we had the whole outfit on top. 1t took us more than a month. On top we could load the stuff on sleds and slide down to the other side.' After working ourselves into a precipitation we would nearly freeze when we stopped to rest. We certainly cooled off-and cooled off quick.
 When we eventually reached the lake at the bottom, frozen solid, Slack stopped and looked at me.
 "Tex," he said, Texas may be short on gold, but she's short onsiee and cold weather, too." gA <SN.
 Just the same we piled up those slefis, hitched ourselves to them and pulled them three hundred miles over the cold est, widest region that any man eyer saw. It was well along toward tall when we covered the chain. of lakes and reached the head of the Yukon. We passed the spot where Dawson City now stands without seeing so much as house. We were headed for Circle City, so named because 1t is just in- side the Arctic circle.
 To describe that trip would take a book or two, and men like Rex Beach and Stewart Edward White have done 1t lots better than I could expect to do.
 Will Slack stuck untfl his help was