The Wrangell sentinel., 1929-11-28
0ld-Time KlondikerS
 In Seattle PoorhouSe

SEATTLE-Here in the King County Poor Farm are l6 fred old men whose eyes still reflect the shine of a lost dream as they live on Seattle's eharity-paupers wait ing for the end
 Thirty years ago they went to the Klondike in the great gold rush of '9S, when any man who was lucky could make himself a million aire by following a gleam through the lonely. frostbound valleys.
 They went north for gold-went north to make themselves rich
 And now, 30 years after, they are in the poorhouse!
 Sixteen of them there are: 16 old men. stopped and weary, not at all like the 16 hardy fortune hunters who were so sure, so very sure once upon a time. that they were going to stumble right across the rainbow's end
 They went after gold and they found gold. Some of them just a little and some of them found a good deal. But. all of them lost what they had found Here they are, the 16 gold-seekers who stormed the Klondike in the day when Dawson and Skagway and Yukon were words like a trumpet call-here they are. inmates of the county farm, with nothing left to do but talk over old times and fig ure up the chances they missed.
 One old chap. the dean of the lot, can remember even before the days of '9S. He lived in Alaska before anyone knew there was gold there. AS he sits here with his cronies, penniless, he has the con solation of knowing that 10 years before gold was discovered, he pitched his camp in the Klondike on the very spot where George Car mack was to make the gold dis covery that set the world mad.
 ''Furs and trading with the na- tives, was our job then" he ex- plains. Maybe the Indians always knew there was gold there. I don't know. I never saw an Indian yet excited about prospectin' Sensible, ain't they?"
 Then there is another one, named F. Martin whose Indian pardner in '96, tipped him off to a good location near Crooks inlet, where hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of the yellow metal was fairly crying to be taken out of the ground. Then the Indian need ing whiskey sold out to a stranger for s10-and the stranger froze Martin out
 Every man has one break in life," says Martin. Every man has one real chance. That was mine It has never came again. I tried my hand in Porcupine, up above Kluckwan. and later in Ruby and Iditarod, but all ever dug up was the other fellows tin cansi"
 Bob Macdonald is the Beau Brummel of the place. He still has a visible memento of the gold he used to own-a gold nugget stick pin which he wears in his spotted tie every day. refusing to part with it even though he is in poor farm. It was the first nugget he and his partner "panned" on Bon anZa creek.
 Sort of a keepsake" he says "When I finger it, sometimes, it helps me to remember I wasn't al ways like this"
 These 16 Klondikers can remem- Der the wild days of the boom towns; the wild days of Skagway and Dawson City, when there was a dozen poker games in every sa- loon, and the players made their bets in pure gold dust, staklhg lh- credible sums on a single draw showing the gold they'd risked their lives for out on the bear tables to back their luck They've played in such games these 16; and they still play.
 Poker is a popular game here The Klondikers play it often-with burnt matches for stakes!
 There was one player here, few months ago, though. who was diff ferent. He came to the farm as Kid" Brown, erstwhile dance hall proprietor at Valdez, and a speetac- uIar gambler when the klondiKe was in it's heydey. He was broke old and sick when he got here but he still loved poker, and he used to play gaily with the other