Evening Republican, Volume 23, Number 59, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 March 1920 — GAMBLED WITH GRIM DEATH [ARTICLE]

GAMBLED WITH GRIM DEATH

Adventurera Who Sought Wealth In the Klondike Left a Qhaatly Trail of Tragedies. The old overland -journey from Edmonton, Alta., to the Klondike was a trail of tragedies. A weather-beaten skeleton of an old wagon of the prairie schooner type, the woodwork rotted and only fragments of the wheels remaining, recently was found in the rugged Liard river country. On a piece of tattered canvas that once had been th* wagon cover, printed In black paint in letters a foot high half effaced by the rain* and snows of years, were the word* “Klondike or Bush” Many stories are told by old-timers of the argonauts who found tragedy instead of gold on the north trail which began at Edmonton. Thousands of men from all parts of the world flocked to the town in 1896 during the Klondike rush. They outfitted at the Hudson Bay company two-story frame store which then was considered the greatest store in western Canada. Today, when the company has thrown open all its lands to farm settlement and is centering its energies on the fur trade and general merchandising, a big modern department store rise® on the site of this ancient emporium in the heart Edmonton. Turning their faces toward the Yukon, the gold seekers struck out on a perilous journey of 2,000 miles across an untracked wilderness of forests, muskegs, mountains and mighty rivers. Of the thousands who started, only a few ever reached their destination. Many turned back disheartened to Edmonton. Many beat back to civilization by way of the British Columbia coast. Still greater numbers were swallowed up in vast unknown northern land never to be heard of agHfn. Thev gambled with death who traveled that trail. From time to time in succeeding years the bleachlne bones of the adventurers who followed their dreams over the rim of the world, the battered relics of old camp outfits and the wrecks of wagons and pack saddles have been found in lonely northern places, grim reminders of the old days when men went mad for gold.

Omen* of Good Luck. It has been explained that we need to be prepared for bad luck, but that good fortune does not require to be guarded against. All the same, it would certainly add to the cheerfulness of life in general if lucky omens were more widely known, says a writer in London TitBits. How much brighter things look to us if we have reason to hope that something good is coming to us! Everybody, of course, knows that it is lucky to pick up a bit of iron or coal. So it is to pick up a pin if Its head is toward you; if not, let it He. It is a sign of good fortune to put on some garment Inside out, but only If It is done by accident and the garment is allowed to remain reversed during the day. William the Conqueror put on his mall shirt back to front on the morning of the battle of Hastings, and we all know what luck he had on that occasion. If you find your keys or other steel articles rusting, do not be annoyed about it; it only shows that somebody is putting money by for you. It Is luck to be followed home by a stray dog. Still better 18 it if a strange cat comes to stay at the house. Speaking of cats, pessimists, of course, assert that when it tears the furniture with its claws it is a sigp of rain; but others hold that she is “scratching luck” to her master*.