241

"SAY, TIM, YOU HAIN'T ANY IDEA OF GOING TO COLLEGE,
HAVE YOU?" 251

KLONDIKE NUGGETS AND HOW TWO BOYS SECURED THEM

CHAPTER I.

THE GOLD-HUNTERS.

Jeff Graham was an Argonaut who crossed the plains in 1849, while he
was yet in his teens, and settling in California, made it his permanent
home. When he left Independence, Mo., with the train, his parents and
one sister were his companions, but all of them were buried on the
prairie, and their loss robbed him of the desire ever to return to the
East. Hostile Indians, storm, cold, heat, privation, and suffering were
the causes of their taking off, as they have been of hundreds who
undertook the long journey to the Pacific coast in quest of gold.

Jeff spent several years in the diggings, and after varying fortune,
made a strike, which yielded him sufficient to make him comfortable for
the rest of his days. He never married, and the income from his
investments was all and, indeed, more than he needed to secure him
against want.

He was now past threescore, grizzled, somewhat stoop-shouldered, but
robust, rugged, strong, and, in his way, happy. His dress varied
slightly with the changes of the seasons, consisting of an old slouch
hat, a red shirt, coarse trousers tucked in the tops of his heavy
boots, and a black neckerchief with dangling ends. He had never been
addicted to drink, and his only indulgence was his brierwood pipe,
which was his almost inseparable companion. His trousers were secured
at the waist by a strong leathern belt, and when he wore a coat in cold
weather he generally had a revolver at his hip, but the weapon had not
been discharged in years.

There were two members of that overland train whom Jeff never forgot.
They were young children, Roswell and Edith Palmer, who lost both of
their parents within five years after reaching the coast. Jeff proved
the friend in need, and no father could have been kinder to the
orphans, who were ten and twelve years younger than he.

Roswell Palmer was now married, with a son named for himself, while his
sister, Mrs. Mansley, had been a widow a long time, and she, too, had
an only son, Frank, who was a few months older than his cousin. The
boys had received a good common-school education, but their parents
were too poor to send them to college. Jeff would have offered to help
but for his prejudice against all colleg