din 
 
r. 
 
GIFT OF 
 Mrs* W. W. Kemp 
 
THE IRON HUNTER 
 
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 NEW YORK BOSTON CHICAGO DALLAS 
 ATLANTA SAN FRANCISCO 
 
 MACMILLAN & CO., LIMITED 
 
 tONDON BOMBAY CALCUTTA 
 
 MELBOURNE 
 
 THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, I/ra. 
 TORONTO 
 
My mother 
 Margaret Ann Fannon Osborn 
 
THE IKON HUNTER 
 
 BY 
 
 CHASE S. OSBORN 
 
 Author of "The Andean Land" 
 
 J!3eto gotfe 
 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 1919 
 
 All right* reserved 
 
TW'/yo 
 
 /\ . .?:;*:: f 
 
 *-/ ::*: */ 
 
 COPTBIGHT, 1919 
 
 BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 Set up and clectrotyped. Published May, 1919. 
 
TO 
 M. F. H. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I WOLVES HUMAN AND OTHERWISE ... 1 
 II WHAT'S IN YOUR NAME OR MINE? ... 15 
 
 III NATURAL BORN REBELS 22 
 
 IV POVERTY THAT CRAMPS AND THEN EX- 
 
 PANDS THE SOUL 37 
 
 V WILD BOYHOOD DREAMS FILL MY MIND AND 
 
 I ACT UPON THEM 48 
 
 VI SWEPT INTO THE HUMAN MAELSTROM OF 
 
 CHICAGO 60 
 
 VII I DRIVE A COAL WAGON PILE LUMBER 
 CAPTURE A MURDERER AND DOCK WALLOP 
 IN MILWAUKEE 68 
 
 VTEI MARRIED ON CREDIT I GIVE MY BRIDE A 
 FIVE CENT BOUQUET AND WE TAKE A 
 WEDDING TRIP ON A STREET CAR ... 81 
 
 IX I UNDERTAKE THE STUDY OF IRON ORE AND 
 
 ENGAGE IN EXPLORATION AND PROSPECTING 89 
 
 X MY FIRST TRIP INTO THE TRACKLESS WILDS 
 
 OF UNEXPLORED CANADA 94 
 
 XI CHARMED BY THE BEAUTY OF SAULT DE 
 SAINTE MARIE AND FASCINATED BY ITS EN- 
 VIRONS I CHOOSE IT AS A HOME FOR LIFE 102 
 
 XII I AM. USED AS A POLITICAL FULCRUM BY 
 JAY HUBBELL TO PRY OUT SAM STEPHEN- 
 SON -v , v = v'. 113 
 
 XIII THE SACRIFICE OF GENERAL ALGER TO AP- 
 PEASE POLITICAL BLOOD HOWLERS . . . 121 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 XIV MY ASSOCIATION WITH HAZEN S. PINGREE 
 PLUNGES ME INTO POLITICS DEEPER THAN 
 EVER 127 
 
 XV I BECOME A CANDIDATE FOR GOVERNOR TO 
 
 SUCCEED HAZEN S. PINGREE .... 137 
 
 XVI THE POETRY, CHARM, ROMANCE AND USE- 
 FULNESS OF IRON ORE 145 
 
 XVII IRON ORE BACTERIA 153 
 
 XVIII READING THE STORY OF THE STONES AS 
 PRINTED ON THE PAGES OF THE EARTH'S 
 SURFACE 159 
 
 XIX GREAT LEAN OUTCROPPING OF IRON ORE 
 UNSEEN UNDER THE VERY EYES OF THE 
 WORLD 165 
 
 XX INTO THE HEART OF THE ARCTIC LAPLAND 
 WHERE THE MYSTERIES ARE ATTUNED TO 
 THE MUFFLED FOOTFALLS OF SILENCE . . 174 
 
 XXI DEPOSITS OF IRON ORE AND BEDS OF COAL 
 
 UNDER THE SHADOW OF THE POLE . . 184 
 
 XXII A STARVATION HIKE TO HUNT FOR A HID- 
 DEN RANGE OF IRON ORE 190 
 
 XXIII FATHERLY ATTITUDE OF JOHN W. GATES 
 
 AND JOHN J. MITCHELL 202 
 
 XXIV EATING MOOSE MEAT FROM ONE YEAR'S END 
 
 TO ANOTHER AT THE MOOSE MOUNTAIN 
 CAMP . , '. 210 
 
 XXV SIR DONALD MANN PROPOSES TO USE 
 DOUBLE-BITTED AXES AS WEAPONS IN A 
 DUEL WITH A RUSSIAN COUNT .... 215 
 
 XXVI WORLD WORKERS IN IRON IN ALL AGES . . 223 
 
 XXVII CONCENTRATION OF LEAN ORES IN THE 
 UNITED STATES SIDERITE MAGNETITE 
 HEMATITE . . . ..... v * :,*. . 233 
 
 XXVIII ACCIDENTAL FORTUNES FROM IRON ORE . . 244 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 XXIX MESABA RANGE IN MINNESOTA, THE GREAT- 
 EST IRON ORE DISTRICT THE WORLD HAS 
 EVER KNOWN ........ 249 
 
 XXX CONSIDERATION OF CHARLES EVANS "HUGHES, 
 WOODROW WILSON AND OTHERS IN SEARCH- 
 ING FOR A SUCCESSOR TO JAMES B. ANGELL 
 AT THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN . . . 257 
 
 XXXI TOM MAY'S KERRY PHILOSOPHY A SOCIAL 
 
 THERMOMETER ........ 265 
 
 XXXII I AM ELECTED GOVERNOR OF MICHIGAN . 268 
 
 XXXIII I START A FIGHT AGAINST THE SALOON 
 
 THAT KEEPS UP TO THE END .... 276 
 
 XXXIV FIGHTING FOR THE LIFE OF MICHIGAN 
 
 AGAINST THE HUMAN BLOODSUCKERS THAT 
 SUBSIST ON SOCIETY EVERYWHERE . . 280 
 
 XXXV MY PART m THE PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN 
 
 OF 1912 .......... 289 
 
 XXXVI OFF FOR MADAGASCAR, ASIA AND AFRICA FOR 
 A LONG TOUR IN THE UNUSUAL PARTS OF 
 THE EARTH ......... 293 
 
 XXXVII SOME REFERENCES TO BURMA, CEYLON, 
 
 COCHIN-CHINA, TURKESTAN, PERSIA . . 298 
 
 XXXVIII I DISCOVER ANOTHER GREAT IRON ORE 
 RANGE THAT WILL SOME DAY HELP TO 
 SUPPLY THE WORLD ....... 305 
 
 XXXIX MANY PEOPLE OF MICHIGAN AGAIN URGE ME 
 TO TAKE UP THE GONFALON FOR BETTER 
 THINGS IN THE STATE ...... 307 
 
 XL IN CONCLUSION ......... 311 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 My Mother, Margaret Ann Fannon Osborn . Frontispiece 
 
 FACING 
 PAGB 
 
 Florence, Wisconsin, 40 years ago 98 
 
 Where Lake Superior Breaks Through La Sault de 
 Sainte Marie 108 
 
 Author in typical Primeval Jungle on the Hudson Bay 
 Height of Land 162 
 
 Alfred Noble Promontory Lake Superior .... 168 
 
 Upturned tree where iron ore was first discovered on 
 Lake Superior at Negaunee 246 
 
 Tom May's Sketch of Deerfoot showing how a tender- 
 foot hung a Buck 278 
 
 A Press Cartoon, 1910 284 
 
 Afield with Tiglath Pilezer Bones No. II 306 
 
 I made a sun dial at Camp in Windigo Land on a 
 sawed stump and Emerson Hough inspects it ... 306 
 
 My father George Augustus Osborn 314 
 
STATEMENT 
 
 Cellini states that all men of whatsoever quality they 
 be, who have done anything of excellence, or which 
 may properly resemble excellence, ought, if they are per- 
 sons of truth and honesty, to describe their life with 
 their own hands ; but they ought not to attempt so fine 
 an enterprise until they have passed the age of forty. 
 And so, he says, in a work like this there will always 
 be found occasion for natural bragging. 
 
 Guizot wrote the history of France after undertaking 
 to tell it to his grandchildren as they sat about his 
 knee. 
 
 When my friend, Emerson Hough, added his urging 
 to that of my children and grandchildren, I first gave a 
 serious thought to it. My father had a great prejudice 
 against autobiographies. This he communicated to me 
 congenitally. 
 
 I am not abnormally modest, I think, but I rebelled 
 at the idea of writing about myself. It staged my ego 
 too prominently. 
 
 " The fact is," said Mr. Hough, " you unconsciously 
 possess such a Gargantuan ego that you think you must 
 conceal it by a false show of modesty. If you were 
 really modest, you would not think of your ego, but 
 would as willingly write of yourself as of another." 
 
 Others supported him. And even with it all I feel 
 like explaining the reason why I consented to try. 
 
STATEMENT 
 
 I confess I am glad to have my Marco Polo and 
 Abbe Hue and my Stephenson and Eoosevelt and Sid- 
 ney. And I would set great store by it if I had a life of 
 my own grandfather. 
 
 Probably the decision to set down what follows grew 
 from the belief that the opportunities of life in America 
 are as numerous as they ever were. If I, as an average 
 American, and that is all I claim to be or wish to be, 
 can have done the things that engaged my existence, 
 others may also have enlivened hope. 
 
 With gratefulness to God for His mercy and protec- 
 tion and providence and for all the wondrous blessings 
 I have enjoyed, I submit, as incomplete, a sketch of 
 some of the work of my life. 
 
 I view the future for my country, my family, my 
 friends and myself cheerfully and hopefully, in the light 
 of God's love and His merciful direction. 
 
 CHASE S. OSBORN. 
 Sault de Sainte Marie, Michigan, 
 December, 1918. 
 
THE IRON HUNTER 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 WOLVES HUMAN AND OTHERWISE 
 
 HOSE awful wolves I ! ! " 
 
 My wife exclaimed, as a long, low, blood- 
 freezing howl sifted to our ears with the pine- 
 needle, wind rhythms. It came from a mile north on 
 the course of a late fall gale. Our baby, a girlie a year 
 old, slept like a little hairless savage in a padded, corn- 
 can box. The wolf howl did not reach the tiny ears. 
 We were in the back room of a rakish, one-story shack. 
 There were three such rooms, just little cages partitioned 
 with rough ceiling boards, with broken tongues and 
 warped edges, making cracks that prevented anything 
 like eye privacy. As for hearing, our ears were not shut 
 off at all. I used the front end of the building as a 
 printing office. It contained an old Washington hand 
 lever-press and a new Taylor cylinder, painted as flor- 
 idly as a German reception room. There were two job 
 presses, a Peerless and a Universal both new a 
 paper cutter, imposing stone, type cases, small piles of 
 print and job papers, a big box stove, and the usual ath- 
 letic towel, ethiopic with ink. The smell that came 
 from the room needed no ambergris as a matrix, but was 
 like wild roses in the nostrils of a young, country news- 
 paper man. 
 
 1 
 
2 THE IRON HUNTER 
 
 The blood-searching howl was repeated in greater vol- 
 ume four wolves this time. It was getting late in 
 the little mining town, but drunken shouts and the crack 
 of a shot could now and then be heard. 
 
 " We can't live here, Chase," my wife said. " Even 
 if we can, it is no place for the baby." 
 
 " You are right," I replied. " Just give me a little 
 time to clean this place up and make it a fit place for 
 decent people. If I fail, we will go back to Milwaukee 
 or some other place where outlaws are not the law." 
 
 This took place at Florence, Wisconsin, in the heart of 
 the Menominee iron range, one of the Lake Superior 
 iron ore districts. Conditions here were similar to 
 those of every new range. There is always an outlaw 
 headquarters in all new regions remote from disciplined 
 centers. Florence, at this period of the early eighties, 
 was a metropolis of vice. There was gambling on the 
 main streets, outdoors in clement weather and un- 
 screened indoors when driven in by cold and storm. 
 Prostitution was just as bold. Its red passion garbings 
 paraded every prominent place in town. A mile out of 
 town, Mudge's stockade was the central supply station. 
 It was the prison used by the nerviest white slavers that 
 ever dealt in women. A big log camp with frame gables 
 held a bar and dance hall and stalls on the first floor. 
 On the second floor were rooms about the size of those 
 in a Tokio Yoshiwara. A third-floor attic contained 
 dungeons and two trap doors. In the cellar were dark 
 cells and a secret passage, well timbered with cedar, 
 leading to where the hill on which the stockade was 
 located broke down into a dense swamp. Surrounding 
 this camp of death, and worse, were sharp pointed pali- 
 sades, ten feet high, of the kind used against the Indians 
 to inclose pioneer blockhouses. There were loopholes. 
 
WOLVES HUMAN AND OTHERWISE 3 
 
 Two passages led through the stockade. One was wide 
 enough to admit a team. This was fastened with horn- 
 beam cross bars. The other entrance was narrower and 
 for commoner use. It was protected by a solid sliding 
 gate of ironwood. On either side of this gate, inside, 
 two big, gaunt, terrifying timber wolves were chained. 
 It was the howls of these four wolves we had heard. 
 This stockade was a wholesale warehouse of women. 
 There were several in the Lake Superior iron country 
 in the early days, but I think this one at Florence was 
 the most notorious and the worst. It was built by " Old 
 Man " Mudge. He was a white-livered, sepulchral in- 
 dividual who wore a cotton tie, a Prince Albert coat and 
 a plug hat ; even wore this outfit when he fed the wolves. 
 Mudge worked as a preacher through northern Indi- 
 ana and Ohio and the scoundrel used his clerical make- 
 up to fine advantage. He had a ready tongue and 
 roped in girl after girl. Not much attention was paid 
 in those days to pimping and procuring. Whenever a 
 murder grew out of his acts, the old fox would so in- 
 volve his trail that, if it led anywhere at all, a church 
 was at the end of it, and that would throw off the sleuth. 
 
 Old Mudge ruined his daughter Mina, and she was 
 " keeper " of the place. Mina Mudge was a stunning 
 woman. Her concentrated depravity, for she too had 
 a child and brought it up in infamy, was glossed over 
 by a fine animal figure, a rubescent complexion, semi- 
 pug nose, lurking gray eyes, sensual lips and sharpish 
 chin. Her lips were the clew to passion, and eyes and 
 chin betokened the cruelty of a she hyena. Girls were 
 wheedled or beaten into submission, and nearly always 
 when she sold them she had them broken to the business. 
 
 Two days before, in the evening, a shrinking, girlish 
 young woman was found just outside our door by my 
 
4 THE IRON HUNTER 
 
 wife. She cowered and shivered and looked wild-eyed. 
 It took some time to coax her in. After warmth and 
 food, she told her story. Old Mudge had found her on 
 a farm in Ohio. An orphan, she was sort of bound 
 out, and her life was one of work and little else. 
 Rather attractive, she was spied by the old serpent, and 
 taken north " to a good home." In her heart the girl 
 was good and she was brave. Mina Mudge starved 
 her, beat her, tied her ankles and wrists with thongs 
 and, to break her in with terror, fastened her just out 
 of the reach of the wolves. It was night, and the girl 
 grew cold with exposure and fear. Her wrists and 
 ankles shrunk some, and she wriggled out of the cut- 
 ting thongs. Then she fled to the swamp and hid until 
 hunger forced her to search for food. We took as good 
 care of her as our means afforded and planned her com- 
 plete rescue. The day we heard the wolves howling, 
 as mentioned in the beginning of the chapter, the girl 
 disappeared. It was years later before I knew what 
 had befallen her. Mudge's gang had located and 
 trapped her. They forcibly kidnaped her and carried 
 her to the wolf stockade. There she was given no 
 chance again to escape. Her spirit was broken. She 
 was sold to a brothel-keeper in Ontonagon County, 
 Michigan, and was murdered by him one night in a 
 ranch near to the Lake Superior shore. Murders often 
 occurred, but those guilty were seldom punished. 
 When this girl so mysteriously disappeared from our 
 house, I was suspicious. I went to the sheriff, an Irish 
 saloon-keeper, but could not get him to act. He was 
 either a member of the gang or honestly afraid. 
 
 The Mudge gang was organized over a territory in- 
 cluding the region for five hundred miles south of Lake 
 Superior from Canada to Minnesota. " Old Man " 
 
WOLVES HUMAN AND OTHERWISE 5 
 
 Mudge was as much of a genius in some directions as 
 he was a devil in others. Compared with him, Machia- 
 velli was a saint. They did not confine themselves to 
 woman stealing. They would run off witnesses when 
 arrests occurred near the law-and-order line. If they 
 could not get rid of them any other way, the witnesses 
 were killed. Any man who showed an inclination to 
 oppose the gang was either intimidated or murdered. 
 Within their own ranks a rebel never got away alive. 
 Mudge tolerated no rivals. No sea pirate was ever 
 more bloodthirsty or vengeful. The most notorious 
 murder he was responsible for was that of Dan Dunn, 
 at Trout Lake. Dunn was just as bad a man as Mudge, 
 and not so much of a sneak about it. That was really 
 how Mudge came to get him. 
 
 Such were conditions in the iron country when I 
 arrived. The picture cannot be overdrawn. I had 
 gone there upon a telegram sent by Hiram D. Fisher, 
 discoverer of the Florence mine, to Colonel J. A. Wat- 
 rous of Milwaukee, asking him to " send up a young 
 fellow not afraid to run a newspaper." It was a weekly 
 publication. The owner and editor, a man of culture 
 and courage, too old and too fine for the rough pioneer- 
 ing and outlaws, had just " disappeared." The gang 
 was against all newspapers and dead against any that 
 tried to improve conditions or oppose them in any way. 
 Just a little time before they had burned the Manis- 
 tique Pioneer office and had tried desperately but un- 
 successfully to assassinate its brave editor, the late 
 Major Clarke, a veteran of the Civil War. All along 
 the line they had terrorized editors if possible. So the 
 first night after I arrived they shot out my windows 
 and shot a leg off one of the job presses, just to show 
 me what they would do to me if I wasn't " good." 
 
6 THE IRON HUNTER 
 
 A short time before that the gang had gotten down 
 on Captain William E. Dickinson, superintendent of the 
 Commonwealth mine, two miles from Florence. Cap- 
 tain Dickinson had come there from the ISTew York mine 
 in one of the older Lake Superior districts. He was 
 fearless and a man of order and high ideals. With a 
 fine family of yoimg children, he felt the necessity of 
 improving conditions. Successful in his previous en- 
 vironment, he did not apprehend serious trouble. But 
 he did not correctly take the measure of the desperate 
 characters who made up the Mudge gang. Hardly had 
 he started to move against them before they stole his 
 little son Willie. They sent him word that if he fought 
 them they would kill the child. It was a knife in his 
 heart, the wound of which finally carried him to his 
 grave. Captain Dickinson spent money, followed 
 clews, sent spies to join the gang and gave up every 
 thought except the recovery of his little son. It is 
 nearly forty years ago now. Captain Dickinson has 
 gone to his final reward. Where Willie Dickinson is 
 or what became of him or whether he is dead or alive, 
 is a mystery to this day. It is the most piteous tragedy 
 of scores enacted by the iron pirates. 
 
 Something had to be done. I began a study of the 
 situation in detail. The encouraging fact was de- 
 veloped that the law-abiding citizens outnumbered the 
 outlaws. A majority of them were timid and could 
 not be depended upon to act, but we could be certain 
 that not many of them would openly join the leeches. 
 Many men with families deplored conditions but feared 
 that a war on the toughs would hurt business. Hasn't 
 it been always so ? Then to my amazement and cha- 
 grin, for I was only twenty-three years old and to a 
 degree unsophisticated, I uncovered the fact that that 
 
WOLVES HUMAN AND OTHERWISE 7 
 
 Borgia of a Mina Mudge had something on half or more 
 of the merchants, who thought easily or made that ex- 
 cuse to their conscience, that they had to be good fel- 
 lows and go to her place with the miners and woodsmen 
 in order to get business. The outlaws were able to keep 
 close tab on the plans of any who threatened them 
 through these dwellers in the twilight zone of morals. 
 As soon as I could be certain of some backing, I at- 
 tacked Mudge and his gang in my little paper. It was 
 a thunderer there though, no matter what its size. I 
 charged crimes home and named those who were guilty 
 or probably so, whenever I had facts or tangible sus- 
 picions. The time must have been just ripe for it for 
 some astounding things occurred. Some of those 
 against whom I made charges came to see me; not all 
 peaceably. But from some of them I obtained denials 
 of participation, and one or two gave to me invaluable 
 inside information. Consequently I was informed in 
 advance when my office was to be wrecked, and when 
 I was to be gotten rid of. I built a little conning place 
 of glass and kept some one on watch there every day- 
 light moment. Also I bought Winchesters for all the 
 office force, and for a long time every type stand was 
 a gun rack for a repeating rifle. At night I took extra 
 care and kept watch. A couple of faithful dogs with 
 plenty of bulldog blood guarded the office, and were 
 much better for the purpose than Mudge's wolves, but 
 did not make as terrifying a setting in the mind of a 
 tenderfoot. 
 
 I found a fighting preacher at the little mission 
 church in Florence in the person of Harlan Page Cory, 
 a young Presbyterian just suited to the work to be done 
 and entirely unafraid. An undersheriff named Char- 
 ley Noyes, from the Androscoggin country, was found 
 
8 THE IRON HUNTER 
 
 to be clean and brave and dependable. Bill Noyes, 
 his brother, was a six footer plus, and the best shot and 
 dry ground trailer anywhere around. He was not 
 afraid of a mad catamount, and his morals had sprouted 
 in the Green Mountains where Ethan Allen got his. 
 Bill was eager to help clean up. 
 
 A little concave-chested hardware man named Rolb- 
 stell, with whiskers like a deer mouse and a voice like 
 a consumptive cuckoo, was found, when the meter was 
 applied to him, to be as full of good points as a box 
 of tacks. There was no law against shining deer in 
 those days ; anyhow not in Florence. Rolbstell built a 
 scaffold one day, twenty feet up in a birch that leaned 
 over a connecting gut of Spread Eagle Lake, where a 
 fine runway crossed. The first dark, soft night that 
 came he climbed up there with a bull's-eye lamp cocked 
 over his left eye. He nearly went to sleep before he 
 heard anything. Then he suddenly came to and saw a 
 pair of silvery eyes and let go at them. Forgetting in 
 his state of mind where he was, he stepped off the scaf- 
 fold just as if he had been on the solid ground and down 
 he went. That is where Rolbstell made his reputation. 
 He lit astride of a two-hundred-pound buck that he had 
 wounded and which was floundering in about four feet 
 of water. Of course, he lost his gun in the descent. 
 Pulling out his tomahawk, he nearly chopped the buck's 
 head off before he succeeded in killing him. Rolbstell 
 had plenty of that intestinal courage that was the fas- 
 cination of Tsin, who built the Great Wall and meas- 
 ured all men by it. So he became a leader, if not the 
 leader, in the new movement. 
 
 With these and others assured, we called a meeting 
 and organized the Citizen Regulators. The meeting 
 was such a hummer and so many joined that the sheriff 
 
WOLVES HUMAN AND OTHERWISE 9 
 
 aud district attorney had a street duel the next day, 
 growing out of a row that was caused by each trying 
 to shift blame upon the other. I had publicly charged 
 them both with being controlled by the Mudge gang. 
 The district attorney shot the sheriff through the lungs. 
 A lot of the sheriff's friends got a rope ready to hang 
 the lawyer, who really was one of the worst of citi- 
 zens, while the sheriff had told several that he intended 
 to join the Regulators. Meanwhile the sheriff lived 
 long enough for the mob to cool off. The preacher and 
 I decided that we must get rid of all crooked and cow- 
 ardly officials. 
 
 I started to Milwaukee and Madison to enlist influ- 
 ence and see the governor, in order to have the district 
 attorney removed and a man appointed who would en- 
 force the law. All the way to Milwaukee I was har- 
 assed by telegrams for my arrest. The gang tried to 
 capture me at the train, but I learned of their plans in 
 time to elude them. Then we had a wild race through 
 the woods to the Michigan line. If they had caught me 
 in Wisconsin they were going to finish me in some way. 
 The pursuit kept up almost to Iron Mountain, which 
 was nearly as bad as Florence at the time. I dodged 
 them but was afraid to stop at Iron Mountain because 
 the local authorities there were believed to be under 
 the control of the Mudge outlaws. It was night. I 
 had expected to take an evening train. Prevented from 
 doing this, I ran two miles through the woods to Com- 
 monwealth. There one of my faithful printers, an 
 Irish lad named Billy Doyle, had a team in waiting. 
 Hastily climbing into the buckboard and taking the 
 lines, I lashed the horses into a gallop. Over my shoul- 
 ders I could see the gang coming on foot, on horse and 
 in rigs. I had a Colt's revolver and could shoot it quite 
 
10 THE IRON HUNTER 
 
 well enough. Billy had thrown in a Winchester. I 
 made up my mind they would riot take me in Wisconsin 
 without a fight. We madly galloped over the corduroy 
 roads in the dark. That it was night and the pursuers 
 were unorganized was all that saved me. We crossed 
 the line. On the outskirts of Iron Mountain I gave 
 the reins to Billy and jumped out and went on alone. 
 Safely making a detour of the town, I took the rail- 
 road track and hiked southwards towards law arid order. 
 I was in Michigan. Between Keel Ridge arid Quin- 
 nesec three men stepped out of the gloom and leveled 
 guns at my head. I obeyed their order to hold up my 
 hands and they took me back to Iron Mountain by main 
 force, and not a sign of legal warrant. They were 
 Mudge agents. It was after midnight. I made a big 
 roar as soon as I got where anybody could hear. In 
 spite of the racket I made they took me to a place 
 which was not the jail and locked me in a room. Be- 
 fore they got me confined I managed to send word to 
 Cook and Flarmigan, whose firm of attorneys at Norway 
 was the ablest on the Range. The late Hon. A. C. Cook 
 got to me and secured my release. To this day I do 
 not know how he did it. Perhaps his partner, R. C. 
 Flannigan, now a prominent mining country judge, and 
 a good one, could tell if he wished to. I continued on 
 my way. Efforts were made to stop me at Marinette 
 and Green Bay. These were unsuccessful. Finally 
 I got to Milwaukee where I had any number of strong 
 friends. Lemuel Ellsworth had just become chief of 
 police, and the present Milwaukee chief, John T. Jans- 
 sen, was on the detective staff. I went to the central 
 station to call upon them, as they were old friends of 
 mine during my police reporter days. The chief 
 handed me a telegram to read. It was for my arrest. 
 
WOLVES HUMAN AND OTHERWISE 11 
 
 They had sent it to the wrong place. I told my story. 
 All of us knew the chief affectionately as Lem. He 
 said: 
 
 u Glad to see you, Chase. Now, let's do something to 
 those hell-hounds. I will wire I have you and ask 
 them to send for you with a strong guard. This will 
 possibly bring a crowd of them down, and I will throw 
 them all into the bull pen." 
 
 " Of course I can't wait to do that," I replied, for 
 I had to accomplish my bigger mission and return as 
 quickly as possible. 
 
 During the afternoon I received a telegram signed 
 " H. P. Cory." It read : " Don't come back. They 
 are going to kill you if you do." 
 
 I knew it as a fake at once, for that preacher would 
 have had me come back and be killed rather than have 
 me run away from the fine fight I had started. I felt 
 the same way. It was only wisdom to be apprehensive 
 enough to be on the alert, as the gang had not hesitated 
 to resort to murder in the dark before. 
 
 I saw rugged Jeremiah M. Rusk, then governor of 
 Wisconsin, and secured the appointment of a clean, but 
 rather gentle lawyer named Howard E. Thompson as 
 district attorney, to succeed the Mudge gang lawyer, 
 who, although possessed of a kind of brute bravery, got 
 out of the way. Before he had downed the sheriff that 
 officer had bowled him over, after being shot through the 
 body himself, and stood over him, futilely snapping a 
 revolver, all the loads of which had been discharged, in 
 a frantic attempt to kill. Then the sheriff fell into the 
 pool of blood that had trickled around his feet and the 
 lawyer bad man was run off. 
 
 Governor Rusk gave me every encouragment. 
 
 " Go after them, boy," he said, " and if you need 
 
12 THE IRON HUNTER 
 
 help just say the word. I'll back you with the troops 
 if it is necessary." 
 
 I made my way back north about as rapidly as I had 
 fled. The gang was in a panic when they saw me and 
 heard of the support the governor had fortified me with. 
 I had it told to them in as amplified and impressive 
 a manner as possible arid then I played it up in my 
 paper with all my might and type. The gang was on 
 the run from that time, but it was not beaten yet. 
 Dives and relays were started along the border so that 
 the outlaws could jump from one State to the other 
 handily. 
 
 Claudius B. Grant was a circuit judge in the adjacent 
 region of Michigan. He became a terror to the bad 
 men and women and clearly showed what a man 
 rightly constituted can do with the law in his own hands. 
 He was waging a solitary war against the gang, and 
 sheriffs and prosecuting attorneys who were their tools. 
 Finally he made it so hot for them on his side, and we 
 so reciprocated on our side that the bad people began 
 to look for other and less troublesome pastures. They 
 fled to Seney, Trout Lake, Ewen, Sidnaw, Hurley and 
 other points in the Lake Superior country out of 
 Grant's jurisdiction, and out of our reach, where they 
 operated for some years without molestation. There 
 was a temporary renascence of outlawry in Judge 
 Grant's district because the gang had gotten rid of 
 him by designedly electing him to the Supreme Court 
 of Michigan. But it did not last long. Civilization 
 must have something more than that kind of outlawry 
 to subsist upon, and civilization was growing a good 
 deal like a weed. 
 
 All of this was not achieved as easily as it has been 
 briefly written. There were many clashes and excit- 
 
WOLVES HUMAN AND OTHERWISE 13 
 
 ing performances. Both sides were high handed. 
 Shootings occurred by day and night, and the fight was 
 a real battle. 
 
 At first the gang had nearly all the law officers on 
 its side. By degrees we changed this. The average 
 follow in office is quick to try to pick the winning side. 
 These trimmers, usually so despicable, were a real help 
 to us because they trimmed gradually to our side. 
 
 Mudge withdrew his worst operations to more remote 
 spots in the woods. The Regulators determined to 
 clean all of them out. The law was too slow under the 
 conditions that existed and the punishments inadequate. 
 At the time there was really no law against white slav- 
 ery and procuring. 
 
 Pat McHugh, a bully and retired prize fighter, was 
 Madge's head man. Nearly everybody was afraid of 
 him. He had even been known to fight in the day- 
 time with his backers at hand, and he was fairly quick 
 with a gun, but could not fan. On a day agreed upon 
 the Regulators, armed with Winchester rifles, Colt re- 
 volvers and blacksnake whips, started on a rodeo. They 
 drove the toughs off the streets. Those who did not 
 move quickly enough were lashed smartly with the 
 blacksnakes. Theirs had been a reign of terror long 
 enough. It was our turn. They showed as many tem- 
 peraments as one could find among any men and women. 
 Some were whimpering cowards. Others were sullen. 
 The women were most bold and loudest in profanity 
 and vulgarity. A woman has capacity to be the very 
 best and the very worst. McHugh was one of the first 
 to run. He hid in the swamp stockade with half a 
 dozen others of the gang. The Regulators rode down 
 against them. They opened a hot fire with Winchester 
 repeaters. The Regulators replied and charged. It 
 
14 THE IKON HUNTER 
 
 fell to Bill Noyes to capture Pat McHugh. The bully 
 had often boasted what he would do to Bill if he ever 
 got a chance. Now he fled into the swamp, revolver 
 in hand. Bill saw him and ran after him. They 
 dodged from tree to tree, Indian fashion, exchanging 
 shots from time to time. Bill was too good a woods- 
 man for McHugh. He loaded his gun as he ran and 
 soon had a drop on the leader of the outfit. McHugh 
 fell on his knees and begged for mercy. Bill spared 
 him. He said to me only a short time ago : 
 
 " Chase, I reckon I oughta killed that red-handed 
 devil that day I got him in the swamp, but I'm kinda 
 glad I didn't, 'cause it goes agin the grain with me to 
 kill anything I can't eat." 
 
 After that we burned a number of stockades and 
 soon had the community so fit to live in that I spent 
 four happy years there. And my wife, who had given 
 up a good home to share her lot with a young reporter, 
 was contented, and our girlie grew fat and crowed when 
 her first brother was born in the little boarded rooms 
 full of cracks, in the rear of the one-story, country 
 printing office. 
 
 What became of Mudge will never be told. Only a 
 half dozen Regulators ever knew. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 WHAT'S IN YOUR NAME OB MINE? 
 
 THE name Osborn, Osborne, Osburn, Osbern, Os- 
 beorn, et cetera, has an interesting genesis, true 
 of the origin of most family names, with source 
 variations dependent upon what name system, Teutonic 
 or other, is consulted. Leo's " Essay on Anglo-Saxon 
 Names/' published in 1841, appears to be as thorough 
 as any and has become an authority. " Bearo " or 
 " bern," betokens, as gathered from Kemble's " Char- 
 ters/ 7 a fruitful, productive wood, yielding beechnuts, 
 acorns and other mast, wild pears, crabapples, paw- 
 paws, persimmons, and other wild fruits of the forest. 
 The word " beran," meaning to yield, to produce fruit, 
 evolves into bear, barron, boren, be re, barley. Beam, 
 a child, the fruit of the body, and bearo, bero, byro, 
 the fruit wood, are similar derivatives. 
 
 These things I am setting down, not because of any 
 especial name vanity, but for the reason that these 
 references suggest the manner of the making and the 
 giving of all family names, the reader's as well as mine 
 and all others. Also the growth system of our language 
 is indicated by the way family names have started and 
 by their methods of change in obedience to the influence 
 of thought and time. 
 
 Ferguson, in his " Surnames as a Science " builds 
 my name of the Old North " As " or the Anglo-Saxon 
 " Os," implicative of the deity and " beorn," meaning 
 
 15 
 
16 THE IRON HUNTER 
 
 bear. He says the name is Norse and means " The Di- 
 vine Bear " or " Godbear." Lower's " Patronymica 
 Britanriica," published 1860, says that Osborn, Os- 
 borne, Osbern, Osbernus and so forth are variations of 
 a very common baptismal name. Several persons bear- 
 ing these names are referred to in Domesday as tenants 
 in chief in different counties of England. 
 
 William Arthur, father of Chester A. Arthur, brought 
 out a name hunt book in 1857, in which he says Osborn 
 is Saxon, from bus, house, and beam, a child, hence a 
 family child or perhaps an adopted child. 
 
 Bowditch's " Suffolk Surnames," Boston, 1861, 
 makes very free with Arthur's offerings, as Arthur had 
 done with other name sleuths, and says Osborn means 
 " housechild." 
 
 Bardsley's " English Surnames," says that " Os " as 
 a root word carrying the significance of deity has made 
 for itself a firm place among English names, as proven 
 by Osborn, Oswald, Oswin, Osmond, Osmer, Osgot, 
 Osgood, Oslac (Asluck, Hasluck, etc.). 
 
 Edmunds, in " Traces of History in Names of 
 Places," says Osborn means " brave bear." 
 
 Sophy Moody, in " What is Your Name ? " has it 
 that Osborn means " a chief appointed by the gods." 
 
 " Gentry, Family Names," Philadelphia, 1892, gives 
 " Os " as hero and " beorn " as chief, general, prince, 
 king, hence hero king, or something akin to it. 
 
 In " Homes of Family Names in Great Britain," 
 Guppy, 1890, I find the claim that my name was borne 
 by farmers or yeoman attached to the soil in England 
 before the Norman Conquest, According to Guppy, 
 it was confined south of a line joining the Humber and 
 the Mersey, and its principal area of distribution is in 
 the form of a belt crossing Central England from East 
 
WHAT'S IN YOUR NAME OR MINE 17 
 
 Anglia to the borders of Wales. Though well repre- 
 sented also in the southwest of England, especially in 
 Somerset and Cornwall, it is rare or absent in the other 
 south coast counties excepting Sussex. Osborne is 
 common in England and Osborn is uncommon in com- 
 parison, although the latter is sprinkled through Bed- 
 fordshire, Buckinghamshire, Cambridgeshire, Cornwall, 
 Derbyshire, Essex, Gloucestershire, Hertfordshire, Lin- 
 colnshire, Norfolk, Northamptonshire, Somersetshire, 
 Suffolk, Sussex, Worcestershire and Warwickshire. 
 
 A book with author's name not given, " The Norrnan 
 People and their existing descendents in the British 
 Dominions and the United States," London, 1874, con- 
 tains a dictionary of 3000 Norman names. I gather 
 here that our family descends from a Kentish branch 
 of the family of Fitz-Osberne, seated in that county 
 early in the reign of Henry VI, where Thomas Osberne 
 appeared to a writ of quo warranto for the Abbey of 
 Dartford. The family had come from Essex and Suf- 
 folk, where the name is traced to Thomas Fitz-Osberne, 
 1227-1240, who granted lands to Holy Trinity. His 
 grandfather, Richard Fitz-Osberne or Fitz-Osbert, held 
 a fief from Earl Bigot in 1105 and was ancestor of the 
 Lords Fitz-Osberne summoned by writ in 1312. Fitz- 
 Letard Osbern came to England in 1060 and held lands 
 from Odo, of Bayeux in 1086. 
 
 " The Battle of Abbey Roll with some account of the 
 Norman Lineages," by the Duchess of Cleveland, has 
 many references to the Osborns. 
 
 " Dugdale Baronage of England, or an Historical 
 Account of the Lives and Most Memorable Actions of 
 our English Nobility in the Saxon Times to the Norman 
 Conquest, and from thence of Those who had Their 
 Rise before the end of Henry Ill's Reign," genealog- 
 
18 THE IRON HUNTER 
 
 ical tables, etc., 3 volumes, by the author of " Monasti- 
 con Angelicanuin," published 1675, is a notable work 
 and a chief authority for that time in what it purports 
 to cover. Planche, in " The Conqueror and His Com- 
 panions," visits it liberally, as do other writers dealing 
 with that era. 
 
 In Lower's " English Surnames " I found a story of 
 the Osborn name which, whether true or false, mirrors 
 the times arid depicts the light regard mediaeval mon- 
 archs had for the lands and property of the people that 
 were vested in the crown. Walter, a Norman knight 
 and a great favorite of King William the First, playing 
 at chess with his Sire on a summer evening on the banks 
 of the River Ouse, won all he played for. The King 
 said he had nothing more to play for and was about to 
 quit the game. 
 
 " Sire," said Walter, " here is land." 
 
 " There is so," replied King William, " and I will 
 further play with thee. If thou beatest me this game 
 also, thine is all this land on this side the bourne (river) 
 which thou canst see as thou sittest." 
 
 Walter won. 
 
 King William clapped him on the shoulder and de- 
 clared : 
 
 " The lands are yours. Henceforth shall you be a 
 lord, and have the name ' Ousebourne.' ' And thence 
 sprang the family of Osborn. 
 
 The family name is treated in Burke's " General 
 Armory " and especially in Burke's " Vicissitudes of 
 Families." 
 
 In the Church of Dives, Normandy, is a roll of the 
 " Companions of William in the Conquest of England 
 in 1066." It gives Osbern d'Arquess, Osbern du Ber- 
 
WHAT'S IN YOUR NAME OR MINE 19 
 
 nib, Osbern d'Eu, Osbern Giffard, Osbern Pastforiere, 
 Osboru du Quesnai, Osborn du Soussai, and Osbern de 
 Wauci. I have thought that the word Osborn in this 
 roll was synonymous with Chieftain; at least to desig- 
 nate feudal retainers of the Conqueror from the parts 
 of Normandy mentioned. 
 
 Undoubtedly William Fitz-Osbern was the nearest 
 personal friend of William the Conqueror. J. R. 
 Planche, in " The Conqueror and His Companions," 
 says he was and also that Osbern was the chief officer 
 of the household. He fought in all the battles in Nor- 
 mandy during the twenty years which immediately pre- 
 ceded the invasion of England, from that of Val-es- 
 Dunes, in 1047, to that of Varaville, in 1060, and took 
 part in the expedition against Conan, in Brittany, and 
 in the invasion of Maine in 1063. Osbern is men- 
 tioned in the accounts of the siege of Domfront in 1054, 
 when he was sent to demand an explanation from Geof- 
 frey Martel of his conduct in marching into Normandy 
 and seizing Alencon. I shall now quote a few pages 
 from Planche's story of this Osbern, mostly because of 
 its rather odd sidelight upon a most important event in 
 history : 
 
 " Osbern seems to have resembled the Conqueror, his mas- 
 ter, in character, combining great valor with readiness of 
 wit and astuteness of policy. We have seen him entering 
 the hall of the palace at Rouen humming a tune and rous- 
 ing the moody Duke from his silent and sullen consideration 
 of the news from England by bidding him bestir himself 
 and take vengeance upon Harold, who had been disloyal to 
 him ; to call together all he could call, cross the Channel and 
 wrest the crown from the perjured usurper. The Duke 
 called his retainer ' Osbern of the Bold Heart.' 
 
 " At the large assembly of the whole baronage of Nor- 
 
20 THE IRON HUNTER 
 
 mandy at Lillebonne to consider the question of fighting 
 Harold, the audacity and cunning of Osbern displayed it- 
 self in an amazing effrontery that saved the day for the 
 Conqueror. The barons were irresolute and even rebellious. 
 Puzzled and ill at ease the council finally turned to the 
 wily Dapifer Osbern and asked him to be their spokesman; 
 to say to their lord that they not only feared the sea but 
 were not bound to serve him beyond it. No such decision 
 did Osbern voice. Upon the exact contrary, to the amaze- 
 ment and confusion of the nobles, he told the Duke that 
 they were loyal to a man and eager to serve him; that he 
 who should bring twenty men would bring forty; that he 
 who was bound to serve with one hundred would bring two 
 hundred, and that the one assigned five hundred would 
 bring a thousand and so on down the line he represented 
 that all the barons would double their quota, thus insuring 
 success. As for himself, Osbern promised to furnish sixty 
 ships with full crews of fighting men. At first the barons 
 were crazed with indignation, but stupefied and bewildered. 
 Out of the wild disorder thus created, one of them was sud- 
 denly stricken with the idea that if all would do as Osbern 
 had unwarrantedly promised the campaign could not fail. 
 And one by one they consented." 
 
 Taylor's list of William the Conqueror's ships puts 
 Osbern at the head and agrees with Wace that he fur- 
 nished sixty ships and crews. The record reads: 
 "Habuit a Willielmo Dapifero, filio Osberni LX 
 naves." 
 
 At another time Wace tells of Osbern's chiding the 
 Conqueror before a battle, demanding less delay and 
 indecision. He commanded the men from Boulogne 
 and Paix, rode a horse covered from head to tail with 
 fine woven iron chain armor. Even though Osbern was 
 the only companion of the Conqueror who ever dared 
 to cross him or bluntly advise him, he was much loved 
 and was granted lands, position and honor in England 
 by William after the Conquest, and he and his family 
 
WHAT'S IN YOUR NAME OK MINE 21 
 
 have never since been separated from the history of 
 England. 
 
 The Norse Osborns were also an interesting people. 
 Our family has always clung to the idea that it had a 
 Scandinavian origin, easily tracing the name histori- 
 cally to participants in the Norse invasion of England. 
 
CHAPTEE III 
 
 NATURAL BORN REBELS 
 
 OSBORN is the English corruption for polar bear 
 or godbear in Danish, Swedish and Norwegian, 
 whether spelled Isbjorn, Esbjerne or otherwise. 
 Our family story, is that our ancestor was one of two 
 jarls, who got into England at the invasion of 800. 
 The other was promptly killed, and sometimes I 
 fear I have made certain persons wish both had 
 been. George the Settler brought one wing of our 
 family to America and others came during the Huge- 
 not hegira to Massachusetts. The fact that there was 
 much titled nobility in the family did not keep some 
 of my forbears from being rebels. They fought with 
 Cromwell in the Black Watch and with the Irish kings. 
 For so long had they lived in the British Isles that they 
 were scattered throughout England, Ireland, Scotland 
 and Wales. To this day a royal chateau on the Isle of 
 Wight bears our family name and the favorite yacht 
 of King Edward VII bore it also. A lot of us must 
 have been naturally democratic despite those of the 
 family who courted royal favor. Every movement of 
 reform from the time of King John and the affair at 
 Runnymede and on through the religious wars has been 
 participated in by my kinsfolk. The American Revo- 
 lution found most of the family in New Jersey and 
 New York. As usual, a split occurred. Some became 
 rebels under Washington and others were Tories; later 
 
NATURAL BORN REBELS 23 
 
 these mostly went back to England or moved to Canada. 
 To make a distinction the rebels dropped the final " e " 
 and spelled their name " Osborn." The Tories re- 
 tained the " e " and so ashamed were they of my grand- 
 sires that many of them made even greater changes in 
 spelling, such as Osbourne, and even Gisborne. Some 
 of the Gisbornes got as far away from us as they easily 
 could by going to New Zealand, where they founded a 
 flourishing town. During a visit to Gisborne I had 
 many talks about our common ancestors with my dis- 
 tant relatives, and much wholesome laughter. 
 
 My twice great grandfather, John Osborn, was a 
 revolutionary chaplain and an uncle was a captain. 
 Several others served as privates. The record of all 
 is good without being especially dramatic. 
 
 My grandfather, Isaac Osborn, was born in a fishing 
 village on the northwest coast of Long Island, in 1795. 
 He carried a musket as a private in the War of 1812, 
 and was slightly wounded at Lundy Lane. In 1818 
 he was married to Sarah Pardee at Guilford, Connecti- 
 cut. One of my grandmother's uncles had a private 
 French school at New Haven, in the vicinity of where 
 Yale College was afterward located. The fact that she 
 was a refined young woman only made her more eager 
 to help make powder and mold bullets during the War 
 of 1812. The same heroic tendency inspired to abet 
 my grandfather in his pioneering dreams. Finally 
 they started to cross the Alleghenies with an ox team. 
 Following the trail of westward emigration my grand- 
 father located on the Ohio River at Madison, Indiana. 
 He had been a fisherman and it was not such a big 
 change to become a riverman. It was not long before 
 he owned a flat boat and soon afterwards we find him 
 trading as far down river as New Orleans. He would 
 
24 THE IKON HtJNTEB 
 
 steer his laden boats down the current and sell his 
 cargo and also his scows wherever the best trade could 
 be made. Then he would return home overland. 
 
 There came a day when he did not return. Grand- 
 mother told me when I was a little boy that grand- 
 father had a fleet of five flat boats on his last trip, laden 
 with a miscellaneous assortment of hogs, cattle, wheat, 
 corn, maple sugar, furs, beans, and so forth. He ex- 
 pected to realize between four and five thousand dol- 
 lars for his outfit. He was last heard of after selling 
 out at New Orleans and starting for home. Years 
 afterward a lot of skeletons were found in a hole in a 
 cellar underneath a tavern that was a kind of a back- 
 woods, halfway house, near where Memphis now stands, 
 where river traders horsebacking north were accommo- 
 dated. It turned out to be a worse murder trap than 
 the Benders had in Kansas. So far as ever could be 
 learned my grandfather was one of the many murdered 
 at that place. He had had all of his capital invested 
 in the outfit. It left my grandmother almost destitute. 
 She just waited long enough for my father, George Au- 
 gustus Osborn, to be born, a posthumous child, Febru- 
 ary 28, 1823, and then moved up to Cincinnati and, as 
 she was fitted for the profession, became a school teacher 
 until she married Amos Davis as her second husband. 
 
 My father was twelve years old at the time. He had 
 learned to chew tobacco and swear on the river levee 
 by the time he was three years old. I remember now 
 with what needless chagrin he would discuss his boy- 
 hood with me after he had become a man of as much 
 probity of character as I have ever known, and a total 
 abstainer from all forms of tobacco and liquor. He 
 rebelled at once against the new step-daddy and very 
 soon afterward ran away from home. By the time he 
 
NATURAL BORX REBELS 25 
 
 was eighteen he had acquired quite some education, and 
 owned a little water-power saw mill in the backwoods 
 of Ohio, where only the best walnut logs were ripped 
 up, the rest going into rails or wood or brush fires. 
 
 Amos Davis was a leading spiritualist, and was said 
 to have possessed the most numerous library of books 
 upon spiritualism west of the Allegheny Mountains. 
 My father, who had become a Wesleyan, grew to hate his 
 stepfather, and in seeking afterwards for a reason was 
 inclined to attribute this to the spiritualism excitant. 
 He confessed to me that he burned his stepfather's 
 books every chance he got, and was encouraged to do so 
 by his Wesleyan Sunday school teacher, which glimpses 
 the pioneer Buckeye intolerance of the day. In this 
 way, to my deep regret, most of the great Davis library 
 disappeared. I inherited a few of the books, and 
 strange enough are they. One is an " Epic of the 
 Starry Heavens," presumed to -have been written by dis- 
 embodied poets, but proving that a poet can be no worse 
 while in the body. Another is a mysterious work de- 
 voted to the subject of " Spiritual Transference of 
 Thought," and even of more substantial things. As a 
 boy I used to devour this ghost book until I could not 
 sleep of nights. But none of it would my father have. 
 
 He sawed walnut lumber, built houses, hunted cata- 
 mounts, deer, coons and squirrels, wrestled and studied 
 medicine with an old doctor of the horse-syringe school. 
 It was while in the backwoods of Piqua County, Ohio, 
 at the village of Circleville, that he met and married 
 Margaret Ann Fannon, my sainted mother. She was 
 the most superb woman I have ever known, and I try 
 to think of her apart from being my mother so that 
 I can be certain she was most wonderful as all mothers 
 are wonderful. I do not know much about her family 
 
26 THE IKON HUNTER 
 
 because both of her parents died of a mysterious sickness 
 within two days, when my mother was a babe in arms. 
 The disease was called " milk sickness." Nobody knew 
 anything about it or how to cure it, nor do they to this 
 time. During a critical epoch in Ohio and Indiana 
 hundreds of pioneers died from it. It was more deadly 
 than the Indians and beside it " fever and agur " were 
 just nothing at all. It was supposed to be caused by 
 poisoned milk because it occurred at a certain time 
 when the cows ranged in the woods and pastured, feed- 
 ing upon many strange herbs. Dr. Victor Vaughan, 
 dean of the medical school of the University of Mich- 
 igan, than whom there is not a more earnest devotee 
 of medical research in the world, writes to me that the 
 " milk sickness " so-called of the pioneer days in the 
 Ohio and Wabash basin, was and is yet a medical mys- 
 tery. Happily it disappeared when the land was cul- 
 tivated. 
 
 My mother was born at Circleville, Piqua County, 
 Ohio, April 30, 1827. She was of immediate Prot- 
 estant Irish descent, although her grandfather on her 
 mother's side was a McGrath and a great grandfather 
 was a McKenna. When her parents died, leaving her a 
 homeless, helpless baby, a big-hearted neighboring fam- 
 ily named Hoblett took her to " raise." ^The Hobletts 
 had numerous children of their own but, as it was with 
 most of the pioneers, there was plenty of room around 
 the warm hearth stone of their hearts. Children were 
 always being desolated by one tragedy or another and 
 in belief that theirs might be next, a feeling developed 
 that insurance for the future could only be had by acts 
 of kindness on all sides. It is not a bad investment 
 to-day and can be depended upon right now to pay royal 
 dividends of happiness. 
 
NATURAL BORN REBELS 27 
 
 The Hobletts saw to it that the eagerness my mother 
 showed for learning did not go unappeased. They 
 gave her as good a chance as their own youngsters had, 
 and she took advantage of it, with the result that, al- 
 though schools were crude and teachers equally so, my 
 mother had a better education in her girlhood than most 
 young women of the time. This she improved every 
 day of her long and useful life. Of course she could 
 cook, and knit, and weave, and on a pinch she was a 
 good rifle shot, albeit she did not like wantonly to kill 
 things. In this sentiment as in all things she was 
 truly womanly. 
 
 The supernal matrix of life has an instinctive re- 
 spect for all sentient things. 
 
 One evening in the Autumn a fat young buck joined 
 the homestead herd of cattle that was foraging near the 
 log cabin. There was no one at home except my mother. 
 The deer would make the very best jerked venison for 
 winter use. My mother took the big rifle down from 
 its deer horn rack, softly opened the little window 
 enough to admit the barrel, poked it through and shot 
 the deer. I think this story fevered my boyish blood 
 more than any other. 
 
 My mother was almost twenty years old when she was 
 married to rny father. This occurred in April, 1847. 
 My father was twenty-four. It was getting to be too 
 tame around Circleville for my father, so they soon 
 made up their minds to trek to Indiana. Their first 
 child, Eugene, was born in Ohio and then the little 
 family in 1848 started off through the woods for the 
 West. From that moment their lives were filled with 
 work and unrest. They entered government land in 
 Blackford County, Indiana, and fought malaria there. 
 It was deadly. Two children died its victims. Other 
 
28 THE IRON HUNTER 
 
 little ones came to take their place. Three more were 
 born in Blackford, two daughters and a son Emma, 
 Georgiana and Stephen Pardee, named for my paternal 
 grandmother's brother, who had entered lands in what 
 is now the heart of Chicago. On the land occupied 
 there by my parents oil and gas wells of great value 
 were found later. In 1858 they moved to Huntington 
 County, Indiana, where prospects for health and life 
 seemed better. My father had become a doctor and my 
 mother had been studying medicine with him. They 
 had some practice but not enough to afford a living. 
 To eke out, my father kept a little store, bought walnut 
 timber, which was coming to have a small market value, 
 and industriously traded. 
 
 Exciting times had brewed. Even before leaving 
 Ohio my father had become a devoted abolitionist and 
 was so earnest that he often aided negroes running away 
 to Canada by driving Allen's " underground " railway, 
 an inclosed night wagon that was used for spiriting 
 negroes northward. In the " Tippecanoe and Tyler 
 too," log-cabin campaign he had marched and carried 
 a torch and a coon-skin banner and had riotously sung 
 songs, and even tried to vote although he was only a 
 slip of a boy. His open endeavor to vote before of age 
 was a joke in the neighborhood for years. All this in- 
 sured that he would have part in the inflammatory 
 drama that was enacted in Indiana just before and dur- 
 ing the war. No one who is not familiar with those 
 border social conflagrations can understand them at all. 
 Bitterness was not common in the far South until actual 
 war was translated there. Nor did the furnace of pas- 
 sions reach such a great incandescence farther north. 
 It was where the north and south came together along 
 that line of frictional contact run by Mason and Dixon, 
 
NATURAL BORN REBELS 29 
 
 that the feeling assumed a fierce rancor that made for 
 monomania and homicidal obsession. There were more 
 Copperheads than Union men in our part of Hunting- 
 ton County, but they came very far from having their 
 own way. A Union flag was hoisted at the log school 
 house, and a bloody fight in which bowie knives and 
 rifles were used came off when the Copperheads tried to 
 pull it down but failed. The Southern sympathizers 
 wore butternuts as insignias of their sentiments. Their 
 women were especially violent. More than once a riot 
 broke out on Sunday at the services in the log meeting 
 house. Men would generally go for the open, but the 
 women would pull each other over the benches, tear and 
 scratch and pummel and drag each other around by the 
 hair. 
 
 It is difficult to adjust the mind to a realization that 
 these things happened such a short time ago. We have 
 made advances on our way but the trail we must travel 
 is still a long one and so often very dim. 
 
 In such an atmosphere I was born January 22, 1860, 
 in Huntiugton County, Indiana, in a little log house 
 of two rooms with one real glass window and two others 
 of greased paper. Wabash, in an enjoining county 
 fourteen miles away, was our big town. It had a pop- 
 ulation of over two hundred. There were meeting 
 houses at ^Etna, Lagro, Dora and New Holland, all 
 near by, and about equidistant in various directions. 
 Not far away were the Wabash, the Salimonie and the 
 Mississiuiwa rivers, beautiful streams full of channel 
 cats and silver bass, now stealing quietly along some 
 bepooled dark bank only to burst over a limestone ledge 
 with golden transparency and jolly gurglings, just like 
 the complexion and laughter of a Hoosier girl. 
 
 Judging from what I have been told by my parents 
 
30 THE IRON HUNTER 
 
 and sisters and older brothers, I was one of those puny 
 babies that modern eugenics would condemn to infantile 
 death, indeed a peaceful issue of life compared with 
 running the gauntlet of American politics and business, 
 but not nearly so enjoyable. I could digest nothing and 
 had, among other things, a bloody flux that drained my 
 body of almost the last vital spark. But my mother 
 was in advance of her time in baby raising. She made 
 gruel for me of the germ scrapings near the cob of green 
 sweet corn. This, with the delicate pulp just inside 
 the skin of the grape, supplied nutrition. Outdoors in 
 the air night and day, with rides on old " Snip," held on 
 a pillow, and walks in the same fashion won me strength 
 slowly. Once they lost me off a pillow. It took a fight 
 every minute for three years to save my life. Even 
 then the first words I spoke as a babe were " Solly me " 
 sorry me. 
 
 My earliest recollection is of seeing soldiers in blue 
 uniforms and of telling a lie to my mother. There is 
 no connection between them. My mother to get rid of 
 me and amuse me made a fishing outfit for me by tying 
 a thread to a gad on which she fastened a pin hook 
 baited with a little piece of plantain leaf. With this 
 she said I might go to a little nearby ditch and fish for 
 frogs. I do not even know whether there were frogs 
 or fish but I think none. However I returned with a 
 famous story. I told my mother that I caught so many 
 frogs that I could not carry them and that then I 
 stopped catching frogs and caught fish and also caught 
 so many of them that I could not carry them. She did 
 not ask me why I had not brought all I could carry, 
 but with much sober concern quietly took me by the 
 hand and carrying a large, homemade bag in the other, 
 started down to the ditch. My alarm was terrible. I 
 
NATUEAL BOKN T KEBELS 31 
 
 had not looked ahead at all and, as I was not yet four 
 years old, this did not betoken abnormal stupidity. 
 On the way I tried to convince my mother that the 
 frogs and iish might all have jumped back in ; that in 
 fact most of them had before I left. She asked me 
 why I didn't bring home such as were left. After much 
 deep thought I replied that they were jumping around 
 so fast and were so slick that I couldn't pick them up. 
 On we went to the scene of the big catch. My mother 
 looked the ground over and we marched back even more 
 soberly than our going. When we got to the house she 
 talked to me about the sin of lying. Then she made a 
 lather of soft soap and thoroughly washed out my 
 mouth. I thought it the nastiest dose I had ever taken, 
 although children of that time and in that part of In- 
 diana were dosed all the time with all sorts of hor- 
 rible stuff. After soaping my mouth my mother made 
 me kneel at her knee and ask God to forgive me. That 
 touched my little heart, and made an impression, with 
 many tears, that is as vivid now as it was at the moment. 
 My father enlisted for the war. He was promised 
 an assistant surgeon's position. On his way on horse- 
 back to Indianapolis the beast stumbled and dragged my 
 father for a long distance through the woods. His head 
 was hurt, several ribs were broken, his spine was in- 
 jured and there were internal bruises. After that he 
 was an invalid for the remainder of his life. He was 
 six feet tall, weighed two hundred pounds, and had been 
 a powerful man. His life had been filled with energy 
 that drove him to many deeds. Once he had gone for 
 a time, west of Iowa, among the Indians then wild, for 
 study and exploration. On his way home from the trip 
 he had been the house guest of Joseph Smith, the Mor- 
 mon prophet at Nauvoo. Father told me that eight 
 
32 THE IKON HUNTEK 
 
 women sat at the table with the prophet and himself, 
 and he understood all of them were wives. Joseph 
 Smith was gentle in his household, father said, and al- 
 though he greatly detested Mormonism, he always spoke 
 kindly of Smith and regretted his assassination. 
 
 Two more children were born in Huntington County 
 Horace Edwin in 1862 and Charles Eussell in 1864. 
 My mother began to take the lead as a doctor. She had 
 learned much from my father. Both had strong intel- 
 lects. My father was impetuous and extreme. My 
 mother was calm and lovely. Both had by now de- 
 veloped lofty characters. In 1857 my father had gone 
 to Cleveland to study hydropathy at a sanitarium. The 
 great water cure discoveries of Vincenz Priessnitz were 
 taking hold of America, fostered by such English and 
 American hydropathic propagandists as Gully and 
 Shew. Heavy dosing was the order of the day until the 
 average patient measured his prospects for recovery 
 by the quantity of nauseous drugs he swallowed. To 
 pretend to cure anybody of anything with just simple 
 pure water seemed a grotesquery if not an insanity. 
 But my parents were courageous and would not fool 
 anybody even with a placebo. They compounded their 
 own prescriptions and carried their own medicine as 
 did most practitioners of the time. 
 
 The older children were growing up. Grandmother 
 had been a school teacher. My parents realized the ad- 
 vantages of schooling. The opportunities in the back- 
 woods were slight. So they decided to move by wagon 
 to LaFayette. I had passed my sixth year, had helped 
 to carry in wild turkeys my older brother Eugene had 
 shot just back of our brush fence, and had heard the 
 story in eager tones of the bear tracks in our deadening. 
 I had tried to ride a bull calf with the willing help of 
 
NATURAL BORX REBELS 33 
 
 my brothers and had done a lot of things that attached 
 me to the place. The watermelon patch was a luscious 
 place, and the melons grew almost large enough for me 
 to hide behind. So I cried when they talked of moving 
 away. That did not postpone proceedings. One day 
 the things had all been loaded into three wagons, one of 
 them covered for the family like a prairie schooner, and 
 we started. We had three teams and were regarded as 
 rich. I remember father and my older brothers march- 
 ing beside their teams, and they would let me walk as 
 far as I could. Our two dogs, Carlo and Rover, would 
 dart off the road after rabbits, or bark as they treed 
 black and gray squirrels. Not infrequently they 
 flushed wild turkeys. The meals we had on that trek 
 were taken from boxes in the wagon and cylinder re- 
 ceptacles of hollow logs with the ends closed with skins. 
 The elders shot game enroute, and we got fruit that was 
 mostly wild. 
 
 The rough read followed near the canal along the 
 Wabash River. Everybody called it the canawl. Swift 
 packets, making as much as six miles an hour, carried 
 passengers and mail, and drove a swash along the banks 
 that looked to my boyish eyes like a big ever-running 
 water snake. We had plenty of snakes, too, and I knew 
 their motion blue racers, blacksnakes and rattlers. 
 Mules and bony horses, driven tandem, plodded along 
 the towpath driven by ragged, barefoot and often hat- 
 less boys. It was interesting to see them pass the locks. 
 
 One afternoon the wagons started a down-hill run to 
 cross a creek that flowed into the Wabash. It was quite 
 terrifying the way the wagons swayed, but the worst 
 was to come. When the horses were midstream we 
 heard a blood-curdling scream. The animals plunged 
 madly and ran as hard as they could in the water as thev 
 
34 THE IRON HUNTER 
 
 were. I looked out and just ahead and off to the left 
 I saw a monster coming and the horses saw it too. It 
 was belching white smoke and sparks, and I was cer- 
 tain we must be near the gateway of hell and that this 
 was the devil about to catch us and drag us in. I had 
 never seen or heard of a locomotive and had not seen 
 an engine of any kind. The fear it caused in me could 
 not be overdrawn. It was an old wood-burner on what 
 was then the new Wabash Valley Railroad, afterwards 
 the Toledo, Wabash & Western, and now the Wabash. 
 The young children could not realize and the older ones 
 knew better, so I had a monopoly of fright. There 
 were seven of us children on this expedition, the young- 
 est two years and the eldest eighteen. 
 
 How many women to-day would dream of starting 
 on a single day's railroad journey with seven children ? 
 However, I think they would if they had to, because 
 women to-day are confronted by more dangers than their 
 mothers were. Social pitfalls are worse than ever were 
 Indian ambushes, and the suffering and death they 
 bring are worse than the scalping wounds, or the toma- 
 hawk hacks of the gauntlet that maimed only the body 
 and left the heart purer and the soul more serene than 
 before. 
 
 We were over two weeks on the road. On rainy days 
 we mostly camped while the older males hunted and 
 fished for the larder. There was no travel on Sunday, 
 and on Monday we stopped to permit mother and the 
 girls to do our washing. 
 
 In this way we moved to LaFayette. Soon we were 
 sumptuously installed in a big, three-story, frame house, 
 with four acres of grounds surrounding, and barns, out- 
 buildings, fruit trees, shrubs, flowers and gardens. 
 Contrast this with the woods and the little log house 
 
NATURAL BORN REBELS 35 
 
 we had left. We children thought it was a palace and 
 our father a king. Aunt Goldthwaite had come out 
 some time before from Connecticut to visit us and told 
 us fairy stories, just enough to make us wonder and 
 credit to the fairies all the things we could not under- 
 stand. My present from Aunt Goldthwaite was a toy 
 watch we called it a " dumb " watch then. No Wal- 
 tham, Patek-Phillippe or Jurggeson since has been 
 worth a quarter as much ! Down below the hill reposed 
 the city, and just then LaFayette was a sleepy place. 
 Near by were neighbors. Everything was as different 
 as it could be. We had a real lamp with something 
 green in the oil bowl and a ground glass globe and 
 shining chimney. It was kept in the parlor, that holy 
 of holies of the time, and never lighted. Candles made 
 our light, and father used two at a time when he read, 
 and snuffed them with his fingers in a manner that fired 
 all of us with emulation. 
 
 The big house had a huge cellar. Soon there were 
 mysterious goings on in it. My eldest brother was the 
 only one of the children permitted the secret. But we 
 learned when the time came that father was an in- 
 ventor ; that he had devised one of the first stoves with 
 an oven and that now he had designed a washing ma- 
 chine. We did not know that nearly everybody of that 
 period had invented a washing machine, so when father 
 sold out his patents for what seemed a large amount of 
 money we took it as a matter of course. All of us had 
 had plenty to eat and good enough clothing up to that 
 time. But with the sale of the patent came still better 
 days. Mother had two black silk dresses and father, 
 wherever he got the idea, donned a frock coat and plug 
 hat. I had seen a daguerreotype of him as a youth 
 with a beaver on, and I know he was familiar with the 
 
36 THE IKON HUNTER 
 
 advice of Polonius to Laertes. Then he went to In- 
 dianapolis and entered the Indiana Medical College, 
 where he received a degree. 
 
 Once while father was absent the household was 
 aroused in the night by thunderous knocks and loud 
 calls. Good old Charley Kurtz, a neighbor butcher, 
 called "Old Charley" because he had a son called 
 " Young Charley," on his way home from the Odd Fel- 
 lows, discovered that our house was on fire. It got a 
 good start in the cellar, that was full of shavings from 
 the washing machine models that were kept for kin- 
 dling. It gave me one of the big scares of my young life. 
 I escaped from the family circle, and in an obsession 
 of excitement ran wildly about the place in my nightie. 
 I was seven. There was a big patch of gooseberry 
 bushes. Their thorns tore my limbs and body when I 
 repeatedly ran through them as I cried out frantically 
 for help. 
 
 The last child, William Douglas, was born in 1867, 
 making ten in all with eight living three girls and 
 seven boys, with two girls and six boys living as I write 
 these notes in 1916. 
 
CHAPTEE IV 
 
 POVERTY THAT CKAMPS AND THEN EXPANDS THE SOUL 
 
 EARLY in 1868 something happened to our fam- 
 ily fortunes. I do not know what it was more 
 than that my father lost all of his money, every 
 cent. It actually took the carpets off the floors to pay 
 out, and there was no hesitation about permitting them 
 to be taken. It was one of those occurrences that are 
 continually happening and directly or indirectly, mostly 
 the latter, exert a great influence both upon individuals 
 and society, serving to cure pride and remind man in a 
 decisive manner of his self-insufficiency. 
 
 All of a sudden we were as a family translated from 
 luxury to necessity from affluence to abysmal pov- 
 erty. It seems to me that I must have been taken out 
 of the big house while asleep. I was eight years old, 
 and must have had sufficient intellect to comprehend 
 things to some degree. Perhaps my senses were be- 
 numbed by the shock. Anyhow all I remember is that 
 I seemed to go to sleep in the big house and to awaken 
 in a little frame shack, with only two rooms and a 
 lean-to. The big parlor lamp was gone and so was the 
 parlor and the base-burner with the red coals shining 
 through the mica. Each youngster had had a horse to 
 ride. They were all gone. Two old crowbaits, that 
 were dying of old age and were a liability, and were 
 only kept in deference to a creditable sentiment, re- 
 mained. We called them " Baldy " and " Goalie," be- 
 
 37 
 
38 THE IKON HUNTER 
 
 cause one had a white forehead and the other was coal 
 black. The first real fight I ever had was with a boy 
 who shouted after me " flip-flop ! " " flip-flop ! " " flip- 
 flop ! " as I was urging old Baldy into a sort of earth- 
 quake, bone-racking trot. He was rather too big for 
 me, and I got a bloody nose and a black eye. He got 
 enough so that he did not yell " flip-flop ! " at me again. 
 
 I did not understand then why my parents wished 
 to keep these worthless animals and were so tender with 
 them. As for myself, I was so ashamed of them and 
 so angered at times that I hate a " flip-flop " to this 
 day. Also I am thankful to have a feeling grow within 
 me that would not permit me to turn out a faithful old 
 horse or dog to starve to death. 
 
 The new abode is known in our family history as 
 " the little brown house." And it was small. The fur- 
 niture consisted of a few wooden chairs, a wooden table, 
 poorly equipped beds, iron knives and forks, tin plates, 
 cheap cooking utensils and one stove, a cooking stove 
 with two holes and a square box oven on top at the back, 
 supported by long, spider-like iron legs. Food was 
 scarce too. We children were put on a corn meal diet 
 and not any too much corn meal. Every Friday was 
 hog killing day at the slaughter house down on the old 
 Plank Road. At such times hogs' hearts could be had 
 for five cents a pound. Father and mother took ad- 
 vantage of that and as a consequence we had hogs' heart 
 meat once a week and no meat at all between times. I 
 noticed a change in everything. The big dogs were 
 gone. Only we had kept Pinkie, a little black and tan 
 feist with a hole in her throat, cut by a ground hog 
 she had crawled after into a den. 
 
 Father acted strangely. He was depressed. I did 
 not know that then. He hung out his doctor sign and 
 
POVERTY THAT CRAMPS 39 
 
 one for mother, too. Also he would parade in front of 
 the house with his long coat, gold-headed cane and silk 
 hat, which he had managed somehow to hang onto. 
 After thus showing himself he would return to the 
 house, put on cotton overalls and waist, and departing 
 by the rear and through the alley go to a remote part of 
 town and work as a carpenter a trade he had well 
 learned as a boy. He was not strong. Soon he grew 
 ill and was very sick. He could not eat. Delicacies 
 were tried. 
 
 One day I smelled what to a hungry boy was about the 
 sweetest odor I could remember. It came from the 
 cook stove where five cents' worth of prunes were sim- 
 mering in a tin cup. They were for father and his life 
 might have depended upon them for all I knew. That 
 did not shield me from temptation. I made up my 
 mind to steal those prunes and eat them and then run 
 away to Texas. My mother must have suspected me in 
 that divine way that mothers have. Anyhow she 
 watched me and kept such a vigil over the prunes that 
 I was foiled. 
 
 That was my first tangible temptation, and there 
 flowed from it my first crystallized ambition. I made 
 up my mind then and there that when I became a man 
 I would not stop in my efforts until I had all the prunes 
 I wished for, even if I had to be a pirate. 
 
 Sometimes all of us were hungry and we were ill- 
 clad but cleanly. Old clothing was transformed dex- 
 terously and handed down from child to child. 
 
 We were sent to school. Other children made fun of 
 us because we were poorly garbed. This made me so 
 sensitive and wounded me to such an extent that I 
 would not look at other children. Fatty Tyner, Nigger 
 Bill and a German boy named Theodore Mersch, called 
 
40 THE IKON HUNTER 
 
 by the urchins " Tater Mash," as being near the Ger- 
 man pronunciation, were particularly kind to me. 
 They would back me in my fights and permitted me to 
 lead them in expeditions for nuts, berries, paw paws, 
 fishing, and against the " Micks " of the Plank Road. 
 
 Always there seemed to be war among the boys of 
 LaFayette. If some of us went to the " old sycamore " 
 to swim in the Wabash our enemies were nearly certain 
 to come and muss our clothes, tie them in wet knots, 
 and as we dragged at them with our teeth they would 
 deride us with " Chawed beef and roasted mutton ! 
 Chawed beef and roasted mutton ! " 
 
 We learned to keep a standing guard and pickets. 
 If the Micks outnumbered us we would run. If there 
 was a fair chance we stood our ground and fought, with 
 honors about even from day to day. 
 
 I learned to swim at the " wide water," an impound- 
 ing reservoir used to adjust the canal levels. It looked 
 big to me as a boy and it was over a man's head in 
 depth. A bigger crowd than ours chased us away from 
 the " old sycamore " swimming hole. We grabbed our 
 clothing and ran across the Wabash bottoms to the wide 
 water. I remember that I arrived bleeding and sting- 
 ing from the smarting wounds of thorns and sandburrs. 
 Although I could not swim or had not swum before I 
 was on fire. I rushed down the steep, artificial bank 
 into the wide water where it was about ten feet in 
 depth. I went to the bottom. When I came up I 
 struck out just, as naturally as though I was a good 
 swimmer, not dog fashion, but a full sweeping stroke. 
 It was not long before I developed into a good swimmer. 
 
 One day Nigger Bill showed me how to cure warts. 
 He was the son of Reverend Maveety, who preached on 
 Sunday and wielded a whitewash brush week days. 
 
POVERTY THAT CRAMPS 41 
 
 His mother knew how to " Kunjer " he said and was 
 sister of a hoodoo (voo-doo) queen. I was deeply im- 
 pressed and told my mother. She ordered me to keep 
 away from the negro boy and told me the rules he gave 
 me were foolish. 
 
 I still had faith in Nigger Bill. A block from our 
 house lived the Purnells. They had a nice little girl 
 named Laura, about my age. She had more warts on 
 her hands than a Texan toad and was quite proud of 
 them. I got her to let me try to take off just one of 
 them, and because we were good friends she consented. 
 
 Nigger Bill had told me to take a piece of blue 
 thread, tie it in a hard knot over the wart and then slip 
 it off and bury it, repeating as I did so, 
 
 u TToblin, goblin, go an' snort, 
 Rot in the groun' an' kill a wart." 
 
 As the thread rotted the wart would rot and come 
 off. Mystery of mysteries, but to me perfectly natural 
 then, Laura PurnelFs big wart on her left hand, that 
 I had tied the blue thread over, became inflamed, and 
 the swelling communicated to the entire hand and arm. 
 Laura was in great pain, and some thought she might 
 die. I was frightened to death. After a really se- 
 vere siege she recovered, minus the wart. Then I went 
 and dug for the thread to see if it had rotted. Either 
 I dug in the wrong place or it had disintegrated, for I 
 could not find it. I was afraid to be a wart doctor 
 because somebody might die before the wart came off. 
 Just what happened I do not know unless I slightly cut 
 or irritated the wart and it was infected by the thread. 
 Warts are not nice to have but they are preferable to 
 Nigger Bill's cure, in which there is the philosophy of 
 the ages. 
 
42 THE IKON HOTTTEE 
 
 To help out I became a rag picker, which included 
 gathering old iron as well. I got to know the alleys of 
 the town better than the streets. Also I carried a news- 
 paper route and sold papers. It brought me into con- 
 tact with all phases and strata of life, and I early came 
 to know, I do not know how I knew but I did, that God 
 takes especial care of boys and girls or there wouldn't 
 be one on earth uncontaminated. Down in the Wabash 
 bottoms I used to see men and women derelicts. In the 
 summer they infested the now dry flood lands. I had 
 as much abhorrence of them as of a snake. Nobody told 
 me about them or the great dangers of boyhood. I just 
 knew instinctively, and I think other boys do. 
 
 Once the circulator of William S. Lingle's Daily 
 Courier asked me to carry papers in a part of the town 
 where the carrier was always being licked and his papers 
 destroyed. He said I would have to fight and that 
 maybe as many as twenty boys would attack me at once. 
 I couldn't whip twenty boys without preparedness, so 
 I bought a second-hand, twenty-two caliber, seven-shot 
 revolver. 
 
 It was autumn. The coming January I would be 
 eleven years old. Hard knocks and life in the alleys 
 were developing me fast. I took the papers and started 
 out really hoping to get a chance to shoot a few boys 
 just to test the killing power of my gun. I had al- 
 ready tried it on a cow out in the commons, and when 
 she walked away seemingly unconcerned I was ready 
 to take the revolver back to the second-hand man. But 
 I thought I might have better luck shooting boys. At 
 the corner of Thirteenth and Union streets a colored 
 boy, possibly a little larger than I, came up to me in a 
 bantering way and grabbed at my papers. I forgot my 
 revolver and laid down my sack and waded into the 
 
POVERTY THAT CRAMPS 43 
 
 Negro. We were rolling around on the ground and I 
 was getting a little the best of him I thought, until he 
 got my left fore arm between his sharklike teeth. That 
 made me desperate and caused me somehow to remember 
 the gun in my pocket. I got it out and when the Negro 
 boy saw it he yelled " murder " and " help " and gave 
 up. 
 
 Then boys began to appear from everywhere, but 
 mostly from behind an old barn near by and from under 
 a street bridge over an open surface sewer called Pearl 
 River. When I saw them I ran for my papers and 
 bolted. The yelling crowd of boys pursued me. I 
 thought there must be a hundred. Some were larger 
 than I. As I was ascending to the sidewalk after cross- 
 ing that Pearl River, a bigger boy struck me over the 
 head with a broken shinny stick. Down I went. I had 
 already been hit several times by rocks and clubs but I 
 was not hurt. Now was the time to use the revolver. 
 I pulled it out and shot all seven shots slam into that 
 crowd. Really I expected to kill seven boys at least and 
 maybe more. There was a scattering in all directions 
 and it wasn't long before a policeman had me. I don't 
 know where he came from. There weren't many in La- 
 Fayette those days. 
 
 He took my gun and instead of taking me to the 
 calaboose, as we called the local lockup, he took me 
 home. I had not lost many papers. As soon as the 
 officer turned me loose I got an older brother to go with 
 me and we finished the paper delivery that night. I 
 hadn't hit a boy. Just like shooting into a flock of any- 
 thing without picking your bird. From that day I 
 carried that route unmolested. I wouldn't advise boys 
 to follow my example, even though in what I did I was 
 perfectly innocent of intentional wrong doing. 
 
44 THE IRON HUNTER 
 
 As I grew stronger I did all kinds of work. It seems 
 to me now that the hardest work of my youth was cut- 
 ting and shocking green corn. When I was thirteen, 
 my brother Steve and I took a contract cutting corn and 
 shocking it for ten cents a shock every fourteen rows 
 and fourteen hills of corn. Those who know Indiana 
 corn along the Wabash will think of each stalk as almost 
 a tree. I wielded the corn cutter and Steve carried the 
 big heavy bundles and shocked them. He was older 
 by eight years arid was equal to the work. 
 
 When I would be awakened in the morning I would 
 ache from head to toe and would be so stiff and sore I 
 could have cried out with pain when I essayed to move. 
 And I was too young to harden and get used to it. 
 
 Also I learned to cradle, rake, bind, mow, stack hay 
 and grain, load hay, rive clapboards, split rails and 
 chop cord wood. I still enjoy swinging an ax just as I 
 liked it best of all as a boy. Many hardships have been 
 my lot by land and sea, if one calls enjoyable, exacting 
 adventures hardships, but not one caused me as much 
 suffering as corn cutting in the Indiana maize forest. 
 
 I went to Sunday school. My mother was a Metho- 
 dist and my father a Wesleyan, between which denomi- 
 nations there is little difference. At Christmas time 
 I managed to get to six Sunday schools. It required 
 no end of scheming, but I really received gifts one 
 Christmas from six different trees. It was not right I 
 now know but I thought no wrong of it then. In fact, 
 I thought a boy who went to only one Sunday school 
 at Christmas time was downright shiftless. 
 
 Two things I best remember that I heard in church 
 while a boy. One was the temperance examples told by 
 Francis Murphy. The other is a picture of a devout 
 Sunday school superintendent of the Ninth Street M. E. 
 
POVEKTY THAT CRAMPS 45 
 
 Church of LaFayette, named J. Q. A. Perrin, as I slyly 
 glanced at him while he repeated the childhood prayer : 
 
 Now I lay me down to sleep, 
 I pray the Lord my soul to keep, 
 
 And if I die before I wake, 
 I pray the Lord my soul to take. 
 
 This I ask for Jesus' sake. 
 
 The above is not the way Billy Sunday words and spells 
 it but it is the way Mr. Perrin recited it, and it is the 
 way I have repeated it every night of my life since I 
 was nine, with the alteration since I have had a wife and 
 children to " our " instead of " my." It is a selfish 
 little prayer but one does not have to stop with it. 
 
 The pangs of poverty and attendant humiliation 
 ground into me more and more. I did not have as good 
 clothing as had the other boys that I thought I would 
 like to consort with, and many fisticuffs grew out of the 
 scorn and derision of those who assumed to look down 
 upon me. I did not win all these by any means, but all 
 of them gave me a kind of confidence in myself. I got 
 hold of several dime novels and read also the Jack 
 Harkaway adventures, and a lot of stuff about Jesse 
 James and his brother Frank, who were just beginning 
 to limn on the lurid horizon of boys' brains. I also 
 read the more wholesome " Ashore and Afloat " books 
 by William Taylor Adams, who signed himself Oliver 
 Optic. History began to unfold to me interesting pages, 
 and I found ornithology, entomology, botany and astron- 
 omy fascinating. Not that I went very far with any 
 of them; only I liked them better than mathematics. 
 Zoological and biological things were entertainment and 
 mathematics were study. About the very first book I 
 read was a brave little tome called " Little Prudy's 
 
46 THE IRON HUNTER 
 
 Captain Horace/ 7 by Sophie May, one of the Little 
 Prudy series of delightful books for children. I was 
 nine years of age when I got it off a Baptist Sunday 
 school Christmas tree. 
 
 The year before three impressive little books fell into 
 my hands. They were the " Burial of the Firstborn/ 7 
 by Joseph Alden ; " The Little Brown Jug/ 7 by Mrs. 
 C. M. Edwards, and " Not a Minute to Spare/ 7 by S. C. 
 I read all these before I was nine. Really I seemed to 
 partially understand in " Not a Minute to Spare " Tup- 
 per 7 s line " now is the constant syllable ticking from 
 the clock of Time. 77 
 
 At least forever after the tick-tocks said to me, 
 " Never return, never return 77 ! 
 
 So early does the mind of the average child begin to 
 function. In fact, I read just about everything I could 
 lay my hands on, including all the doctor books I could 
 find around the house. 
 
 At an early age, too early, I had read Gray 7 s " Anat- 
 omy/ 7 Dalton 7 s physiology, Thomas on " Diseases of 
 Women and Children/ 7 pages of Dunglison 7 s medical 
 dictionary, Gully's and also Shew 7 s hydropathy. 
 
 Fine reading for a youth of ten to twelve! and it 
 made me knowing beyond my years. I would gather a 
 crowd of boys on the curbstone on dark nights and be- 
 fore a Rembrandt fire in the gutter, with its vivid chiar- 
 oscuro, I would tell them the secrets of these doctor 
 books in low tones. 
 
 The greatest horror of impression would be made by 
 the descriptions of awful diseases that befel men and 
 women who were not good. 
 
 Nearly all of us had read " Robinson Crusoe " and 
 " Swiss Family Robinson. 77 
 
 We would tell riddles and ghost stories also until all 
 
POVERTY THAT CHAMPS 47 
 
 of us were of a shiver. Then there were famous nights 
 when we played u Blank Lie Low " and hunted coon 
 and 'possums, and, best of all, camping on the banks 
 of the Wabash all night keeping up a fire big enough 
 for a lion country, while those of us who were bigger 
 baited and ran " trot " lines. We used liver for bait 
 and sometimes we had a thousand hooks out. 
 
 They were fine fish, those channel cats (siluridae), 
 but they would sort of gurgle and squawk when we slit 
 them just through the skin behind their horns, and 
 then holding them between the fingers of the left hand 
 would pull off the skin with pincers in the right hand. 
 
 The niggers used to say that the catfish were trying to 
 tell what they would do to us when they were men and 
 we were catfish, and their strange metempsychosis folk 
 lore made a deep impression. 
 
 We boys thought we could see the catfish squirm, like 
 eels and frog meat do when first put into a hot frying 
 pan. This the niggers said was nothing to the way bad 
 boys would squirm in hell. 
 
 All through the dimmest social fabric there seemed 
 to run the certainty that good is rewarded and bad is 
 punished, which must have been one way the Creator 
 has of manifesting a fundamental truth. 
 
 Boys were wild and adventurous but they were not 
 nasty or impure, and if there was a degenerate unfor- 
 tunate he soon come to be marked and shunned. 
 
 I wish to believe that that is the way of boys to-day. 
 
CHAPTEK V 
 
 WILD BOYHOOD DREAMS FILL MY MIND AND I ACT 
 UPON THEM 
 
 MY parents would teach us American history 
 traditionally and they were hoth well informed. 
 As my father loved or hated so did I come to 
 do. He could not, without rage, think of Simon Girty, 
 who, as an English agent in Canada, had aroused the 
 border Indians, and was charged with paying them fifty 
 cents for the scalp of an American white woman and 
 seventy-five cents to a dollar for the scalp of a man, but 
 only twenty-five cents for a child or a gray-haired scalp. 
 Some of our relatives had met this fate and it has left 
 a bitterness that even I have to struggle against to this 
 day. 
 
 Next to the bloody Girty my father hated Aaron Burr 
 and so did I. He was wont to say that Jeff Davis was 
 a gentleman beside Burr and his tool Blennerhassett, 
 and that Benedict Arnold had not been worse. His 
 condemnation of Henry Clay was because Clay had been 
 Burr's attorney. Father was intolerant of anybody who 
 would hire out his talents to criminals. He loved Alex- 
 ander Hamilton as the greatest American, and always 
 put Washington as secondary to Hamilton. To his 
 mind Lee and Stonewall Jackson and Albert Sydney 
 Johnston were misguided good men, and of the three 
 he placed Albert Sydney Johnston first. He told me 
 stories of Daniel Boone, Simon Kenton and Davy Crock- 
 
 48 
 
WILD BOYHOOD DREAMS 49 
 
 ett and their contemporaries until I forthwith got an 
 old bored-out army musket and hid it under the shed, 
 as against the time when I would become an Indian 
 fighter. Soon I was able to grind down a corncutter 
 blade into the most savage-looking bowie knife I have 
 ever seen. 
 
 These preparations were soon followed by a decision 
 to run away, which was promptly acted upon. My first 
 adventure of this kind was when I was ten years of age. 
 With an older boy named John Godfrey, son of a bel- 
 ligerent Methodist preacher named Samuel Godfrey, 
 the best silver bass fisherman on the Wabash " riffles," 
 I started out. We got nearly fifty miles away before 
 our parents caught us. 
 
 Without discouragement I kept at running away two 
 or three times a year until I succeeded. Once I got 
 clear away on a raft and with the two other boys floated 
 down the Wabash to the Ohio and quite a distance 
 into the Mississippi. We were gone several months and 
 had enough adventure to fill a book. 
 
 My longest runaway absence was when I went into 
 the wild Michigan lumber woods in Newaygo County 
 near the present village of Hungerford. I spent a win- 
 ter in the camps as a cookee and chore boy. In the 
 spring I worked in a saw mill and shingle mill. That 
 winter I got a terrible thrashing. There was a boast- 
 ful fellow in camp named Jason Grimsby. No one 
 knew whether he would fight, but from his tell he could 
 lick his weight in wild cats and then some. 
 
 Some of the woodsmen had families in near about 
 shacks and there were several boys of about my age. 
 We made up our minds that Jason was a coward. Our 
 plan to try him out was to waylay him at night and 
 while not hurting him, we were to leap on him and tou- 
 
50 THE IRON HUNTER 
 
 sle him about pretty lively. Good idea, but it didn't 
 work, and to this day we have no correct measure of 
 Jason although he got one of me. 
 
 I was a sort of leader. Perhaps I was the biggest 
 boy. Anyhow Jason came beating it along a trail 
 swinging a candle lantern and whistling. I made a 
 jump for him. There were five of us boys, two on one 
 side of the trail and three on the other. 
 
 All I know is that every one of them ran away and 
 Jason mopped up the earth with me. The lantern went 
 out at once and it took Jason some time in the dark to 
 tell when he had pounded me enough. I tried to accuse 
 him of attacking me, but while my attitude confused 
 him a little, it did no good. From that time to this 
 I have depended more upon myself than others and have 
 more carefully considered undertakings. 
 
 I went back to Indiana with quite a sum of money 
 saved up, amounting to near one hundred dollars. I 
 had walked most of the way to Michigan, and I earned 
 good wages in savings by walking the most of the way 
 back, over two hundred miles. 
 
 At thirteen I was in the LaFayette high school de- 
 spite the fact that my runaway trips had broken into my 
 schooling. I cannot remember that I was more than an 
 ordinary student. 
 
 When I was fourteen I was admitted to Purdue Uni- 
 versity at its opening. There was not much organiza- 
 tion or grading or I surely could not have been ad- 
 mitted. The institution had been endowed by John 
 Purdue under certain conditions, one of which was, I 
 believe, that it must be open for students by a certain 
 time. In order to save itself the university was opened 
 hurriedly and perhaps without much previous prepara- 
 tion. I spent three years at Purdue. They were years 
 
WILD BOYHOOD DREAMS 51 
 
 of mingled happiness and bitterness. I seemed to get 
 along with my work all right but, struggle as 1 did, I 
 never seemed to have enough clothing to prevent richer 
 boys from making fun of me. Shortridge was presi- 
 dent, and before I left he was succeeded by White, a 
 strong man. The university was coeducational from 
 the beginning and it grew rapidly. 
 
 The boy that I most disliked in school was Jim Reidy, 
 son of a banker and rich. He was bigger and older 
 than I, quite a flashy fellow, whose sole accomplishment 
 was to write a good hand. That fellow goaded me to 
 desperation. He would call attention in a loud voice 
 to the fact that I wore no undergarments and often no 
 socks, and that my shoes were cowhide. 
 
 He was a handsome young animal, and T couldn't lick 
 him as I found out. Secretly I half admired him, al- 
 together envied him and often came near to a deter- 
 mination to murder him. Reidy married a charming 
 co-ed and became a partner in his father's banking busi- 
 ness. They expanded into a string of banks. A panic 
 struck them; there were irregularities and Jim was 
 sent to the penitentiary. I did not learn of this for a 
 long time. I was governor of Michigan when I did find 
 it out and I was not only sorry for Reidy but at once 
 endeavored to do what I could for him. 
 
 One of my best friends at Purdue was Orth Stein, 
 son of Judge Stein, a prominent lawyer and worthy 
 citizen of LaFayette. Orth was tall, amomic and some- 
 what effeminate. He was such a good boy that mothers 
 commonly pointed him out to their sons as a model. 
 And he had a good, double-barreled shotgun that he 
 would loan. That endeared him to rne more than any- 
 thing else, I think. You cannot always tell about a 
 good boy. Before they hung Orth he murdered several 
 
52 THE IKON HUNTER 
 
 people, including a woman. It was the whiskey and 
 prostitution route. 
 
 Harvey W. Wiley, foremost American food expert, 
 was then professor of chemistry at Purdue. He also 
 drilled the college cadets and was a pitcher in the base- 
 hall team. It was permitted at this time to give the 
 ball a kind of underhand throw. Dr. Wiley's fame was 
 made one day when he knocked a cigar down the throat 
 of Johnny Harper, the catcher. Baseball nowadays 
 with an unmasked, unprotected catcher behind the bat 
 with a cigar in his mouth would be the quintessence of 
 comedy. 
 
 There was hazing of a rough kind, such as putting a 
 freshman on a straw stack in the night and setting it 
 on fire so that he had to jump through the flames. An- 
 other stunt was to make the candidate walk a plank 
 blindfolded into a deep hole in the Wabash. Some- 
 times we tied his hands behind his back. The victim 
 was always rescued but often he was first nearly 
 drowned. Boys were not much good who did not go in 
 for these things and it is a fact that the roughest and 
 wildest boys have done the most in life. 
 
 They were always fair and square, were not bullies 
 and adhered to certain unwritten laws of young buck 
 chivalry. Indiana was full of such youths, and I hope 
 the country is still developing them. All of the college 
 pranks were played, and the Greek letter fraternities 
 had quite a vogue. It was just before I left Purdue 
 that President White started his fight against them, 
 singling out the Sigma Chi as the one to make the test 
 upon. His defeat disappointed him and checkered a 
 life of great usefulness. 
 
 Professor Hussey taught zoology. He asked for 
 specimens. It took a great effort on my part to gather 
 
WILD BOYHOOD DREAMS 53 
 
 all the bones of a borse skeleton in the river bottoms 
 and pile them in the class room. The specimen was 
 too new and really I can smell it yet. Professor Hussey 
 was fine usually but he lost his temper. I confessed to 
 the act. He came near to where I sat and glowering 
 down upon me growled : 
 
 " Osborn, do you know how near a fool you are ? " I 
 replied, " Two feet." 
 
 It was not an original retort, I am certain, but it 
 nearly ran me out of college. Altogether an act upon 
 my part to be condemned, the psychology of it was that 
 its very boldness gave me greater confidence in myself, 
 a trait I was deficient in to the extent that I was bash- 
 ful, sensitive and terribly ill at ease in company. 
 
 One night at the end of my third year, I attended a 
 commencement reception at President White's house. 
 Several of the young men actually wore evening dress 
 suits. I had never seen one before and the mental 
 effect they had on me was as strange as it was ludicrous. 
 All along I had been struggling to get far enough into 
 style to wear an undershirt, and here were these claw 
 hammer coats. The case was hopeless; the odds were 
 too terrible to struggle against. Then and there I 
 vowed to leave school for good, and I did. I was seven- 
 teen. 
 
 My father no longer worked at carpentering. The 
 unusual medical skill of both my parents insured them 
 from being in poverty very long. So far on the up- 
 grade had they gone that father was able to buy a tract 
 of forty-seven acres of land about three miles from La- 
 Fayette. It was a network of swampy pond holes, with 
 a planched growth of sassafras, hazel, ash, water elm 
 and briars with numerous enough rattlesnakes, black 
 snakes and blue racers. My brothers and I were given 
 
54 THE IRON HUN TEE 
 
 the job of clearing that land. No work was better for 
 us. We straightened a sluggish creek and laid tile in 
 every direction. The timber was cut into cordwood and 
 rails, with now and then a linn or an oak sawlog. 
 
 Working at many things during my hungry youth I 
 had learned to set type, put a job on a press, make 
 rollers, pull a Washington and turn the old man-power 
 cylinders. Also I had crudely written some for the 
 papers and really began to gather news items at ten. 
 But I had not formed a definite desire to do newspaper 
 work. Only it was true of me that accidentally or 
 otherwise I had done more work around newspaper 
 outfits, and had learned more about them than about 
 anything else. 
 
 An event occurred before I was eighteen that caused 
 me to leave Indiana in deep disgust, mostly with my- 
 self. Quite a notorious bully named Ed Rawles, a 
 young fighting widower, was the high cockalorum, as 
 he claimed, of the Hebron district, about seven miles 
 from LaFayette. If he didn't like a young fellow he 
 would scare him away by bluffing or licking him. He 
 tabooed me and sent me word not to come again into his 
 neighborhood under penalty of a thrashing at his hands. 
 My older brother told me not to go. He said Rawles 
 would maul me all to pieces, and I really thought he 
 would myself, but I wasn't going to be scared out. The 
 very next time there were any doings at Hebron church, 
 I went. Rawles was in a seat in front of me. It was 
 in the evening. He leaned over and called me a vile 
 name in a loud whisper and said he was going to " lick 
 the stuffin' out of me " after church. I didn't wait 
 until after church, but waded into Mr. Rawles then 
 and there. I struck him in the face, and before he 
 
WILD BOYHOOD DREAMS 55 
 
 could recover from the surprise and the blow, I climbed 
 over the seat and gattied him. We had a fine fight. 
 He would jam in between the seats. I was thinner and 
 had him at a disadvantage. Naturally the church was 
 in an uproar in a moment. Women and girls screamed, 
 but there weren't many fainting Hoosier women those 
 days. 
 
 Men got to us and pulled us out into the aisle. Then 
 it seemed to me the tide of battle turned. I had been 
 having all the best of the mix-up among the seats. Now 
 a half dozen were holding me and it seemed to me that 
 no one was holding Rawles. He pounded away at me 
 and my arms were pinioned. When they thought I had 
 enough, for I was blind and delirious with fighting rage, 
 they faced me about and threw me out of church. 
 
 I ran as fast as I could go to " Doc " Coleman's, the 
 nearest farmer I knew, and tried to borrow his shotgun 
 in order to go back and get even. Of course he refused 
 it. 
 
 Next day I was arrested. It seems that I was not 
 only guilty of assault and battery but of church dese- 
 cration, a much worse crime. Colonel Dick DeHart, a 
 famous soldier and criminal lawyer and afterwards an 
 able judge for years, defended me without charge and 
 I was acquitted. 
 
 But from that moment I was a marked youth. Par- 
 ents forbade their daughters to speak to me and ordered 
 their sons to shun me. I was the most depraved youth 
 in Indiana according to their ideas. It did not matter 
 what reputation Rawles had, nor did it count that I 
 ended his days as a bully. I had but one destiny and 
 that included both penitentiary and hanging. In fact, 
 so persistent was the opinion that thirty-five years later, 
 
56 THE IRON HUNTER 
 
 when I had gone to Indiana as a guest of that State as 
 Governor of Michigan, a fine old gentleman named 
 Kantz, of German extraction, exclaimed: 
 
 " 1st dis der real Chase Osborn ? Vat, ain't you 
 hung yet?" 
 
 The girls and boys did not all taboo me by any means 
 but my social relations were, to say the least, clandes- 
 tine, so I packed my " turkey." 
 
 While on the farm engaged in the work of clearing 
 I had time to read, to go to the country parties and 
 spelling schools and debates, in all of which I seemed to 
 take an average part. Opportunities came to go har- 
 vesting with better wages and to follow the threshing 
 machine that did the work for many farmers. There 
 was much interchange and exchange of work. At 
 threshing and harvest time women, old and young, 
 showed their best at cooking and housekeeping. The 
 tables bent with wholesome, well-cooked food turkey, 
 chicken, beef, mutton, pork, potatoes and many other 
 vegetables, big bowls of steaming gravy, pies and cakes 
 of many varieties, preserves, spiced fruit and pickles. 
 They were wonderful feeding days and for feasting even 
 exceeded Christmas time. 
 
 I learned when very young to cut bands and several 
 times nearly cut the feeder's hands, but luckily did not. 
 As I grew older I learned to rig up the horse power, 
 pitch from the stack onto the feeding table and also to 
 feed the machine, which required the greatest degree of 
 expertness of all. 
 
 Binding in the wheat field behind a reaper they 
 were a new thing and there were only a few in our part ; 
 cradling, raking and binding also. Excellence marked 
 women and men. To be a good cook and housekeeper 
 and economical made a woman famous, and the young 
 
WILD BOYHOOD DREAMS 57 
 
 woman thus distinguished married early. Young men 
 were told to observe a girl peeling apples or potatoes. 
 If she pared them thickly and wastefully avoid her as 
 a wasteful wench, but if the parings were thin it was 
 evidence of care and thrift. 
 
 Men who excelled in chopping, cradling, binding, or 
 in anything were known all over wide communities and 
 were pointed out. It all made for wholesome ideals. 
 
 There were a good many chances to dicker and use 
 one's wits. One winter evening walking along a frozen 
 dirt road that ran at right angles to the pike that had 
 been recently built to the Tippecanoe battleground, 
 where General Harrison beat the Prophet, I saw a queer- 
 looking animal in a bleak field of dry and rustling corn 
 stalks. It was yellow and had long, matted hair, and 
 at the distance it was, might have been a big goat or 
 almost anything. When I came up to where the man 
 of the place was feeding the hogs I asked him what it 
 was. He said it was a mule and as he didn't like mules 
 nohow he would sell it. To my consternation he made 
 me a price of two dollars on it. I was not sharp at 
 trading but I asked him what was the matter with the 
 mule. 
 
 " Boy," he said, " so far's health is consarned that 
 critter be a well one an' kin eat glass." 
 
 Then I asked the age ! " Dumined if I know," he 
 replied, " and it don't make no difference nohow kase 
 nobody never seen a dead mule." 
 
 I bought the mule. 
 
 When I entered the field to inspect my purchase the 
 thing came at me with mouth open, teeth gleaming and 
 issuing fiery snorts altogether like a ferocious fiend. 
 I have been in close quarters since with grizzly bears 
 and lions, but nothing has ever come so near to getting 
 
58 THE IRON HUNTER 
 
 me, to the best of my belief, as that mule did. I barely 
 made the rail fence and fell over it as though thrown 
 by a cyclone. 
 
 The former owner of the beast was doubled up with 
 raucous laughter. I felt cheap and some mad. When 
 I asked him what he meant by unloading that thing on 
 me he offered to buy the mule back for a dollar. 
 
 I refused. The thought came to me that I might also 
 sell him " as lie ran/' as I had bought him, and there 
 seemed to be nothing wrong about trying. 
 
 In fact, I did not think of ethics at all. The only 
 thing that I really wondered about was whether it was 
 a mule or something else. I had heard repeatedly that 
 there are nine kinds of meat in a turtle and I really 
 thought the mule might have nine kinds of animals in 
 him. He roared like a lion, opened his jaws like an 
 alligator, showed his teeth like a dragon and charged 
 with lowered head like a billy goat. 
 
 I went on to town. Next day I looked up a Jew 
 junk dealer. We knew him as the ragman. I told 
 him I had a mule for sale for twenty-five dollars. It 
 seemed to me that his eyes gleamed at the chance he 
 foresaw to beat me. My eyes could have gleamed also 
 because I made up my mind to sell that mule for two 
 dollars if I couldn't get more. 
 
 He started for the country with me at once. When 
 we reached the field of cornstalks the mule was browsing 
 about a hundred yards from the fence. It was a frosty 
 morning. The sun glinted from the rufous side of the 
 beast. He didn't look badly at all. What I feared was 
 that the Jew would try to inspect him. To my sur- 
 prise and deep relief he did not. We had been hauled 
 out by a poor, old, gray rack o' bones that was ready 
 to cave in at any time, and the junk dealer knew it. 
 
WILD BOYHOOD DREAMS 59 
 
 Evidently lie was bound to buy that mule without ex- 
 citing me as to his intentions. His first offer was five 
 dollars. I was anxious to take it but the lap gods held 
 rue off. We dickered rapidly for a short time and I 
 sold the wild red mule to him for eleven dollars. 
 
 He went to the farmer who owned the field and asked 
 if the mule belonged to me to sell, and that farmer 
 looked as innocent as a poisonous toad stool to a mush- 
 room hunter as lie told him it did. 
 
 Then the Jew paid me eleven dollars out of a very 
 greasy wallet. The? farmer and I stood where we could 
 watch the new owner take 1 over his property. We had 
 a roaring laugh and then a fright, because it looked at 
 one time as though the mule would catch the Jew and 
 eat him. 
 
 The ragman was more persistent than I had been. 
 He detected power in that mule which if harnessed 
 would pull his junk wagon many a mile. But no use. 
 He finally came to me and demanded his money back. 
 
 I followed the example of the farmer and offered him 
 six dollars. At the same time I suggested to him that 
 he might get help and catch the beast, or failing that he 
 could sell him " as he ran." That ended the mule trade 
 so far as I was concerned. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 SWEPT INTO THE HUMAN MAELSTROM OF CHICAGO 
 
 I STARTED to walk to Chicago, along the Lake 
 Erie and Western railroad tracks. The exact 
 reason I started to walk was because the train 
 crew pulled me out of a box car and bade me do so. 
 Tramps were everywhere and had become such a men- 
 ace as to forfeit all sympathy. I had spent nearly all 
 my money on clothing and did not have any to spare for 
 railroad fare. At that time the fares were so high that 
 a tolerable walker could make good wages afoot. It 
 was autumn. The golden pawpaws burst as they fell 
 to the ground. Wrinkled persimmons hung on the 
 trees. Pheasants were in full plumage arid the quail 
 and prairie chickens were strong of flight. Wild ducks 
 and geese were winging south. Apples and turnips and 
 cabbages were buried in pyramidal heaps in the field. 
 Corn husking was occupying the men folks, and the 
 women were about through " putting up " canned stuff 
 for the winter. 
 
 I was leaving all these Hoosier things forever. But 
 I did not know it then; I did not even recognize my 
 own feelings as they surged within me. Only one thing 
 was clear. I was going to Chicago where so many 
 Hoosier lads had gone before and have gone since, only 
 to be swallowed remorselessly. 
 
 At that age of limited experience I did not know the 
 
 60 
 
THE HUMAN MAELSTROM 61 
 
 great cities devour boys and girls as a more avid Mino- 
 taur than the Cretan monster in the Labyrinth that 
 Daedalus built, that ate the seven maidens and seven 
 youths sent by Athens as an annual tribute, until The- 
 seus killed the demon. 
 
 What a lot of Theseuses we need nowadays to hunt 
 down the modern monster Minotau^s. 
 
 One night I slept a while in a straw stack. First I 
 dug a hole in the stack and crawling in I pulled the 
 straw in after me. Just as I got comfortably warm 
 and asleep, the farmer's dog treed me, and I was driven 
 forth. Next I crawled into a corn shock where I was 
 very cold and did not sleep much. It took me three 
 days and nights to get to Chicago, only one hundred 
 and thirty miles from LaFayette. Part of the way I 
 managed to cover in freight trains, but I walked more 
 than half the distance. 
 
 There was a railroad station at the foot of Lake 
 Street, I think, with dismal, unpainted, wooden sheds 
 and many rookeries about. Across from the station 
 were saloon dives, cheap hotels, restaurants and barber 
 shops. My first impressions of Chicago were very dis- 
 appointing and I fear they have not improved much yet. 
 
 I had just fifteen cents. About nine o'clock in the 
 morning I arrived. 
 
 Entering a barber shop I asked if I might wash. 
 The boss said I could. When I thanked him as I 
 started to leave the shop the barber stopped me and 
 said I owed him fifteen cents. It was every cent I had 
 in the world but I paid and then plunged into the 
 human jungle. 
 
 I have seen the highways and byways of the earth 
 since and have confronted many exacting conditions, but 
 I never again have had such heart sinkings as I had 
 
62 THE IRON HUNTER 
 
 that morning. To have no breakfast was not such a 
 serious thing for a strong boy. 
 
 Alone in the middle of the Sahara I have felt nearer 
 to friends and love and sympathy than I felt after the 
 barber took my last cent. Some one to turn to was 
 what I hungered for more than food. 
 
 Where to go or which way to turn seemed to make 
 no difference. Rivers of people swept by in ceaseless, 
 rapid flow. There was the sullen roar of the city like 
 a Niagara of fierce sorrow. It seemed to me that all 
 the faces I saw were hungry and hard. 
 
 I had heard of the Y. M. C. A., rather a new thing 
 then, and made my way to its rooms. But they stared 
 at me and spoke in a manner so short and feelingless 
 that I almost fled from the room. 
 
 It seemed as though the Y. M. C. A. was run for boys 
 who had a home, and not for the strange and homeless. 
 
 Of course I felt hard, unjustly so no doubt, and I was 
 terrified by my own thoughts, which were that I hoped 
 the place would burn down. 
 
 What a trivial cause to start such a low trend! I 
 soon tired and wandered about cold and rather despair- 
 ingly. Soon again I was at the depot. 
 
 A man with a big valise hailed me and gave me the 
 bag to carry. It was big and heavy but I was strong. 
 When I got it to the dollar-a-day hotel he sought he 
 gave me five cents. I could have blessed him, but I 
 only hurried away and found a place where I got a big 
 bowl of soup and bread for the money I had earned. 
 
 I haunted the railroad station and for several days 
 carried quite a number of bags and parcels and earned 
 twenty-five cents a day. 
 
 At night I slept in the depot and was seldom mo- 
 lested. To me it was a cheerful room at night, as the 
 
THE HUMAN MAELSTKOM 63 
 
 coal stove with open door cast a bituminous glow which 
 made fine shadows that I was too big now to be afraid 
 of. Sometimes I had bad dreams, and once I awoke in 
 a cold sweat because I was chased by " Nigger Henry," 
 who lived in a cave up Tenth Street " holler " at La- 
 Fayette, hissed on by " Crazy Cyrus," who lived out 
 by Reynold's pasture, and wrung his hands and gawped 
 " bloodle-doodle." 
 
 Between errands for passengers I hunted for a job. 
 Finally a cheap sort of hotel boarding house on Wa- 
 bash Avenue near Polk Street took me as assistant 
 porter. The work was to do anything I was told to do 
 by anybody. When nothing more definite was in sight 
 I was to scrub the stairs and floor and wash the win- 
 dows. I got my board and was promised three dollars a 
 week. My shoes were wearing out and I had no over- 
 coat. 
 
 Trips downtown afoot through the snow and slush 
 breasting the lake winds not warmly clad are the fea- 
 tures I best remember of that experience. 
 
 I could not get my pay so I began to hunt for an- 
 other job. A fifteen-cent restaurant on Clark Street 
 offered me two dollars a week and board as a potato 
 peeler. I had to work in a grimy basement but I liked 
 it because when the first week was up I got my pay and 
 I could see new shoes ahead. The cook made soup of 
 the potato peelings which was strained and sent up on 
 a dumb waiter. 
 
 I worked here for some weeks. There were many 
 swift changes in the staff and soon I found myself sec- 
 ond cook. Then I went upstairs as a waiter at two 
 dollars and fifty cents a week, because the business could 
 not afford a second cook. 
 
 It was while waiting on the table that I met a Trib- 
 
64 THE IRON HUNTER 
 
 une reporter, who came to eat our best fifteen-cent meals 
 in the city. We became friends and he found work for 
 me with his paper. 
 
 The Times was the big paper of Chicago, but the 
 Tribune had started upon the growth that landed it at 
 the top. I really ran errands at first for the city editor. 
 Sometimes he gave me unimportant assignments. 
 Gradually he gave me more to do and I learned a great 
 deal. Of course, I felt at home around a newspaper 
 on account of the experience I had had at LaFayette. 
 
 Hard times grew harder. It was the early summer 
 of 1879 that the Tribune cut things to the marrow. 
 I was one of the first to go because I could be easiest 
 spared. For my work on the Tribune I had been paid 
 five dollars a week, perhaps really more than I earned. 
 I lived on less than two dollars a week for food and 
 saved enough to improve the quality and character of 
 my clothing. 
 
 The streets were filled with workless men and to get 
 a job of any kind seemed hopeless. So I made up my 
 mind to go to Milwaukee and farther north if neces- 
 sary. The trains were closely watched and I suppose 
 I was not a clever hobo, so I walked most of the eighty- 
 five miles to Milwaukee. Naturally I saw and fell in 
 with many tramps and learned their ways. It was a 
 shock to my youthful ideals and sympathy to learn that 
 most of these gentry would not work if they could get 
 out of it. It was always a satisfactory day when they 
 had bummed their grub without turning over a hand. 
 Few of them were inclined to be criminals. 
 
 In fact, they were drifting derelicts on their way to 
 the hopeless, helpless, social sea of Sargasso which en- 
 gulfs the inert human debris just as the flotsam of the 
 ocean is caught. Nor did I then recognize the type at 
 
THE HUMAN MAELSTROM 65 
 
 all except as something not to tie up to permanently. 
 
 It was only in after years that I came to realize that 
 these deficients are the certain product of a social usury 
 of yesterday and continued to-day with slight abate- 
 ment. Theirs is a disease of the overworked world. 
 
 Milwaukee offered nothing. It was winter. I 
 walked on north through Fond du Lac, Oshkosh and 
 Green Bay. 
 
 A farmer living near Fond du Lac, to whom I ap- 
 plied for work, said he would give me a job if I could 
 hold it down. It consisted of being a valet to a man- 
 eating stallion. I fought that horse for a week with 
 everything that I could use and not kill him, and I 
 would have finished the vicious brute if I had dared. 
 After having my clothing partially bitten off me and 
 suffering from not a few nips that reached my flesh, I 
 gave up the job. It is really the only time in my life 
 that I have admitted defeat, and I have longed for an- 
 other chance at that horse but in vain. 
 
 On toward the pole star I plugged away. At Osh- 
 kosh I was seized with neuralgia from exposure and 
 underfeeding. It made me jump, I tell you. Some 
 good people took me to their home for a few days and 
 then I went on. 
 
 The Chicago & Northwestern was building its Me- 
 nominee Range extension. I worked in the construc- 
 tion gang near where Hermansville was afterwards 
 located. The force was reduced and I found myself 
 among those laid off at the northernmost limits of set- 
 tlement. No use to go farther, so I began to retrace 
 myself. 
 
 There were tracks of bear, lynx and wolves, and the 
 latter sounded their coursing tongues every night. 
 Every hunting dream that had tenanted my mind as a 
 
66 THE IRON HUNTER 
 
 boy was revived as I saw deep-worn deer runway after 
 runway. 
 
 Strange how the red deer followed the same paths in 
 their food migrations for centuries. Indians built deer 
 fences and killed thousands along them, only taking skin 
 and saddle. Civilization was even more ruthless. It 
 is pathetic to observe the deer habits now. They try 
 to migrate as in the olden days, but so restricted and 
 cut up is the zone of wild life that it is more like a 
 city Zoo. Game sanctuaries must be established. 
 
 Things raced through my mind in a disconnected way. 
 I wondered where I might get a start in life and how; 
 a real one. Then back to the scenes and adventures of 
 early boyhood my mind would travel. I contrasted the 
 big forests with the Wea Plains, the Wabash bottoms 
 and the borderland of the Grand Prairie in Indiana. 
 
 I sat on a log to rest and heard the drumming of a 
 pheasant. They call it a partridge north; the ruffed 
 grouse. It made me think somehow or other of a June 
 afternoon long ago when a mower had cut three legs off 
 my double-nosed pointer pup as he lay in the grass, 
 panting from his intense work. I had been training 
 him on young prairie chickens that kind of just fluffed 
 up out of the grass when I flushed them. I was a big 
 boy, but I cried in secret when I shot the beautiful 
 pointer to put him out of misery. He had been pre- 
 sented to me by a man whose two children I had pulled 
 out of a burning shed. When I was asked what I would 
 like to have as a reward, poor as I was, I said a bird 
 dog. One morning while going out to train the puppy 
 I saw a black cat, and shot it as it was stealing up on 
 some young quail. Nigger Bill had told me it was 
 certain bad luck to kill a cat and worst of all to kill a 
 black one, but I didn't believe him, because after many 
 
THE HUMAN MAELSTROM 67 
 
 struggles in which I was considerably scratched up I 
 had cut a cat's head off and no bad luck seemed to fol- 
 low. 
 
 Now I believed it and as I sat on the log, with head 
 full of disconnected thoughts, remembered that Nigger 
 Bill had said that to kill a cat meant bad luck for seven 
 years. I had two more years to go. Then I fell to 
 thinking of signs and made up my mind to be very care- 
 ful for, I argued, even if there's nothing to them, it 
 won't hurt to avoid them. 
 
 And that is the reason why signs are bad. Those 
 who are unobserving and careless are always the ones 
 who trespass most in the field of superstition with the 
 consequences only those things that would naturally 
 happen such persons. 
 
 My thoughts covered a wide horizon as I tramped 
 along day by day. Finally after the usual experiences 
 of hunger and weariness I again reached Milwaukee. 
 I had not been depressed a moment since the morning 
 in Chicago when I was penniless and friendless in that 
 awful mire of men. The limitless forests of the north 
 that spread out under the boreal aurora with their bear, 
 wolves and wild cat things were kinder than the big 
 hungry city with its human wolves that are worse. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 I DRIVE A COAL WAGON PILE LUMBER CAPTURE A 
 
 MURDERER AND DOCK WALLOP IN MILWAUKEE 
 
 MY first job in Milwaukee was driving a coal 
 wagon for H. B. Pearson. He was an alder- 
 man and a prosperous coal dealer on West 
 Water Street. In my memory he dwells as one of the 
 best men in the world, just because he had a kind word 
 and a bread-getting place for me. It was the early part 
 of the spring of 1880. I was twenty years old and big 
 and strong enough to do anything. 
 
 Spring came with a rush that soon put the coal 
 wagon out of business, but not before I learned a good 
 deal about the streets and lay of the city. Right away 
 I asked why none of the streets crossed the river straight 
 and why all of them bore different names after cross- 
 ing. Mr. Pearson patiently told me the reasons and 
 said that they were the same that kept Milwaukee back, 
 and from being a bigger place than Chicago. When 
 the town was first started local rivalries, that have killed 
 more towns than any other cause, were a conflagration 
 in Milwaukee. Three towns separated by the Kinni- 
 Kinnick and Milwaukee rivers strove against one an- 
 other. They were Juneautown, Walkertown and Kil- 
 bourne City, and so bitter were they that bridges were 
 not built and there were many fights and much bad 
 blood. Men build cities even more than nature. The 
 fact that Milwaukee is a city at all with the bad start 
 
 68* 
 
I DKIVE A COAL WAGON 69 
 
 it got proves that it has better natural advantages than 
 Chicago. 
 
 By the time the coal wagon had to go the season of 
 navigation had opened, and lumber hookers were com- 
 ing in with their green cargoes. Mr. Pearson helped 
 me to get a job piling lumber in Durr & Rugee's lumber 
 yard on the south side. It was hard work and by quit- 
 ting time I was always tired, but not so much so that 
 I could riot do night work on Gregory Hurson's Good- 
 rich docks. 
 
 I got ninety cents a day in the lumber yard and 
 twenty cents an hour for dock-walloping, plus kicks and 
 curses at the latter. 
 
 An attic over Godfrey & CrandalPs job printing shop 
 on Michigan Street furnished a place to sleep on a pallet 
 on the floor. It was always a soft pallet after I got 
 through dock walloping at ten or eleven o'clock. Some- 
 times I worked until midnight loading or unloading 
 vessels, and the work was quite certain to be had every 
 night. 
 
 Real trouble soon brewed at the lumber yard. I was 
 the only American on the job. All the others were 
 Poles and the foreman was Polish. They conspired 
 against me and gave me the worst end of it, or I thought 
 they did, when it came to unloading a schooner. I 
 noticed that two Poles were assigned to take away from 
 one man over the rail. I had to do that job alone, and 
 there were other signs that I was not welcome among 
 them. Since that time I have been treated better in 
 Poland that I was by the Polacks in Durr & Rugee's 
 yard. Things were coming to a pass where there had 
 to be a show down, and then I was certain I would have 
 to go. My employers, no matter how fair, could not 
 keep me as against all the balance of the gang. 
 
70 THE IEON HUNTER 
 
 There was a turn of good luck, if ever there is such a 
 thing, and I think there is because so many things hap- 
 pen in a person's life that cannot be traced to their cause 
 source within the individual. 
 
 Two young fellows from Louisville named Baber and 
 Gesswein had started an evening newspaper called the 
 Signal. It is now the Milwaukee Journal, with many 
 hiatuses between. George Yenowine was also one of 
 the unlucky Kentuckians. They got into debt to God- 
 frey & Crandall, the printers, in whose attic I had my 
 abode, and lost their struggling property for printing 
 bills. 
 
 Hampton Leedom, a sturdy man of middle age, with 
 hunchback, red visage and kind heart, kept the books 
 for Godfrey & Crandall and for some others. He, 
 too, often worked at night and I became acquainted 
 with him and he took an interest in me that I shall never 
 forget. It was Mr. Leedom who told me about the Sig- 
 nal and its troubles. I told him about the newspaper 
 and printer's work I had done, and he promised to keep 
 a look out for me for a job. 
 
 Before taking the coal wagon I had been to every 
 printer and publisher in Milwaukee. I could not hang 
 around long because I had not done better up to that 
 time than to work from hand to mouth, and there did 
 not seem to be a job in prospect anyhow. One night 
 Hampton Leedom advised me not to go to the lumber 
 yard next day because he had been telling George 
 Godfrey, of Godfrey & Crandall, about me. I took his 
 advice. 
 
 Mr. Godfrey was a slight, swart man who had char- 
 acter and ability. He looked over his spectacles at me 
 and appeared cross but he was not. I had heard a good 
 deal about him. He was a greenbacker, and from what 
 
I DRIVE A COAL WAGON 71 
 
 I had heard of greenbackers from my father, I had a 
 great prejudice against them and could not understand 
 how a man could be one and a respectable citizen at the 
 same time. That George Godfrey could be gave me a 
 measure of his versatility. 
 
 He also printed the Milwaukee Commercial Letter, 
 which was edited by Mr. Friese, commercial editor of 
 the Sentinel. Mr. Godfrey told me he was anxious to 
 get circulation for the Signal, an ambition quite com- 
 mon to publishers at all times. He said he did not wish 
 to keep the paper but could not dispose of it to advan- 
 tage without building it up some. I thought it queer 
 that he should tell me these things and concluded it must 
 be because I came from LaFayette, where he had a 
 brother, the Methodist preacher. It was not this at 
 all as I came to know. He was just one of those open 
 men who think aloud and consequently never lie. 
 
 I got a job soliciting subscriptions. The Signal was 
 Milwaukee's first two-cent paper. The working peo- 
 ple had never been canvassed, I think, for they seemed 
 eager to try the daily at ten cents a week. I secured 
 as many as fifty subscribers in a day at Bay View, 
 where lived the rolling mill employees and other better 
 paid, skilled workmen. 
 
 My success made me quite famous in the office. 
 Hampton Leedom told me I ought to shuck my Hoosier 
 togs as not being suited to my new stratum in the world. 
 He gave me a credit with F. P. Gluck, tailor, and I 
 used it to obtain my first made-to-order suit. 
 
 My big cowboy hat went into the discard with the 
 old clothes for all of which I got one dollar and eighty 
 cents, at a West Water Street den of three-ball finance. 
 
 Mr. Godfrey was running the paper in quite a popu- 
 lar way. He took a good deal of advice from Robert 
 
72 THE IRON HUNTER 
 
 Schilling, whose socialist paper, Der Deutsche Re- 
 former, was printed at Godfrey & CrandalPs. Schill- 
 ing was a strong, earnest, honest propagandist. 
 
 A newspaper man named C. C. Bowsfield came along 
 and made an offer for the Signal. He got it and 
 changed the name to the Chronicle. 
 
 Because I knew how to handle the carrier boys, as 
 demonstrated one turbulent evening, Bowsfield made me 
 city circulator. I got the routes arranged and made a 
 pretty good start with street sales and newsdealers, be- 
 fore I was transferred to the editorial department. 
 This was what I had been praying for. Not that the 
 writing end of the paper was very formidable, because 
 it was not, but it was on the way for me. 
 
 Bowsfield chewed a toothpick and looked wise and im- 
 portant as owner and editor, and I was certain he felt 
 just as he looked. 
 
 Darwin Pavey, assistant to Bowsfield, was between 
 six and seven feet tall, very skeletony and always looked 
 hungry as his big, gray eyes wandered about his food- 
 less environs. It seemed to me that he was always writ- 
 ing puffs for the Newhall House that never got onto the 
 advertising books. This was proved right by finding 
 out that he got his dinner at that hotel without other 
 pay. They even permitted him to carry fruit and stuff 
 away from the table. Now and then he would bait me 
 with a taste of these titbits. 
 
 It was great to watch him pick his teeth with a wire 
 he carried to clean his pipe. I thought that I would 
 strive to become a great editor like Mr. Pavey and also 
 pick my teeth with a pipe wire after enjoying a sump- 
 tuous dinner at a two-dollar hotel. 
 
 The Chronicle did not prosper any better than the 
 Signal. Bowsfield got new blood and some money into 
 
I DRIVE A COAL WAGON 73 
 
 it by interesting Frank A. Flower. I never had known 
 such a man as Flower. He seemed to me to be a walk- 
 ing dictionary. But he could not supply the nourish- 
 ment the Chronicle needed. 
 
 My salary was supposed to be seven dollars a week. 
 I had been getting enough of this barely to live up to 
 the point it stopped altogether. My last week on the 
 paper is memorable for several reasons. I had been 
 sent to pawn Mrs. Flower's ear rings in order to pay 
 the printers. 
 
 We were all in terrible shape. I had gone from liv- 
 ing on fifteen cents a day to a generous free-lunch saloon 
 on East Water Street, across from the city hall, to which 
 I was introduced by George C. Youngs, a printer friend. 
 
 Every day, nearly, I scooped our rival, the Evening 
 Wisconsin. The very police seemed to be won by the 
 struggle I was making and everybody helped out with 
 exclusive news. 
 
 Walter Gardner, city editor of the Wisconsin, sent 
 for me. I went with quaking knees, caused as much by 
 lack of food as by awe and desire to get a job on the 
 richest paper in town. Not in all my life before or 
 since have I wanted anything so much. Mr. Gardner 
 asked me how I would like to work on the Wisconsin. 
 I replied with profound insincerity : 
 
 " Oh ! I don't know." 
 
 Manifestly he was surprised. 
 
 " What ! " he exclaimed. " Don't you realize that 
 you are a real newspaper man the minute you come over 
 here?" 
 
 I bantered him with the query : " Is that why they 
 call it the Evening Granny? " 
 
 Gardner was said to be a college man. They were 
 rare in newspaper offices then. He had a reputation 
 
74 THE IKON HUNTEK 
 
 and was superior, but he had but a dim sense of humor. 
 I could see that he was struggling between a desire to 
 kick me out and a kind of admiration of my audacity. 
 If he had known how high my gulp was he would have 
 hired me on the spot. Perhaps he did know somewhat. 
 Anyhow he offered me ten dollars a week. I am afraid 
 now that I tried to give him the impression that my 
 wages were more than that on the Chronicle, but such a 
 preposterous idea could not have lodged in his sober 
 brain. 
 
 We had more conversation. I told him that on the 
 Chronicle I was the whole thing, which now was the 
 truth, with the exception that the paper never would 
 have come out if it had not been for Julia O'Brien, a 
 type sticker, and Dick Bavis, the foreman. 
 
 They kept the crew going with such pawnshop money 
 as I could raise for Bowsfield and Flower, who were 
 afraid they would be caught at it and so sent me. 
 
 Finally, Gardner offered me twelve dollars a week 
 and the haggling stopped instantly. It was big wages 
 even in Chicago, and unusually good for Milwaukee. 
 I had not been on the Wisconsin long before Mr. Gard- 
 ner and I clashed. He ordered me to write in his style, 
 which I could not do, and for that matter nobody could 
 except himself. He said he would fire me, which was 
 a bluff. It sent me with my trouble to Uncle Billy 
 Cramer, senior of Cramer, Aikens & Cramer, owners of 
 the Wisconsin and also of a big job and ready print 
 business that made them rich. 
 
 Uncle Billy was as deaf as a big collection of adders 
 and nearly blind also. His other senses were unim- 
 paired and the story of his marriage some time after this 
 incident was a raw morsel among the boys. 
 
 I think my nerve in bracing him personally appealed 
 
I DEIVE A COAL WAGON 75 
 
 to him. Anyhow, Mr. Gardner went on an extended 
 leave for his health, and upon returning became an edi- 
 torial writer. 
 
 The Chronicle had been unloaded on Tom and Jim 
 Somers, democratic lawyers who wanted an organ. 
 They got one. Frank Flower came over on the " Wis- 
 conse " to take Gardner's place as city editor. The old 
 paper took on more life than a doped race horse. 
 
 I was permitted to run an astounding scandal of the 
 county farm, involving the big German chairman of the 
 county board of supervisors and a crippled moron girl. 
 
 The county chairman threatened to kill me on sight. 
 A. H. Schattenberg, clerk of the school board, warned 
 me of my danger and, as it was against the law to carry 
 concealed weapons he gave me a hatchet to defend my- 
 self with. I wore it openly in a belt, and Judge Mal- 
 lory, of the Municipal Court, said it was all right. 
 Julius Meiswinkel, clerk of the court, and Alvin Wie- 
 bers, his assistant, gave me a duly signed permit to carry 
 a hatchet until I elected to bury it. 
 
 This began to make me a marked reporter. Also I 
 never walked. During the time I was in Milwaukee 
 I always ran wherever I went. Oftentimes I beat other 
 reporters who went in cabs and besides I saved the cab 
 hire. 
 
 The libeled person took a new tack. He had Uncle 
 Billy arrested for criminal libel and had me arrested on 
 the same charge. It was the first time on record that 
 an attempt was made to fasten such responsibility onto 
 an employee. John J. Orton, the regular Cramer, 
 Aikens Cramer attorney, and W. H. Ebbitts, a noted 
 criminal lawyer of the time, defended us. We were put 
 in jail for a short time for the dramatic effect. 
 
 On the very same day a German youth named Her- 
 
76 THE IKON HUNTER 
 
 man Hilden murdered his stepfather. The Chicago 
 Tribune got the thing mixed. It carried a Milwaukee 
 dispatch to the effect that I was arrested for murder and 
 Hilden for criminal libel. As the Tribune had a large 
 circulation at LaFayette my bad reputation thereabouts 
 was further fortified. 
 
 We had the goods, so nothing came of our prosecution 
 except an uplift of my local reputation. The Chicago 
 Tribune asked me to take charge of its Milwaukee bu- 
 reau, which I did. Also I got quite a string of outside 
 papers and began to make money as I looked at things. 
 
 The Chicago Times' man in Milwaukee both Trib- 
 une and Times had Milwaukee bureaus then was a 
 booze fighter for fair, and I had the good luck to pro- 
 tect him in his job for quite a long time. 
 
 One day Herman Hilden broke jail with other pris- 
 oners. John Rugee, of Durr & Rugee, had become sher- 
 iff. Fat office those times. He offered a reward of 
 three hundred dollars for Hilden. A clever girl friend 
 of mine, a telegraph operator at Appleton, reported to 
 me that she thought she had spotted Hilden. I followed 
 up the clew, located him and told the Milwaukee sher- 
 iff. I waived all claim to the reward, but saw that the 
 girl got her share. 
 
 My position in the matter, which seemed to me was a 
 simple one and right, made me a very lion for a time. 
 Sheriff Rugee gave a big dinner for me and presented 
 me with a huge, gold-headed cane which quite floored 
 me. I did not any more know what to do with that 
 cane than I would with an elephant's trunk, if one had 
 been tied to me. Its destiny was to be broken over a 
 dog that snapped at our first baby. At the Rugee din- 
 ner it was discovered that less than a year before I had 
 been a lumber piler in his yard, and it made quite a hit. 
 
I DKIVE A COAL WAGON 77 
 
 Soon afterwards a big wholesale Jew clothing house 
 was burned. John Black, assistant fire chief, told me 
 the owners had done it. He took me from floor to floor 
 and showed me piles of kerosened clothing that had not 
 completely burned. It was a great story and when I 
 told Frank Flower all about it he let it go. Of course, 
 it created a tremendous sensation, which was felt in the 
 office as well as outside. The owners started a libel 
 suit. It looked like a bad fight, and while we of the 
 city staff were hot for it, our wealthy bosses were not 
 so keen. 
 
 Two days later occurred Milwaukee's greatest trag- 
 edy, the burning of the Newhall House and one hundred 
 and eleven persons. This swept the boards of the pub- 
 lic mind clear of everything, including our threatened 
 libel suit. 
 
 Parenthetically, the insurance on the clothing stock 
 was never paid. 
 
 The night the Newhall House burned I was in that 
 fated fire trap until after midnight, looking up inside 
 stuff about the failure of Dixon & Co., grocers. I can 
 see Tom Thumb yet as he reached up his cue to his eyes 
 while playing billiards. After watching him for some 
 time I left. All the way home, for now I was married, 
 I had one of those feelings that are unexplainable. 
 Gamblers call them hunches. Spiritualists call them 
 warnings. I was certain that some big thing was about 
 to happen. It was the first time I had sensed anything 
 like it enough to be impressed. The Newhall House 
 was a fire trap. Everybody predicted it would burn. 
 I had been in it for some hours just before and wander- 
 ing through its narrow hallways, had dwelt upon the 
 fire butts and dried and wrinkled reels of rotten hose. 
 Maybe that had a lot to do with my feelings. 
 
78 THE IKON HUNTER 
 
 I lived on 21st Street on the West side near Grand 
 Avenue, and had reached the corner of 18th Street on 
 that stately thoroughfare. About I faced and started 
 downtown. Just as I got to 16th Street a fire alarm 
 sounded, quickly followed by a general alarm. It was 
 January. I ran as swiftly as I could go and just 
 reached the scene in time to witness the ineffaceable 
 spectacle of the jumping of waitress girls from their 
 sixth-story attic rooms into the alley below. Some of 
 the guests leaped into the telegraph wires and broke 
 their fall. My old employer, Uncle Billy Cramer, lived 
 at the Newhall. I soon discovered, to my gladness, that 
 he had been led out quite safely. 
 
 Tom Thumb received injuries from which he subse- 
 quently died. Billy Dodsworth, of the American Ex- 
 press Company, arrived just in time to see two of his 
 best friends, Mr. and Mrs. Joslyn, jump to death. Mr. 
 Joslyii was prominent on 'change. With his wife he oc- 
 cupied the third floor corner rooms of Broadway and 
 Michigan. Mr. Dodsworth had influenced them to put 
 up a private fire escape, but in their panic they forgot 
 it. I have had and have witnessed a good many tragic 
 things in my life but nothing so appalling as the New- 
 hall holocaust. The men I saw dying at the siege of 
 Constantinople had a chance and were not caught like 
 rats in a trap. 
 
 Jesse James was operating up in Wisconsin then, and 
 the Williams Brothers, of Dunn County, were supposed 
 to be a part of his gang. Every detective or would-be 
 Vidocq in the West and a lot from the East had lurid 
 dreams of rounding up the James outfit or some of it. 
 Old Bill Beck, who had a piece of his jaw shot off, leav- 
 ing an ugly, facial scar, was the first chief of police I 
 knew in Milwaukee. He was a war time, secret service 
 
I DKIVE A COAL WAGON 79 
 
 detective and typical. Under bis direction quite a de- 
 tective force incubated. Some of tbeni were too funny 
 for anything even then, but Janssen and Riemer, Billy 
 MeManus, John Hannifin, and Smith and Sheeban did 
 good work from the first. John A. Hinsey had charge 
 of the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railroad de- 
 tectives with headquarters in Milwaukee. That was 
 before the offices were moved to Chicago. Alexander 
 Mitchell and S. S. Merrill were directing the master- 
 ful contest waged against the Chicago & Northwestern 
 for control in the new Northwest. William C. Van- 
 Horne was general superintendent and was making his 
 record as a lieutenant that resulted in his being drafted 
 by the Canadian Pacific promoters. Fred Underwood, 
 afterwards president of the Erie, was a brakeman. 
 His home was out at Wauwatosa, where his father was a 
 dignified minister of the gospel. Tom Shaughnessy, 
 afterwards Lord Shaughnessy, was dealing out candles 
 and wicking as a clerk in the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. 
 Paul Railroad storehouse, and his father was a faith- 
 ful, Third Ward policeman, with a brogue like over- 
 cooked mush. 
 
 James J. Hill and Donald Smith, the latter after- 
 wards Lord Strathcona, were beginning to appear in 
 the horizon of the Northwest. The United States had 
 just failed to see and take advantage of a chance to pur- 
 chase nearly a million square miles of Hudson Bay Ter- 
 ritory, which would have given us an unbroken domain 
 to the North Pole, including the now famous hard wheat 
 belt of the North. 
 
 The vast Northwest had begun to sizzle as the fires of 
 settlement and commercial desires moved up to it. One 
 could tell the story on and on for they were making men 
 in Milwaukee then. 
 
80 THE IRON HUNTEE 
 
 Well, as I was saying, all the sleuths were after Jesse 
 James. A deputy sheriff named Jim Greding had 
 more imagination and less sense than any one person I 
 ever saw. He thought he was a detective. Laboring 
 under that delusion he did more odd things than could 
 be told in a tome. Once he came to me and told me in 
 a whisper that would burst the listening ear of Diony- 
 sius in the latomia of Syracuse, that he had located his 
 quarry. I followed him over to Grand Avenue. He 
 stealthily approached the salesroom of the Singer Sew- 
 ing Machine, where an inoffensive citizen named Beach 
 was planning further raids on the Wheeler & Wilson. 
 
 " That's him ! " said Jim. 
 
 It was hard to keep my face straight, but I sicked 
 Jim on until Beach nearly broke every bone in his 
 body. This didn't feaze him, for one day a rube named 
 William Kuhl came to town and Jim at once marked 
 him for the desperado Loii Williams. He really got 
 Kuhl into the coop and finding a scar on his toe that 
 tallied with Williams, they spirited him to Dunn 
 County for final identification, which was so success- 
 ful that it proved conclusively who he was not. 
 
 But Jim had us all fooled for a while. I had myself 
 locked up with the pseudo Lon, and so eager was I to 
 believe Kuhl to be a villain for the story there was in it, 
 that I had no difficulty in doing so. It was a great les- 
 son to me. 
 
 I learned how easily one can be misled in the direction 
 he would like to proceed. 
 
CHAPTEE VIII 
 
 MAEBIED ON CREDIT I GIVE MY BRIDE A FIVE CENT 
 
 BOUQUET AND WE TAKE A WEDDING TRIP ON A 
 
 STREET CAR 
 
 THE best act of my life was performed in Milwau- 
 kee when I fell in love and married. I do not 
 know how any one could be more deeply in love 
 than I was, unless I am now, and I think I am. My 
 sweetheart was seventeen and I was twenty. I was 
 refused a marriage license on this account. The mo- 
 ment we became of age I secured the license and we were 
 married by the Reverend F. L. Stein, pastor of the 
 Grand Avenue Methodist Episcopal Church, in the par- 
 lors of his parsonage, Saturday evening, May 7, 1881. 
 
 I gave my bride a five cent bouquet from the German 
 market, paid the preacher two dollars down and three 
 dollars on the installment plan and paid Gluck, the 
 tailor, for my wedding suit in the same way. 
 
 We joyously took our bridal tour on one of Washing- 
 ton Becker's street cars drawn by horses, and spent the 
 evening with Observer Mueller of the United States 
 Weather Bureau and Mrs. Mueller. 
 
 If any bridegroom was ever happier before or since 
 it is because of his greater capacity for emotion. I had 
 wedded the most beautiful and the bravest girl in the 
 world, and I know this now better than I thought it 
 then. There never has been a time in African jungle 
 or any other place demanding courage, when my wife 
 has not been the braver of the two. 
 
 SI 
 
82 THE IKON HUNTER 
 
 I made many friends, and one of the dear ones, Col- 
 onel J. A. Watrous, was directly responsible for my go- 
 ing to Florence as told in a previous chapter. My char- 
 acter began to take form in Northern Wisconsin. I 
 wished to provide for my wife and family and be a good 
 husband and citizen. That was an undertaking big 
 enough. Conditions at once compelled me to make a 
 decision between the outlaws and the little Presbyterian 
 Church. At that time I did not formally join the 
 church, but I did enlist for the aims of the church. It 
 is nearly true but not quite exactly the case that it was 
 put up to me to be a horse thief or a Presbyterian, and 
 I chose to be the latter. 
 
 At Florence I had my first real initiation into the 
 politics of the times. Hiram Damon Fisher, a good- 
 hearted, canny Green Mountaineer, born at Vergennes, 
 Vermont, was the big man of the place in everything. 
 He was the discoverer of the adjacent iron mine that 
 made the town possible. 
 
 Mr. Fisher had " entered " from the Government most 
 of the environal land to the extent of thousands of acres. 
 His plan was to secure the minutes (descriptions) and 
 take them to the capitalists to be purchased from the 
 public domain at one dollar arid twenty-five cents an 
 acre. Generally one quarter interest, but sometimes 
 only one-eighth and infrequently three-eighths would be 
 given the cruiser, or whatever person supplied the 
 chance. In this manner much of the best of the valu- 
 able public domain fell into a few hands. 
 
 All sorts of things had fallen to the lot of the father 
 of Florence before he got his start. He was a sailor 
 on Lake Winnebago and Fox River, connecting that 
 water with Green Bay, where his finer character was 
 shown by saying " jeeswax " instead of the profanity 
 
A WEDDING TKIP ON A STREET CAR 83 
 
 that was more plentifully charged with haemoglobin. 
 
 Book peddling carried him into insurance, and while 
 thus engaged he met Emily, the beautiful daughter of 
 Joseph Keyes, one of the pioneers of Wisconsin. 
 
 Boss Keyes, a son of Joseph, was a political power 
 and for a long period dominated in Wisconsin. 
 
 Joseph Keyes came to be registrar of the United 
 States land office at Menasha. Young Fisher got into 
 the atmosphere of the office instinctively, as well as into 
 the good graces of the majestic daughter. 
 
 He camped at the Keyes. Woods cruisers would 
 come in with the information gathered after long and 
 adventurous trips. Oftentimes they were only con- 
 cerned with certain specified parcels of land, but in 
 going to or from that location they would incidentally 
 gather much information about timber, rocks, soil, fur, 
 game, Indians and what not. Very often they would 
 race with other woodsmen for some rich stake, nearly 
 always pine timber. Thrilling canoe trips in summer 
 and great hikes on snow shoes trailing toboggans in 
 winter were common. 
 
 The time Charley LaSalle lost his trapping " pard- 
 ner" up on Lac Vieux Desert in the middle of the 
 winter and froze the corpse until spring, when he pain- 
 fully and laboriously trudged out with it for some hun- 
 dreds of miles, was a chiefer tale, and the fellow who 
 did not know all about it was the worst of lob-gobs 
 tenderfeet. 
 
 When these couriers du bois were at the land office, 
 and some of them were there every day, Damon Fisher 
 would cultivate them. A drink here, or a plug of to- 
 bacco or a present of a pipe and the jolly young Yankee 
 was their bosom friend. 
 
 Then they would tell him everything, even the se- 
 
84 THE IRON HUNTER 
 
 crets they hoped to capitalize in the nebulous some day. 
 In this manner he learned of places where the compass 
 would turn a complete circle because the magnetic at- 
 traction was so strong. 
 
 Every little while a cruiser from the Lake Superior 
 region would fish out of his pockets a specimen. Nearly 
 all of them knew iron ore when they saw it. They were 
 not very good judges of percentages of metallic iron, 
 but that was relatively unimportant. Sometimes they 
 would have jasper and at other times lean magnetite, 
 resembling what they had known as loadstone. 
 
 One day a cruiser showed Fisher a small piece of 
 sparkling specular hematite. That settled it. He had 
 married Miss Keyes, but that did not prevent his de- 
 cision. The woods were a terra incognita to him, so 
 he interested George Keyes, who was a cousin of his 
 wife, and a good woodsman named Nelson Halsey. 
 
 This trio made trip after trip up into the wilds. 
 They could go as far as Green Bay by rail, and then 
 they had to attack the brush. Each man carried a pack. 
 They took a light cotton tent, one blanket apiece, frying 
 pan, tin tea pail, three tin cups, knives and forks some- 
 times, plenty of flour and pork, tea and salt. No sugar ; 
 no luxuries. Their food range was as important as a 
 seafighter's coaling radius is. 
 
 Tea, grill ades and galette for breakfast and supper, 
 and cold dough-god for lunch made up the woods fare 
 of all who deserved the name of cruiser. It was wear- 
 ing upon the young prospector's bank account, which 
 had not been a big one to start with. 
 
 There was a lonely wife and baby in a little cottage 
 in Menasha. Fisher just would not give up. He ex- 
 hausted his means so completely that he would borrow 
 five dollars to buy flour with, arid when pressed would 
 
A WEDDING TRIP ON A STEEET CAR 85 
 
 borrow of another in order to pay the original loan. 
 
 In this way of high finance he kept himself and his 
 little crew in the woods. But there must be success or 
 an end to it all. Anybody who ever had confidence in 
 him had lost it. 
 
 So it came to the third mid-summer's prospecting. 
 Halsey and Keyes were looking for a corner in order to 
 locate themselves. They were in a dense cedar swamp 
 between two small lakes. Fisher wandered about quite 
 aimlessly and got away from his men. Coming to the 
 edge of the swamp he climbed a hill, so that he might 
 get a birds'eye view of the country if possible. But it 
 was too thickly timbered at the hilltop. Then he hal- 
 looed to his men. No answer. 
 
 " Lost ! by jeeswax," he soliloquized. 
 
 He sat down and took out his small exploring pick. 
 Sticking it in the ground at haphazard, as one would 
 idly play mumbletypeg alone, he pulled it out and be- 
 hold ! The point was red. 
 
 He had stuck it into hematite just beneath the leaf- 
 mold. Feverishly he scraped away the leaves and plied 
 the little pick. There was iron ore. 
 
 Restoring the original appearance Fisher's next task 
 was to find his men or have them find him. The work 
 of anxious months was at an end. 
 
 Thus was discovered the Menominee Iron Range. 
 
 Not even telling Halsey and Keyes when they came 
 together, Fisher started for Menasha just as soon as 
 he was certain of the section his find was on. The land 
 was entered. More weary years ensued before John 
 H. Van Dyke and Albert Conro of Milwaukee, and A. 
 C. Brown of Marinette, and Henry Pattern of Menasha 
 and other rich bankers were interested. 
 
 The railroad followed, and then development and 
 
86 THE IKON HUNTEK 
 
 riches. To secure all this Fisher had to give up to 
 capital three-fourths of his discovery. 
 
 Two lakes may be seen from the denuded crest of 
 Florence Mine hill. The one to the southwest is called 
 Keyes and the nearer one, which is southeast, is called 
 Fisher. On the banks of the latter, in a beautiful lo- 
 cation, is the mining village of Florence, named for 
 Mrs. N. P. Hulst, of Milwaukee. 
 
 It was Mr. Fisher who came to have a drag on the 
 town weekly, as a quite common result of loaning to it 
 small sums of money. I went north in response to a 
 wire from him to Colonel Watrous. The Colonel, a 
 most generous and brave man, saw me climbing the 
 stairs of the Wisconsin building with a series of jumps. 
 Peck's Sun was on one floor and the Sunday Telegraph, 
 published by Calkins & Watrous, on another. 
 
 He asked me if I would like to go into business for 
 myself. 
 
 I answered, " You bet ! " without a moment's thought 
 of capital. 
 
 That was four o'clock, P. M. I left on the six o'clock 
 train, two hours later, and did not return. Mr. Fisher 
 asked me how much money I had. I told him eighty 
 dollars. He asked me how much I could raise. I told 
 him all that was necessary. 
 
 " Where ? " he queried. 
 
 " You," I replied. 
 
 " All right," he said. 
 
 I signed notes for two thousand, five hundred dol- 
 lars, at ten per cent., all to be paid in a year. 
 
 It took sixty dollars of my eighty dollars to bring 
 up my wife and babe and our scant household truck. 
 I did not know there was a great depression in iron, 
 and that the mine was idle. A small force was working 
 
A WEDDING TRIP ON A STREET CAR 87 
 
 two miles away at Commonwealth. There was some 
 lumbering. Over the Michigan line there was a good 
 deal of exploring in the region of Tobin Lake, and along 
 the Paint and Iron rivers, where the towns of Crystal 
 Falls and Iron River were just starting. Small mines 
 had opened at the Delphic and Mastodon locations. 
 
 Edward Breitung, of Negaunee, was doing some work 
 at the lower Pine River falls, and Angus Smith, of 
 Milwaukee, had an exploring crew on the Menominee, 
 near Bad Water Indian village. The Lake Elwood sec- 
 tion, between Spread Eagle and Pine River, was also 
 attracting attention. Norway, Quinnesec and Iron 
 Mountain were flourishing new towns. Keel Ridge 
 mine had caved in and killed a number of men, the 
 first big tragedy of the range. 
 
 The Breens and others had done some work in the 
 vicinity of Waucedah, which had been abandoned as 
 beyond the extension of the productive iron formation. 
 There was much excitement in the Metropolitan and 
 Felch mountain regions and the Chicago & Northwest- 
 ern built a branch in from Narenta, but the ore bodies 
 turned out to be a shallow blanket, and large sums of 
 money were lost. 
 
 To say that I worked night and day is the only de- 
 scription of my activity. I loved the wild new country. 
 It brought into play everything that a soul and mind 
 and body possesses. Nearly all the pioneers were 
 young. The pace demanded youth. Jim Knight had a 
 paper at Norway. I think they called it the Chronicle 
 then ; now his paper is the Current. Boulders Bennett 
 was a feature of it. 
 
 Jim Russell, then a bellicose tyro, since become an 
 able and dignified penologist, had just joined A. P. 
 Swineford in the Marqueite Mining Journal. George 
 
88 THE IKON HUNTER 
 
 Newett, always a man and now famous for his tilt with 
 Colonel Roosevelt, ran the Iron Agitator now Iron 
 Ore, at Ishpeming. C. G. Griffey was plugging away 
 with the Negaunee Iron Herald. 
 
 A fine fellow named Devereux seemed out of the 
 world with the Portage Lake Mining Gazette at Hough- 
 ton, and he gave it a tone that was high and distinctive. 
 
 Fred McKenzie was at Calumet, where he had a pos- 
 ter affair much like his own pudgy self. Alfred Meads, 
 father of them all and a credit to everything he con- 
 tacted, was the pioneer publisher of the Ontonagon 
 Miner. 
 
 Colonel Van Dnzer, a veteran of Sherman's army, 
 published the Escanaba Iron Port, and the way the 
 splendid old hero " marched to the sea " every issue 
 was good for contemplation. 
 
 I have mentioned this press personnel because these 
 men had more to do with developing the social and civic 
 structure in their respective communities, that were in 
 turn interwoven, than all the acquisitors whatsoever. 
 Every one of them waged a battle for equality and de- 
 cency every minute and it was a prideful thing to know 
 them. 
 
 The Mining Journal, of Marquette, and the Green 
 Bay Advocate just about controlled things in the new 
 field I had entered. It was my business to drive them 
 out, which I did. I could do it only by appealing to 
 local loyalty and meeting their competition. I started 
 departments in my paper for Iron River and Crystal 
 Falls and at last, when forced, I printed papers for these 
 towns, that were set up and run off at Florence. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 I UNDERTAKE THE STUDY OF IRON ORE AND ENGAGE 
 IN EXPLORATION AND PROSPECTING 
 
 MY newspaper work and its involvements did not 
 give me enough to do so I began a systematic 
 study of iron ore exploration in all of its prac- 
 tical and scientific phases, an enjoyable life's work 
 which I still keep up and which has attracted me to 
 every country in the world. Woodcraft and surveying 
 are as necessary as anything else in a new country. 
 The government survey of Northern Michigan and 
 Wisconsin was made between 1850 and 1860. Mostly 
 it was well done but not always. Townships six miles 
 square were measured off north and south from an ar- 
 bitrary base line and east and west from a range or 
 meridian line. These townships were subdivided into 
 thirty-six sections one mile square, and the sections were 
 quartered; later to be divided into forty-acre lots by 
 county surveyors. The section corners and the points 
 midway between them, quarter stakes, were marked. 
 Great care was given to marking the section corner. 
 Whether the monument was a cedar stake, or of some- 
 thing else, charcoal was buried at its base. Then bear- 
 ing or witness trees, four when possible, were gouged 
 with the legend of the location. Accurate location by 
 distance and direction was made on the field notes. Ob- 
 servations of topography and geology were also written 
 on the field notes, making them very valuable. The 
 
 89 
 
90 THE IRON HUNTER 
 
 government survey by the United States is a creditable 
 public achievement. 
 
 It was impossible to survey the magnetic fields in the 
 region of Lake Superior with an ordinary compass. 
 Necessity thus led to the contrivance of Burt's solar 
 compass which has been developed now into the dial 
 compass, a still more useful instrument. 
 
 It was a memorable day when Mr. Fisher, at my re- 
 quest, took me into the woods and showed me for the 
 first time an unmarred section corner and three wit- 
 ness trees. Another lesson was to walk along the section 
 line two thousand paces to the next corner, locating the 
 quarter stake enroute. I held a compass straight in 
 front of my body, waist high, as I took sights along the 
 line. 
 
 At noon we had a bouillon made of a pileated wood- 
 pecker. I had never before seen this beautiful bird. 
 Mr. Fisher called it a wood cock and informed me that 
 it was a fine game bird. It is just as good to eat as 
 any woodpecker and no better. They are rapidly dis- 
 appearing and are even more scarce than their southern 
 rival, the ivory bill. I have never permitted the killing 
 of one since that day except for alleged scientific pur- 
 poses, and not many with that now poor excuse. 
 
 By evening Mr. Fisher said he could teach me no 
 more ; that all the rest of it would have to come by the 
 experience that would attend keeping at it. 
 
 The Gogebic and Mesaba ranges and their extensions 
 were little known and undeveloped. Charles Wrifrht, 
 geologist, had made what is yet the best map of the Me- 
 nominee range. 
 
 The Brotherton boys, of Escanaba, doing the practical 
 work, and John M. Longyear, the clerical, for the Lake 
 Superior Ship Canal Railway & Iron Company, had 
 
THE STUDY OF IKON ORE 91 
 
 made valuable land grant selections along what has been 
 developed since as the Gogebic range. While doing this 
 work Mr. Longyear laid the foundation for his great 
 fortune by securing money backing and taking up lands 
 adjoining, utilizing the Brotherton information for the 
 purpose and obtaining a quarter interest in everything 
 thus entered. 
 
 The entire Lake Superior country was overrun by 
 agents of rapacious interests of one kind or another. 
 Homesteaders were struggling for a share with no inten- 
 tion of making a home. Unearned land grants were 
 being fought for. It was a Golcouda and greed was 
 after the diamonds. Beneath it all was a current flow- 
 ing that was certain to purify everything. One had but 
 to glance below the murky surface of the present. 
 
 Before I left Florence N. I). Moore and others were 
 working in the Gogebic region and with the coming of 
 the railroad the Colby mine was opened. 
 
 My first year at Florence witnessed the payment for 
 the little paper. Three years more of work there 
 brought more than a living so that when I sold out early 
 in 1887 I had nearly ten thousand dollars and the world 
 by the tail. 
 
 Mr. Fisher, egged on by Boss Keyes and a natural 
 tendency, took part in all the politics from the township 
 " corkis " to the state convention. In fact, he was the 
 political entity of the county and aspired to go to the 
 legislature some day. In order to facilitate this and de- 
 fine more clearly his realm, he had Florence County 
 cut out of Marinette and erected. 
 
 When there was any kind of a convention he would 
 send for me and we would together write out a list of 
 names of delegates, issue their credentials and sign 
 them, and that was all there was to it. I have no idea 
 
92 THE IRON HUNTER 
 
 that I would have been consulted if it had not been 
 necessary to have some one sign as secretary of the con- 
 vention that was never held. 
 
 At first I thought it was a trifle irregular, but as I 
 did not know anything about the proper form, a brief 
 conversation with the well-intending local boss caused 
 me to have no qualms; and, in fact, I am certain that 
 Mr. Fisher was conscientious in also believing it to 
 be all right. They all did that way, he told me. The 
 candidature for congress of Mr. Isaac Stephenson, a 
 Nova Scotian lumberman at Marinette, reputed to be 
 nearly a millionaire at a time when those common- 
 places were uncommon, was announced. His district 
 was the Ninth Wisconsin. Sounds like a military com- 
 pany, does it not? It included Florence County. We 
 were entitled to two delegates and whom else could we 
 appoint but ourselves ? There was no other thought 
 in our minds even if others might have had them. 
 
 Soon after our popular selection as delegates a most 
 confounding thing occurred that stumped me com- 
 pletely for a while. Mr. A. C. Brown, of Marinette, 
 a lumbering partner of Mr. Stephenson, came to Flor- 
 ence and actually called on me. I was boyishly glad to 
 be recognized by Mr. Brown, who really was a fine 
 gentleman and rich. My legs were almost removed 
 from perpendicular connection with my body when he 
 pulled out a fifty dollar bill and handed it to me. I 
 had never seen one before and my first idea was that it 
 might be a millionaire's calling card, indicating his 
 status, and only to be taken and returned. So I took it 
 and searched it minutely and then offered to give it 
 back. He waved it aside with an imperious smile, as if 
 to convey that he had more of them than could be loaded 
 into one of his Brule River batteaux. 
 
THE STUDY OF IRON ORE 93 
 
 " But what is it for ? " I asked. 
 
 He seemed stuck for a second and then replied, " For 
 subscription to the Mining News." 
 
 And I thought it was ; cross my heart. So I ran over 
 in my mind how long Mr. Brown would have paid in 
 advance at two dollars and fifty cents a year, or whether 
 he might not wish it to be divided among names he 
 would furnish? 
 
 It made no difference to him, he said, and after 
 visiting a while he got up to go, remarking that he would 
 see me at the convention where we would be certain 
 to land Stephenson all right. 
 
 I was also certain, because Boss Keyes was for Ste- 
 phenson ; A. C. Brown was for Stephenson ; Stephenson 
 was for Stephenson ; Mr. Fisher was for Stephenson, 
 and whom else could I be for, and I did not know the 
 other fellow if there was one. 
 
 There was no need of scattering money all over the 
 district the way they did, except for the observation of 
 the same good form that makes a fellow set 'em up again 
 who has had a drink with some one buying for a bar- 
 room crowd. And yet the money smoothed the way to 
 Congress for Uncle Ike just as he iced logging roads, 
 or as a ship's ways are greased before launching. 
 
 Before I left Florence a revolution against the pre- 
 vailing political methods occurred and conventions and 
 caucuses were really held, but a few interested persons 
 pulled the strings and manipulated things just the same. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 MY FIRST TRIP INTO THE TRACKLESS WILDS OF 
 UNEXPLORED CANADA 
 
 ISOLD out to advantage at Florence and moved 
 back to Milwaukee and took a position as city 
 editor of the Sentinel. Together with Harry My-. 
 rick, Mel Hoyt, Henry Legler, Sandy Dingwall, Curt 
 Treat and Will Anderson, all newspaper men, I started 
 a trade paper called the Miner and Manufacturer, which 
 we had King & Fowle print. 
 
 The Gogebic range was booming. Milwaukee went 
 iron mad. Iron mine stocks were traded in by the pub- 
 lic speculatively for the first time in America in 1887. 
 As usual fortunes were made and lost, and the start 
 was made of many spectacular careers, such as that of 
 Ferdinand Schlesinger, that took even banks up and 
 down. 
 
 I had a few stocks and sold them, but did not buy any 
 nor speculate. It got to be noised around that I was 
 an expert iron ore man. This was based on the fact 
 that I had been underground in nearly every mine and 
 exploration in the Lake Superior ranges, and had writ- 
 ten mining dope that was given wide publicity. I did 
 not intend to pose as an expert. In fact, iron ore ex- 
 ploration was then done by guess and b'gosh by the best 
 of them. No one person seemed to be able to see much 
 farther into the ground than another. 
 
 Anyhow, I was consulted and I think I was honest. 
 
 94 
 
THE TEACKLESS WILDS OF CANADA 95 
 
 One day a man came to me and told me a syndicate of 
 Milwaukee and Chicago men had been formed to make 
 some examinations of the Echo Lake region of Canada, 
 and he asked me if I would take charge of them. I 
 had no more idea where Echo Lake was than the man 
 in the moon. We did not discuss that, but came to 
 terms upon the general proposition, and I engaged to go. 
 My pay was five hundred dollars a month and expenses, 
 and I was to have a quarter interest in anything I found 
 worth taking hold of. If I had asked any less during 
 that boom they would not have thought me an expert 
 at all, and as it was they thought I was too cheap, as I 
 afterwards learned. As for myself, I was in much 
 doubt of my ability to earn my wages. But I did and 
 more. 
 
 Four active years in the woods of the Menominee 
 range, during which I had repeatedly visited and stud- 
 ied explorations and formations from one end of the 
 range to the other, had given me something. The 
 woods had loaned to me some of their secret craft, and 
 the lakes and rivers had yielded experience in rowing, 
 paddling, poling and sailing. 
 
 I was somewhat equipped for work in the wild coun- 
 try that my quest was partially to introduce me to. I 
 had walked from Lac Vieux Desert to Lake Superior 
 and had interested Milwaukee acquaintances in entering 
 several thousands of acres of copper lands, covered with 
 good hardwood and scattering pine between the Black 
 and Presque Isle rivers. On that cruise I had a pack 
 of eighty pounds and wore my improper footwear down 
 to sore and bleeding feet. 
 
 The geography of Echo Lake locates that beautiful 
 mountain-shored basin in Canada, between Sault Ste. 
 Marie and the mouth of St. Mary's Straits. Its inlet 
 
96 THE IRON HUNTER 
 
 comes down from between the Garden and the Abina- 
 dong and its outlet debouches into Big Lake George, on 
 the old channel east of Sugar Island, called a long time 
 ago St. George's Island. I was instructed to start in 
 there and follow up any leads I might get as to iron 
 ore and likely formations. No railroad reached Sault 
 Ste. Marie. To reach that classic town, older than 
 Plymouth Rock settlement, one took stage in winter and 
 boat in summer. It was to me a passage into paradise. 
 I had never breathed such air nor drunk such water. 
 Pure as nature was the entire Northland. 
 
 At Crystal Falls I had known a temperamental pigmy 
 named Fay G. Clark, who was known as Racketty Clark 
 by his woods acquaintances. I asked a Canadian 
 French woodsman one day why they called him " Rack- 
 etty," and he knew : 
 
 " Cause she hant pak rite in her 'ead, maybe." 
 
 Racketty had gone into the Sault country the year 
 before and finding that nearly every Indian had speci- 
 mens of iron ore he sent out wild stories that were taken 
 hold of at once that wildest year. He wrote interest- 
 ingly and convincingly to one who wished to be con- 
 vinced. 
 
 I searched him out and found him the evening I ar- 
 rived at the Sault eating a big brook trout at Mother 
 Churchill's restaurant. He told me at once about kill- 
 ing the trout at the Little Rapids just below the Sault. 
 It weighed more than five pounds according to his tell, 
 and he could not decide which was the better; such a 
 trout or the iridescent, sweet and hardmeated whitefish, 
 that the Indian descendants of the old Bawittiwiniwags 
 scooped out of the rapids. 
 
 Now and then a bone would shuck out of the corner 
 of Racketty's mouth, which was a perfect boning ma- 
 
THE TRACKLESS WILDS OF CANADA 97 
 
 chine. He told me much about the Sault as he ate and 
 ate: about Gizhe Manido and how that Indian deity 
 had pursued the great beaver, father of all the beavers, 
 first out of his dam at the Little Rapids and then out 
 of his main dam at the big Sault, destroying them par- 
 tially and thus forming St. Mary's Falls. 
 
 When he finished I engaged him to go into the Cana- 
 dian wilderness with me. I directed him procure as 
 good an Indian as he could find and one just as old as 
 he could be and handle himself. It was desirable to 
 have as much cumulative redman lore as one individual 
 could hold. 
 
 We spent the entire summer along the massive ranges 
 that lie between the Georgian Bay arm of Lake Huron 
 and Batchewanna Bay, Lake Superior. I found a 
 strong iron formation clear across. Now and then it 
 was cut off by extensive igneous flows. It was easy to 
 connect roughly the sedimentary zones containing fer- 
 ruginous quartzite, marble, limestone and porphyry 
 with boundaries of pegmatite, granite gneiss, syenite, 
 norite, diorite, diabase, basalt and other fire rocks. 
 
 Quite often we found good float ore, mostly a semi- 
 specular hard hematite. I thought it ought to outcrop, 
 but could not find where. Up and down mountains, 
 through swamps of spruce and tamarac, along stream 
 valleys and around lakes, tramping and eating our gril- 
 lades and galette as we drank copiously of bitter boiled 
 tea, we spent a wonderful season until the snow came 
 and drove us out, because one cannot prospect the sur- 
 face when the snow covers everything. 
 
 I carried a pack that weighed something over ninety 
 pounds at the start; the Indian's weighed exactly one 
 hundred and eight pounds and Racketty's sixty-five 
 pounds. We used from Minabog's first because it was 
 
98 THE IRON HUNTER 
 
 heaviest. Our packs were not bags but pack sheets of 
 awning cloth made up with tump line or misery strap 
 in Ojibway Indian fashion. 
 
 We carried no tent, so that we could increase our sup^ 
 ply of pork and flour to the limit, and nothing else but 
 salt and tea. No firearm, not even a revolver, was per- 
 mitted to take the place of grub. A trolling hook and 
 line that we whirled and threw from the bank of a lake 
 almost always won a walleyed pike. Many of the 
 streams had brook troiit. We cooked the fish by run- 
 ning a stick through the body from mouth to tail and 
 placing it perpendicularly before the fire, giving it a 
 twist now and then to expose all sides. If the fish had 
 scales they would easily come off with the skin when 
 cooked. As for the viscera it dried up in a ball and 
 practically fell out when the fish was opened. 
 
 For fruit we had nothing except a few wintergreen 
 berries that are horribly lacking in acid, until other ber- 
 ries would ripen. Then our craving for something sour 
 would be satisfied with luscious shadberries and blue- 
 berries such as do not grow elsewhere. Sometimes 
 we mixed the plentiful Labrador tea (ledum palustre) 
 with our tea to make it go farther and once a week we 
 made tea of the tender tips of the spruce, a perfect 
 antiscorbutic. Best of all, late in the season, were the 
 high bush cranberries (viburnam opulus or guelder 
 rose) that were very sour and juicy and clung to the 
 bush tenaciously. 
 
 At night if it were clear we would not bother with a 
 covering, but would roll up in our blankets and perhaps 
 pull over a pack sheet, ample and practically water- 
 proof. Flour mixed with water into a stiff dough and 
 fried in hot pork grease makes dough gods very accept- 
 able to woodsmen when eaten hot, but deadly enough to 
 
. V f K IJ 
 
THE TKACKLESS WILDS OF CANADA 99 
 
 any one not living in the open and not working hard. 
 I think they even hurt the ironclad cruiser in the long 
 run. The same dough baked in the frying pan makes a 
 nourishing, unleavened galette. 
 
 On these rations I lived for many years during the 
 season between the going and the coming of the snow, 
 one year walking and packing two thousand two hun- 
 dred miles and several times exceeding one thousand 
 eight hundred miles. 
 
 The most interesting particular region we searched 
 was the valley of the Abinadong, a tributary of the hurt- 
 ling Mississauga. These streams on the Great Lakes' 
 side of the height of land are wicked in their fury to 
 get down to their vent and their erosive power is enor- 
 mous. They rush madly through the firmest dykes, 
 cutting contracted canals, forming polished gorges, and 
 forever roaring and shouting when they are not tickling 
 pebbles into song as they loiter on some nearly level 
 stretch. The Mississauga is such a typical river. Not 
 so rough in its moods as the Abinadong. Its valley is 
 less rocky. There are sandy savannas. 
 
 Low, elmwooded islands are quite numerous. They 
 possess good soil and vegetation grows lush. Some- 
 times brakes as high as one's head would be encoun- 
 tered, and beds of delicate, black-stalked maiden hair 
 ferns higher than our knees. In June the banks were 
 lined with Indian roses, making a canoe promenade of 
 pink. A little later these were succeeded by the plenti- 
 ful white blossoms of the northern wild clematis, the 
 fastest growing climbing plant in this region. 
 
 Nowhere before or since have I seen so much wild 
 life. Moose would stare as dully at one as oxen, and 
 red deer knew no fear. Rabbits and squirrels would 
 play about our feet and were a nuisance because they 
 
100 THE IRON HUNTER 
 
 would steal our dough gods at every camp. Caribou 
 were not really wild. Wolves and foxes would scuttle 
 away, but bears showed neither sign of fear nor much 
 concern about man things. 
 
 The pileated woodpecker was our barometer. His 
 rain call never misses. Once I heard a pileated wood- 
 pecker and a raven talking to one another. It did not 
 take much imagination to conclude that they were argu- 
 ing about the weather. Anyhow the pileated kept on 
 shrieking his raucous zee cruck, zee cruck, but 
 the raven did not join in until a day later. It rained. 
 
 The pileated woodpecker is the wisest bird in this 
 part of the world. It will even come to man to be 
 saved. Justice Steere, of the Michigan Supreme Court, 
 relates that once when he was in a forest a large hawk 
 assailed a pileated woodpecker. The bird of the royal 
 red crest flew to the jurist and was saved. 
 
 Otter, beaver, mink, marten and fisher were much 
 more numerous along the Abinadong than is usual. It 
 appeared that this tranquil valley was a perfect game 
 sanctuary. That is just what it was. I had much 
 difficulty in inducing Minabog to ascend the river at all. 
 When we came to the mouth he said, " No go up." And 
 he stuck to it until I threatened to desert him. This 
 brought him to time and caused him to tell me the secret 
 of the river. 
 
 It is the land of the Windigo; belongs to it as its 
 home. No human ever trespasses. Hundreds of years 
 ago, according to tradition, the Ojibways tried repeat- 
 edly to trap along the river. Some of them never re- 
 turned ; others came back and were mad murderers and 
 cannibals and had to be killed by the tribe. Then the 
 Abinadong was given over to the ghosts that lived along 
 it. No Ojibway can tell you just what a Windigo is. 
 
THE TKACKLESS WILDS OF CANADA 101 
 
 John Tanner, who lived with them thirty years, never 
 found out exactly; nor did the . observing and accurate 
 Alexander Henry, nor Schoolcraft. 
 
 The Windigo is not the devil and is only an evil spirit 
 when his hunting ground is invaded or he is molested in 
 some other way. He has power to turn men into eaters 
 of human flesh and is quite as subtle as the werwulf or 
 the loup garou. The most horrible thing he does is 
 to eat away the base of the tongue or the inside of the 
 eyeball or the lining of the upper nose and inner ear, to 
 an extent not to be fatal, but worse. Among the Chip- 
 pewas the fear of the Windigo is supreme. That is why 
 the Abinadong is a paradise of wild life to this mo- 
 ment. It is the home of the ghastly Windigo and I 
 hope it will be forever, because I imagine the whole 
 thing is a story devised by the wise old fathers of the 
 redmen so that a place would be preserved where game, 
 so necessary to them, might propagate in perfect safety. 
 White men ought to set up several Windigo places as 
 game sanctuaries. 
 
 I reported nothing of value to the syndicate that em- 
 ployed me. It was a disappointment. It seems that 
 I was expected to find something whether there was any- 
 thing or not. Such was the speculative excitement that 
 a good story could have been capitalized to big advan- 
 tage. Next year they sent in another person who sup- 
 plied the desired report, upon which more than a quar- 
 ter of a million dollars were expended and lost. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 CHARMED BY THE BEAUTY OF SAULT DE SAINTE MARIE 
 
 AND FASCINATED BY ITS ENVIRONS I CHOOSE IT 
 
 AS A HOME FOR LIFE 
 
 THE Sault country fascinated me as it had many 
 another and always will continue to do. Mazy 
 summers of life and pure joy. Winters of stim- 
 ulating majesty by which men, women and children are 
 made robust or driven away ; no colorless middle ground. 
 
 Mel Hoyt had recently graduated from the University 
 of Wisconsin as a lawyer, but had taken up newspaper 
 work and was already compelling. His rapier mind 
 was reaching and strong. I told him the story of the 
 north. He was as enthusiastic as Tom Moore was when 
 he mused the Hyperboreans. And parenthetically 
 Moore was an instinctive poet. He only knew the 
 Greek legend of the peopled north and was not aware 
 that moderns have proved the North Pole to have been 
 habitable, and not unlikely to have been the incunabu- 
 lum of the human race, at least as the race is now known. 
 
 Mel and I bought the Sault News, a struggling, 
 under-dog, weekly paper in 1887. I had enough money 
 to make the deal a cash one and as I had formed the 
 attachment for my partner that has only grown richer 
 between us all our lives, it was a keen delight to carry 
 him for his share. We went at the thing hammer and 
 tongs, and it was not long before we had our paper on 
 a paying basis and our competitor on the run. The 
 
 102 
 
A HOME FOE LIFE 103 
 
 Sault was booming. Goose pastures were being sub- 
 divided. The whistle of the work train on the coming 
 railroads could be heard. The trail to Hudson Bay, 
 which had been one of the passages to and from the big 
 world, would be side-tracked. French habitants were 
 made over from muskrat hunters to millionaires in a 
 day, in their minds. Many a palace with pink body 
 and blue trimmings was started and some were built. 
 An artificial atmosphere contaminated the Northwest 
 wind for a while and then blew away, taking on its 
 wings some of the adventurers and undesirables. Good 
 people found their way and started legitimately to build 
 a city in one of the most attractive locations on earth. 
 
 Our ambitions took fire with the others. We took 
 in Sandy Dingwall as a third partner and planned as 
 avidly as the best or worst. Sandy had been a clerk 
 in the Wisconsin Fire and Marine Bank, of Milwaukee, 
 for which George Smith laid the foundation and Alex- 
 ander Mitchell, David Ferguson and John Johnston 
 erected the superstructure. The Northwest was a New 
 Scotland until the Germans and Scandinavians came to 
 compete. 
 
 The Sault grew until its country trousers did not 
 reach its ankles. It had to have a new suit cut by up- 
 to-date tailors. That meant city organization. We 
 were tremendously interested and took a very active 
 part. There were ordinances to print and other fat 
 takes, and it was our business to get them. I am posi- 
 tive that not one of us had an ethical thought. We 
 were young fellows with eager hopes and no tangible 
 ideals. My own boyhood and young manhood makes 
 me think that vital youth is a thinly disguised barba- 
 rian, or was in my time. 
 
 Election day came. The village had been democratic 
 
104 THE IRON HUNTER 
 
 if it could be said that there were partisan conditions. 
 Really the Trempes, or the Ryans or the Browns, or an 
 arrangement between them, usually controlled things. 
 A short time before they had been shocked by Charley 
 Chapman, a newcomer, who had been made village presi- 
 dent without asking permission of the old regime. In 
 the ancient days that were declining a few barrels of 
 pork and some of whiskey carried every election. 
 
 At the first city election in the Sault there was a 
 crazy quilt of corruption, and not a soul raised a warn- 
 ing or even an objecting hand. Political morals were 
 as unknown as if the country had never been discov- 
 ered. I saw the unclean hand ungloved, hard and bold, 
 for the second time. Uncle Ike and A. C. Brown had 
 exhibited a marked refinement compared with the meth- 
 ods in the Sault. I do not suppose that worse ever ex- 
 isted the darkest practices before the dawn of re- 
 form. 
 
 Political lines were drawn taut. Otto Fowle, a 
 banker, had been nominated for Mayor by the Repub- 
 lican local leaders, among whom William Chandler, 
 Joseph H. Steere, George Kemp and Charley Spalding 
 were prominent. There was no clash between the old 
 and the new among the Republicans. The Democrats 
 were not so lucky apparently. Billy Cady, also a 
 banker, was nominated by the Democrats controlled by 
 the new element. 
 
 Hoyt, Dingwall and I were as busy as three live 
 young fellows could be. The open sewers ran whiskey, 
 and drunken Indians staggered through the knee-deep 
 spring slush in all directions. It might have been safe 
 for a woman to have appeared on the street, but not one 
 did. By ten o'clock we discovered that the Democrats 
 were paying a dollar apiece for votes in addition to 
 
A HOME FOR LIFE 105 
 
 free whiskey. At once the leaders on our side armed 
 their workers with a good many more dollar bills than 
 the voting population of the town numbered, because the 
 votes were coming in from Sugar Island, Sault Town- 
 ship, the Canadian Sault and even from the Indian 
 Mission on Waiskai Bay and as far as Whitefish Point. 
 It was not a question of morals with anybody concerned ; 
 the problem to be solved was whether they could get to 
 this purchasable human commodity and had enough 
 money to get it away from the other side. Nobody went 
 into an alley or behind a barn unless it was to keep the 
 other side from penetrating whatever strategy there was. 
 
 Fist fights were going on all day, and as my partners 
 and I rushed from one polling place to another, we 
 could not avoid them nor did we try to do so. Finally 
 the day wore through. Soon the polls would close. 
 The fight was furious. At the Fourth Ward polls oc- 
 curred the astounding thing of the day, even as I now 
 view that ollapodrida of strange experiences, proving 
 that a condition is a condition and that morals have no 
 stable standards and are really a matter of inner growth. 
 Very evidently the leaders had either no inner growth 
 or nothing else to go by, and everybody else was in the 
 same boat. 
 
 About ten minutes before the polls closed, a thrifty 
 citizen drove up with a team bearing twelve drunken 
 Indians, an even dozen. Mike O'Day began to negoti- 
 ate for them at once for the Democrats. A Republican 
 pushed him aside and they roughed it a little, when, 
 realizing how short the time was to buy those votes and 
 get them in, they got to work again. It became a mat- 
 ter of open bidding as in a slave mart or auction of any 
 kind. Dollar by dollar they raised each other. O'Day 
 bid twelve dollars a head. Both leaders knew the elec- 
 
106 THE IKON HUNTER 
 
 tion was close. The Republican raised his bid to four- 
 teen dollars. It was more than O'Day had. The 
 Democrats were all in. The Republicans got the votes 
 twelve count them at fourteen dollars each, 
 open auction. 
 
 Otto Fowle was elected by seven majority. 
 
 Will you say that public morals have not improved 
 since then ? Improved is not meanirgful enough. 
 There has been a complete transformation, except in 
 cities like Detroit, where the so-called good citizen is too 
 often a silk-stocking derelict on election day. And my 
 morals have improved. I thought of nothing wrong 
 when I took part in that unclean election, and I wish 
 to be charitable with those who may not have had a 
 chance to see and know better and who still besmirch 
 the ballot. About that Sault election even the preachers 
 knew everything and said nothing, and the candidates 
 were Honorable men. Not a word was said before or 
 soon after about the influence of money and whiskey and 
 pork and their use. It was not long before the scales 
 fell from my eyes and I saw the heinousness of it. 
 
 To atone is one of the reasons I have fought for clean 
 politics and honest government ever since. 
 
 A number of candidates appeared for the Sault post- 
 office after Cleveland's defeat. There was a good deal 
 of friction. The office was offered to me as a compro- 
 mise, but I declined. However, while I was upon an 
 expedition in the woods I was appointed. About the 
 same time the business bubble burst. Hoyt, Dingwall 
 and I jeffed to see who would keep the Sault News. 
 We had made up our minds that there was not room 
 enough for three in the business. Mr. Hoyt was a 
 strong man and until very lately was the successful ed- 
 itor and publisher of the Milwaukee Daily News and 
 
A HOME FOR LIFE 107 
 
 one of the able men of the Nation. Mr. Dingwall be- 
 came a millionaire play manager in New York, of 
 which he gave signs when as a boy he had the dramatic 
 column in the Milwaukee Sentinel. I lost, as we 
 thought, as it fell to me to keep the paper and remain 
 in the Sault, where my life has been so satisfactory and 
 my friendships so happy among a people with no supe- 
 riors, that it turned out that I won richly. 
 
 Before our debacle I had made plans for systematic 
 exploration in Canada and had started the work. To 
 the North from the Sault is a beautiful sky line of un- 
 broken hills. Sometimes they wear a rich blue haze. 
 At other times they are dressed in the gorgeous reds and 
 golds of autumn. In the summer these hills are green 
 and in the winter pure white. They are the oldest 
 things in the world if geological chronology means any- 
 thing. Stretching away from Cape Canso to Queen 
 Charlotte Sound without a fracture they are more the 
 back bone of the North American continent than are the 
 Rockies. Between them and the North Pole there was 
 nothing of man in those days and there is not much yet. 
 
 Behind those hills lay the greatest and least known 
 wilderness in the world. It drew me like a human 
 loadstone. 
 
 Something lost behind the mountains ; " lost and wait- 
 ing for you, go ! " 
 
 If I had not gone something in me would have busted ; 
 now I don't mean burst something ruder than that. 
 I knew that such little exploration as had been done 
 followed the rivers. Along the rivers were trails and 
 canoe routes. Fish lived in the waters ; fur lived on the 
 fish ; Indians subsisted by the fish and fur, and the Hud- 
 son Bay Company exploited the Indians. Hence the 
 one way of things along the streams. Drainage of this 
 
108 THE IRON HUNTER 
 
 half the continent was south from the height of land 
 to the basin of the Great Lakes, and North from the 
 same great divide to Hudson Bay and the Arctic Ocean. 
 Almost no attention had been given to minerals. Pine 
 was coming in, and furs had been the golden fleece for 
 two centuries and fleece is right. 
 
 My idea was to conduct reconnoissances across the 
 country. This meant packing supplies on the back al- 
 most altogether and hard work. It also meant seeing 
 country that even the Indians had not seen. I was 
 eager to pay the toll. It was something of the spirit 
 that had driven and coaxed my grandfather across the 
 Alleghenies. 
 
 While I was in the wilderness the Sault News was 
 expected to subsist my family. It was my permanent 
 dock where I tied up my hope of sustenance and it did 
 not fail. Critical conditions arose ; most of them dur- 
 ing my four-year term as postmaster. As I anticipated 
 would be the case, a good many older citizens resented 
 my selection. I was too new. Then, as postmaster, I 
 was consulted by the state and national party machine. 
 This also brought its conflicts and embarrassments and 
 compelled me to attend at times very closely to my knit- 
 ting. 
 
 Booms bring to towns a regular riffraff of things, 
 more good than bad, no doubt, but it takes only one 
 rotten apple in a barrel to foul all the rest, and a whole 
 barrel of good apples will not cure a rotten one; just 
 got to throw it out. I undertook the throwing out game 
 and took on no end of tough enemies. 
 
 Two factions fought over variant plans for the water 
 power development. One was for the old LaCrosse and 
 Milwaukee Cargill-Elliott crowd and the other favored 
 certain big promises made by Alexander Hamilton 
 
I 
 
 02 
 
A HOME FOE LIFE 109 
 
 Gunn, for an alleged English syndicate. The enter- 
 prising townspeople had already gone down into their 
 own pockets for a bonus of one hundred thousand dol- 
 lars to start the thing and they were pyrographically 
 concerned. 
 
 As usual in such things, politics poked in through the 
 doorway of a desired franchise. I took sides with the 
 tangible proposition made by Cargill and his associ- 
 ates. A popular local manufacturer named Lewis A. 
 Hall, of Bay Mills, ten miles up the shore, became in- 
 terested. In order to influence the council, ground was 
 broken for the huge, paper-making plant, which after- 
 wards became the Niagara Pulp & Paper Company at 
 Niagara Falls. 
 
 The segregated judgment of the people is ever a prob- 
 lem. In sufficient mass with adequate interest involv- 
 ing almost life or death, the people invariably go right ; 
 in local cases, wherein momentary passion obscures, they 
 are just as apt or apter to go wrong. 
 
 After a bitter recriminatory contest the Sault re- 
 jected the bird in the hand for one that was said to be 
 in the bush, but was never seen. It plunged the town 
 into commercial gloom sooner or later, thus compelling 
 a penance of years for the mistake. 
 
 During this fight another opposition paper was es- 
 tablished, making three in the field too many. I had 
 been roasted until I was getting hardened to it, and 
 had been hung and burned in effigy, all in the way of 
 supplying me with experience that would entitle me 
 some day to join the veterans' corps of those who become 
 immune to such shafts. My continual war against 
 the gamblers, tough saloons and West End prostitutes 
 always made it possible for my enemies to mobilize a 
 strong force against me. At least once they started to 
 
110 THE IRON HUNTER 
 
 march to my home to mob me. The common knowl- 
 edge that I had a half a dozen rifles and could and prob- 
 ably would shoot, made the gang listen to those who 
 advised giving me a wide berth. A coterie of citizens, 
 respectable enough outwardly, but willing to lie in with 
 the worst element to achieve a result, organized for the 
 purpose and boasted that they would drive me out of 
 town. 
 
 I have had two such fights in Sault Ste. Marie, run- 
 ning over several years. My frequent absence from 
 home seemed to make it easier for my enemies to undo 
 me. Sometimes, when I would return they would have 
 a warrant awaiting me and would serve it on a Saturday 
 night so as to keep me in jail at least over Sunday. 
 Always some good friend would find out their plan 
 and would have everything ready to circumvent it suc- 
 cessfully. The favorite charge brought against me was 
 criminal libel. I have defended nineteen libel suits 
 and have been successful every time, because I tried to 
 be in the right and was able to assemble a sufficient de- 
 fense. Even now I cross my fingers and touch wood. 
 
 Once while I was postmaster my enemies charged me 
 with overcharging an ignorant foreigner for a money 
 order. Inasmuch as I had never issued a money order 
 in my life, it was easy to disprove this. In fact, my 
 enemies have generally, in their blind bitterness, over- 
 done their attacks. 
 
 Such a life of civic and social warfare made for me 
 many golden friends as well as unpleasant enmities. I 
 learned that character may be good enough to be malice 
 and slander bomb proof, and I tried to build such a one. 
 
 " If you don't do it you can't be caught," was my 
 motto. 
 
A HOME FOR LIFE 111 
 
 That was a selfish thought at first and only gave way 
 with years and growth to my guide of later years : 
 
 " Eight because of Right." 
 
 I will not try to convey the impossible idea that I was 
 always right, because I was not. I was forever doing 
 something and I made mistakes, but I never committed 
 another criminal act after the Indian vote buying, re- 
 lated in a previous chapter. Perhaps I might go fur- 
 ther and state that I have always tried to do right and 
 hope that fifty-one per cent, of my acts have been of that 
 character. At least I learned that life cannot be a bluff 
 or a four flush, actions must square with words, and 
 habits and associations must harmonize with aspirations. 
 The hour never appealed to me and only those who know 
 me least would designate me as an opportunist. 
 
 My Uncle William Osborn was one of the best men 
 in the world. He said to me once: 
 
 " Nephew, where does the trail of life you are on 
 lead to ? Every man's life is a trail ; it is as long as he 
 lives. There are many blind bypaths leading off. 
 Some of them go nowhere ; others lead to quagmires and 
 precipices. The chart of the trail is the bible; the 
 lights on the way are Christian efforts. If you get off 
 the trail go back to the last point you were certain of 
 and start again. Don't be afraid to back up when you 
 are wrong and don't be afraid to go ahead when you 
 are right. Carry your own load and help those who are 
 not as strong as you are to bear their burdens. Show 
 your colors. If you are not with a church you are 
 against it, or worse yet, an agnostic, living in the twi- 
 light zone of individual cowardice. The average trail 
 is three score and ten years long. Yours and every 
 man's will land him safe if he uses his conscience as a 
 
112 THE IKON HUNTER 
 
 guide and his better desires as a staff. Where are you 
 going to fetch up at seventy? Read ' Pilgrim V Prog- 
 ress.' 
 
 My uncle's sermonette made the deepest impression 
 on me of any advice I ever received. " Where are you 
 going to fetch up at seventy ? " 
 
 So the halfway houses have not held me very long 
 and the jack o' lanterns have not dangerously enticed me 
 off the main trail yet. For this I am thankful to God 
 as the way to go has been very dim at times and hard 
 to follow, and there have been rocks in the way and I 
 have stumbled. But I always got up, put my jaws to- 
 gether, smiled to myself and went on. If I were asked 
 the secret of success and happiness I would say applied 
 energy and poised growth. 
 
CHAPTEE XII 
 
 I AM USED AS A POLITICAL FULCEUM BY JAY 
 HUBBELL TO PRY OUT SAM STEPHENSON 
 
 ONE day William Chandler, of the Sault, came 
 into my office. He loved politics and no sooner 
 had Joe Steere landed in the Sault to recover 
 from an attack of Lenawee enteric, than he was placed 
 on the circuit bench to succeed Judge Goodwin. 
 
 The Chandler and Oren families were mixed up with 
 mine back in the old Ohio days. I had gone to school 
 with Mrs. Chandler at Purdue, and had been taught 
 by her very superior mother. Mr. Chandler asked me 
 if I would like to go to Congress. I was only a little 
 past thirty and had not thought of any office, let alone 
 Congress. I had been in so many fights that my opin- 
 ion was that I could not have been elected dog catcher, 
 and I told Chandler so. He scarcely listened to me. 
 
 Ours was the twelfth district. It had been formed 
 geographically in various ways. Just then it com- 
 prised the entire Upper Peninsula or about one-third the 
 area of the entire State, divided into fifteen counties, 
 and had a population of about two hundred fifty thou- 
 sand. From Canada to the Montreal River east and 
 west, and from the mouth of the Menominee to Kewee- 
 naw Point north and south, inclosed a formidable re- 
 gion. Its interests were lumbering, iron ore mining 
 and copper mining. Now agriculture, then just begin- 
 ning to be seriously considered, forms an important pur- 
 
 113 
 
114 THE IROJST HUNTER 
 
 suit, with prospects of ultimately yielding more than 
 all the others. 
 
 There were lines of political cleavage between the 
 various interests. Sam Stephenson, of Menominee, was 
 our representative. He was a brother of Uncle Ike, 
 and their fraternal ambitions could not be carried in 
 the same basket, as one lived in Michigan and the other 
 in Wisconsin, separated by the Menominee River. It 
 was good for them to be so near together, because they 
 each nourished a proper desire not to be outstripped by 
 the other and they could keep tab on each other. They 
 were wholesome men of their type and period. Only 
 one way was there to get anything and that was to buy 
 it. Hence their life could be summed up: get money 
 and buy what you want They were honest according 
 to prevailing standards, generous when they could see 
 what they were getting for their giving, profane in lan- 
 guage, chin likely to be a nicotine delta, canny in a 
 trade, forceful in business, crude and rude and uncouth 
 in matters, manners and education, endued with homely 
 horse sense and enough courage. They were both rich 
 and getting richer sawing pine lumber and selling it. 
 
 I have never been able to determine the place of such 
 men. Mostly I have thought they performed a needful 
 function and occupied a legitimate sphere. They got 
 their timber from the Government directly or otherwise 
 at small cost, almost nothing. They cut it ruthlessly 
 and the waste was scattered everywhere they lumbered, 
 and allowed to burn and destroy great, uncut forests 
 and even villages and lives, as witness Peshtigo and 
 many other places. 
 
 There was a need for economical house material all 
 over the growing nation. It was thus adequately sup- 
 plied. One cannot have his cake and eat it too ; nor can 
 
A POLITICAL FULCRUM 115 
 
 he have trees and wheat in the same field. Greater care 
 and selection in lumbering would have increased the 
 cost of home building during a critical period, and 
 would have delayed farm development. Consequently, 
 I do not join with those who curse the Stephensons and 
 their congeners. 
 
 Sam Stephenson had just bought a seat in the House 
 of Representatives, just as he would purchase a plug of 
 tobacco or a bottle of bone liniment. It did not mat- 
 ter to him whether Henry W. Seymour, of the Sault, 
 had occupied it only a brief few months since the un- 
 timely death of Representative Seth Moffatt, of Trav- 
 erse City. It just "belonged to the feller that could 
 git it," was the way Sam sized it up, so he turned his 
 labial nozzle on Mr. Seymour and injected a stream 
 of tobacco juice in his eye, after the manner of squids. 
 
 When that benign gentleman got through rubbing his 
 eyes he could not find his seat in Congress. It was not 
 a gentlemanly thing to do perhaps, but Sawlog Sam got 
 what he was after, which is the object in life a great 
 many have. 
 
 Now it appears that Mr. Seymour got in because Mr. 
 Chandler and other friends were able to tie the tails of 
 the copper and iron and sawlog cats together, and throw 
 them over the district political clothesline. Down in 
 Chippewa County we were in the minority and flocked 
 with nobody. Our only hope was in a scrap by the 
 others. 
 
 Jay Hubbell, of Houghton, who was called " Two 
 per cent." because of his dextrous assessment of post- 
 masters for campaign purposes while in the House of 
 Representatives and chairman of the Congressional 
 Campaign Committee, hated Sam Stephenson plenty. 
 I do not know the origin of the feud, or whether it ex- 
 
116 THE IKON HUNTER 
 
 tended beyond political boundaries or not. Hubbell 
 was a strong man, educated as a lawyer, resourceful and 
 the foxiest politician in the district. 
 
 I did not know that he had ever heard my name. 
 But he had, and just as horsemen have their eye out for 
 likely colts, he had his at the political periscope. Down 
 he came to the Sault and deposited a bug in Mr. Chan- 
 dler's ear, where it was to abide until it could be trans- 
 ferred to mine. I wore no ear laps in the summer and 
 they got me. 
 
 Mr. Hubbell had no use for me. He did not tell me 
 so; nor did he exactly tell Chandler that he had not. 
 But he was not delicate about admitting to the latter 
 what he kept from me, and that was his master hunger 
 just then was to beat Sam Stephenson. The scheme was 
 to have favorite sons in enough counties to split things 
 up, and thus make Stephenson's renomination impossi- 
 ble. I was to carry my home county of Chippewa and 
 possibly Mackinac and Luce, and even might keep things 
 stirred up in Schoolcraft. Carl Sheldon was brought 
 out in Houghton County. John Q. Adams, of Negau- 
 nee, and Colonel C. Y. Osburn, of Marquette, were can- 
 didates in Marquette, the heart of the iron region. 
 
 Trouble enough I made for all hands. I did not 
 know that my part was to be only that of a tool. So I 
 went at the thing slambang. I was familiar with the 
 campaigns of Henry Clay and Abraham Lincoln. 
 Their districts were not wilder nor larger than the one 
 I had to cover. In fact, bears and wolves and wildcats 
 were thicker in our part of Michigan than they were in 
 Kentucky in Henry Clay's time. Schoolhouses were as 
 far apart. Trusty rifles hung on many-pointed antlers, 
 and there were thousands of Indians who only went on 
 whiskey war paths. 
 
A POLITICAL FULCRUM 117 
 
 I determined to campaign every school district in the 
 Upper Peninsula. How else could I win without 
 money to buy my way? It was the first campaign of 
 the kind ever conducted in this way in our part of the 
 State. My knowledge of hunting and woodcraft and 
 my life on the Menominee range gave me certain advan- 
 tages, and I made the most of them I could. 
 
 Quite quickly my candidature developed from an in- 
 cident to a menace. At first Uncle Sam gave no sign 
 of knowing of it ; then he roundly haw-hawed and then 
 he sent out agents and money in plenty to head me off. 
 I really liked the people, especially those in remote set- 
 tlements, and some of them liked me. The old system 
 obtained. Caucuses began to be held and I was suc- 
 cessful in more townships and counties than anybody 
 had estimated. Sometimes when our side won, the 
 more bitter and resourceful would send contesting dele- 
 gations. This was particularly true in Delta and Iron 
 counties. Every political trick known, running the 
 gamut of money, bulldozing, cajolery, lying and prom- 
 ises, was resorted to. Our side might have been as 
 guilty as the other if we had been supplied with the 
 same weapons. We did not use money because we had 
 none to use. 
 
 Jay Hubbell and his schemes were lost sight of in the 
 curiosity that was aroused by the queer campaign I was 
 making. I walked and worked night and day, attended 
 socials in churches for which Uncle Sam had donated 
 the principal part of the building fund ; went to coun- 
 try dances and called at hundreds of houses where a 
 candidate had never been before. Came the Congres- 
 sional Convention. It was held at Ironwood, a victory 
 for me because Gogebic County was for me and the 
 local atmosphere would be favorable. I had carried, 
 
118 THE IKON HUNTER 
 
 or claimed to have carried, eight of the fifteen counties 
 and had that many delegations on hand. That did not 
 give me a majority because the larger counties, such as 
 Houghton, Marquette and Menominee, were against me 
 and had candidates of their own. It was while the 
 convention was being organized that I discovered the 
 real part that I had been expected to play. The old 
 bosses, such as Hubbell, Duncan, Parnell, Maitland, 
 Walters and others, were willing to beat Uncle Samuel, 
 but they did not want me by a jugful. In fact, if it 
 came to a show down between Stephenson and me, they 
 would have been for gruff old Uncle Sawlog, who at 
 worst was one of them in being a part of the " inter- 
 ests," only then they did not call them that. I had 
 more votes than any other candidate and was permitted 
 to organize the convention, or at least to think that I did. 
 Voting started. Once I came within four of the nomi- 
 nation. That was my high water mark. 
 
 Report was made to my floor managers that John, 
 Duncan, of Houghton, really preferred Uncle Sam to 
 Carl Sheldon, their home candidate. In fact, the fight 
 was not the field against Stephenson any more than it 
 was the field against me. I was consulted and decided 
 that the Duncan report bore earmarks of truth. We 
 threw my support solidly to Sheldon, and he was chosen. 
 I had gone into the hall at the rear and stood behind 
 Sheldon, who was seated in a chair. When the lid blew 
 off, as Sheldon was nominated, I gave a big, bursting, 
 boyish yell of victory and grabbed Sheldon's hat, as I 
 thought. Waving it in the air I somehow got sight of 
 it. Not a hat at all, but a wig. His toupee had burst 
 its shoe wax moorings. Snatched as baldheaded as a 
 billiard ball, there he sat in a gold-mouthed, glowering 
 rage, caring nothing about his honor and only seeking 
 
A POLITICAL FULCRUM 119 
 
 the return of his thatch, which I had waved aloft like 
 the banner of the beard of the prophet at Goek Tepee. 
 
 We had nominated a man not only with solid gold 
 teeth, like the Sultan of Johore, though not set with dia- 
 monds, but one who wore a wig. I was responsible for 
 this. Would the common people stand for it ? 
 
 Our district was as strongly Republican as though it 
 had been politically pock-marked. There was no doubt 
 of Sheldon's election if he could be kept at home. He 
 was. It transpired that he had no such native ability 
 as Stephenson and was not as effective as a representa- 
 tive. 
 
 As for myself, I became a political factor, not by vir- 
 tue of either ambition or design, but only because I al- 
 ways went with all my might at whatever my hands 
 found to do, and this had not been an exception. 
 
 There are no bitternesses quite equal to local ones, no 
 matter whether political, religious or of other kinds. 
 They come near to one; there is immediate friction 
 which is aggravated by being seen as well as felt. The 
 source is always within striking distance and that makes 
 for frequent striking and multiplied inflammation. 
 One has to learn to joust and like it; to hit hard and 
 also take blows and to discharge the whole matter as 
 soon as it is over. Not adopting such a philosophy the 
 participant is either knocked down and thrown into the 
 discard, or is made into a grouch, whose very temper 
 becomes his undoing. " Be just as good an anvil as 
 you are a hammer," was the tabloided advice given to 
 me when a boy, by a veteran of many a battle, who had 
 not a mean wrinkle in his heart and then of course not 
 in his face. 
 
 It was a good thing for me that I learned this, because 
 I have been pounded incessantly from youth until the 
 
120 THE IRON HUNTER 
 
 present, and really I think I have improved all the time 
 in every way. While leaving me very far from the 
 unattainable on earth goal of human perfection, I have 
 enjoyed going on the way. 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 THE SACRIFICE OF GENERAL ALGER TO APPEASE 
 POLITICAL BLOOD HOWLERS 
 
 THE Hispano-American War broke. I was in 
 Spain when the Maine was blown up. Proceed- 
 ing almost directly to Egypt I found there John 
 Hay and Dr. James B. Angell. I was not of their 
 party, but went to Damascus at the same time that they 
 did and also up the Nile. When I returned to Cairo 
 I found a letter from General Alger asking me to re- 
 turn home and on the way to obtain, if possible, certain 
 information in Italy, France, Spain, Germany and par- 
 ticularly in England. Our Government had reports 
 from its officials upon phases of conditions in those coun- 
 tries and wished the views of others and facts they might 
 gather to use in checking up. 
 
 I found everywhere I went in Italy a profound and 
 natural sympathy for Spain. In Germany I found the 
 people and many officials friendly to the United States. 
 In Spain I was to ascertain what might be their ability 
 to sustain the war, and reported great internal weakness, 
 both of physical power and political harmony. Her 
 colonies had drained Spain of her honor and her young 
 manhood until to lose them was welcomed. Their gov- 
 ernment had been used as a means to political debt pay- 
 ing, and the feeling was that nobody higher up went to 
 the colonies except to feather his nest. 
 
 I did witness a funny incident in Huelva. A story 
 
 121 
 
122 THE IRON HUNTER 
 
 teller was entertaining a big crowd talking about the 
 war. He told them that America was about the size of 
 Andalusia and that the people were all shopkeepers; 
 rich, dishonest, cowardly and soft-handed. One big 
 warship they had, he said, and upon it they would sail 
 forth to battle with the Spanish navy. In just a little 
 bit their blood would flow like the juice of a crushed 
 grape, and the war would be over, and Spain would have 
 America in her possession again as she did before it 
 was stolen from her. The crowd cheered this recital 
 with sharpened screams. 
 
 My surprise was complete in England. So far as I 
 could determine the government was diplomatically 
 friendly, but the people sympathized with Spain. I 
 talked with hundreds of them of all strata. We had 
 no friends among them so far as I could find. On the 
 English steamer, upon which I returned to America, I 
 canvassed every passenger and did not find one friend. 
 They hoped the Yankees' swelled heads would be re- 
 duced and freely predicted final victory on the sea for 
 the Spaniards. 
 
 Proceeding at once to Lansing I offered my services 
 to Governor Pingree. He tendered me commissions at 
 three different times and on one occasion he was sup- 
 ported by General E. M. Irish in urging me to accept. I 
 had received some military training in the College Ca- 
 dets at Purdue under Dr. Harvey W. Wiley, as captain, 
 and I was eager to go to war. Just as I was about to 
 accept a commission, William Jennings Bryan became 
 a colonel. Thereupon several of my friends, who by 
 ridicule and otherwise had been endeavoring to dissuade 
 me from going, remarked with disgust that every cheap 
 politician in the country was grandstanding the war. 
 Somehow or other that shot struck home; not that I 
 
SACKIFICE OF GENERAL ALGER 123 
 
 thought of Mr. Bryan as a cheap politician, but I knew 
 the place offered to me was earnestly sought by several 
 better equipped than I was, and it began to impress me. 
 So I refused the commission, but offered to enlist as a 
 private. The Governor, who was a practical soldier, 
 told me the time might come when I could do that with 
 propriety, but that just now I could render better serv- 
 ice at home. As a result, I became active in organiz- 
 ing and assisted in raising two companies, the officers 
 of which the Governor consulted with me about before 
 he named them. 
 
 Quickly the war was over. There had not been a bat- 
 tle severe enough to attract public attention from the 
 minor discomforts of war : sickness in camp and quality 
 of food. Some one found a can of Chicago corned beef 
 that emitted gas when it was punctured for opening. It 
 was one of the few cans that did not stand the sub- 
 tropics. A round robin was hatched in Cuba. Once 
 started there was an epidemic of criticism. There had 
 to be a scapegoat of the administration. General Alger, 
 of Michigan, was Secretary of War. He was a Civil 
 War veteran with a brilliant record, had subscribed 
 thousands to the McKinley campaign fund when Mark 
 Hanna was raising it, and was really possessed of solid 
 ability and sound sense. Although he wrought himself 
 into a sick bed and continued to work when unfit and 
 endangering his life as much as upon a battlefield, the 
 storm settled upon him. Every result of the ante- 
 bellum carelessness, inefficiency, insufficiency and unpre- 
 paredness was charged up to him. 
 
 One day soon after the last private staggered off the 
 transports at Montauk Point, I received a telegram from 
 the Secretary of War asking me to come to Patterson, 
 New Jersey, where he was to spend a week-end at the 
 
124 THE IRON HUNTER 
 
 home of Vice-President Hobart. I proceeded there at 
 once. General Henry M. Duffield, of Detroit, had been 
 summoned also. He was not only a friend but an inti- 
 mate political adviser of General Alger, and a depend- 
 able, influential and intellectual gentleman. It did not 
 take us long to ascertain that President McKinley had 
 yielded to the pressure and had made up his mind to 
 dump his Secretary of War as a sacrifice. He had 
 asked Vice-President Hobart to break the news to Gen- 
 eral Alger, and that was the object of the week-end con- 
 ference. When Hobart told Secretary Alger the lay 
 of the land, the General's care at losing his place in the 
 cabinet was as nothing compared with his personal dis- 
 appointment in McKinley. It was the only time I ever 
 heard General Alger swear and it was rather pleasant 
 to listen to him as he relieved his feelings. 
 
 " Why, it was as late as Thursday that the President 
 put his arms around me and told me not to pay any 
 attention to the attacks of the press," he said, sadly and 
 bitterly. 
 
 Continuing, General Alger said the President told 
 him of his confidence and admiration. 
 
 " When I offered to resign, which I did in good 
 heart," said Secretary Alger, " the President would not 
 hear of it, and professed to be pained and embarrassed 
 by the idea and asked me as a favor to say no more about 
 it and not to think of leaving the cabinet." 
 
 Vice-President Hobart told me that the President 
 had made up his mind some time before that he would 
 have to feed General Alger to the clamorers, egged on 
 in doing so by Senator Hanna and all the administra- 
 tion advisers, but that it was only on the previous Thurs- 
 day that he had asked Hobart to get Alger out smoothly 
 the same day the President had caressingly assured 
 
SACRIFICE OF GENERAL ALGER 125 
 
 the General of his confidence, affection and support. 
 
 Of course, Vice-President Hobart told General Alger 
 all the facts. It made him so angry that he decided not 
 to resign, but instead to make all the trouble he could. 
 General Duffield and I permitted time enough to elapse 
 to cool General Alger's fighting blood, and then we ad- 
 vised him to resign, and to return to Michigan where the 
 people loved him and trusted him, and we predicted that 
 they would vindicate him by sending him to the United 
 States Senate. Always amenable to reason, General 
 Alger looked at the matter as we did and decided to re- 
 sign. 
 
 I asked him what, in his opinion, caused the bitter 
 attacks of the New York papers to center upon himself, 
 when the editors certainly possessed the knowledge that 
 he was not to blame for the natural hurts of years of 
 loose departmental administration, and poverty of imag- 
 ination and anticipation. General Alger replied that 
 he was certain about what caused it. Bids for trans- 
 porting to Spain the Spanish soldiers captured during 
 the war were asked for. The shipping trusts submitted 
 exorbitant figures. A Spanish steamship company pro- 
 posed to do the job for much less and got the contract, 
 in spite of threats made by the robbers. Thereupon 
 certain of the New York press discovered that General 
 Alger could not be controlled and at the same time de- 
 cided that he was not competent, and would have to go. 
 It was the McKinley campaign fund talking and its 
 speech was effective. NOT did it matter whether such a 
 trifling thing occurred as the destruction of a man's 
 reputation. 
 
 Upon my return to Michigan I saw Governor Fili- 
 gree and Secretary Stone and others, and arrangements 
 were begun for the big homecoming reception of Gen- 
 
126 THE IKON HUNTER 
 
 eral Alger, that was soon given to him by Detroit. 
 Nothing could have been easier. General Alger was 
 Michigan's most loved citizen. They sensed the mi- 
 justness of his treatment and resented, as a quickly gen- 
 erous people would do. 
 
 Then followed the working out of the plans to send 
 General Alger to the Senate. He sent for me and re- 
 quested me to be his campaign manager. There were 
 many reasons why I could not do so; chiefly I knew 
 that it would be necessary to use all the Pingree organ- 
 ization that existed, and I did not control it. General 
 Alger would not hear to my objections. My appeal 
 was then to Henry B. Ledyard. When I told Mr. Led- 
 yard my reasons, and informed him that in my opinion 
 William Judson, of Washtenaw, would be the best man 
 that could be obtained, he agreed with me, and got Gen- 
 eral Alger to consent. Judson conducted a shrewd 
 campaign against the McMillan-Ferry combination and 
 was able to defeat D. M. Ferry, though not easily. 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 MY ASSOCIATION WITH HAZEN S. PINGREE PLUNGES ME 
 INTO POLITICS DEEPER THAN EVER 
 
 IT was the age superlative of riding on people's necks. 
 The strong rode the shoulders of the weak night 
 and day, and the rich seemed only to regard the 
 poor as beasts of burden. Nor did it matter, as in mule 
 packing and horse use, whether the collar galled, or the 
 girth fit, or the saddle was on right, or the pack was 
 properly cinched or whether the work animals were 
 properly watered and fed or given rest or taken to a 
 blacksmith or veterinary or turned out to pasture. 
 They just threw the diamond hitch on man and never 
 took off the load. There were more men than mules, 
 and they were easier to get; the supply was unending. 
 Social reformers were anarchists. A disciple of Karl 
 Marx and Rudolph Engels was crazy. Any one who 
 agreed with Henry George was a moron. Herr Most 
 and Emma Goldman should be hung. 
 
 Nevertheless, things could not always go on as they 
 were. 'No thought to speak of had been even given to 
 the idea that the despotism of wealth should ever be 
 benevolent. God works in a mysterious way ; yesterday, 
 to-day, forever. Man with brief authority and enlarged 
 stomach, containing all the coarser passions and desires, 
 has deluded himself with the conceit that he was doing 
 things, when all the time he was contributing to the 
 
 127 
 
128 THE IRON HUNTER 
 
 plan of Providence. Man has exactly the same relation- 
 ship to the vast thing defined as Universal life, as the 
 microscopic cells of the human body have to the life of 
 that body. He is a microcosm of the macrocosm. 
 
 He is a cell and his intracellular and intercellular 
 activities cause him only to be conscious of action. 
 There is no such thing as inertia or he would know that. 
 There is no such thing even as physical death : it is only 
 disintegration in order that more perfect reintegration 
 may occur. How wondrous the periodic law, the ele- 
 ments of Mendeleeff, the triads of Dobereiner and the 
 octaves of Newlands business of the three entities : 
 matter, energy and ether, and business going on all the 
 time and, aided by oppression and repression making 
 for localized power, men popped up everywhere who rep- 
 resented something that just would not be poohed aside 
 and so had to be reckoned with. 
 
 Hazen S. Pingree was one of this sort. He was an 
 extraordinary ordinary man. Out of the Green Moun- 
 tains he came, a shoemaker. Grandfather in Revolu- 
 tionary War, father in Mexican War, and he a private 
 in the Civil War. Fighters. In Detroit he became 
 quite rich manufacturing shoes. They ran him for 
 mayor. No one knew him as a great humanist ; he did 
 not even know it himself. Elder Blades told him about 
 it, and John Atkinson told him more. Charley Joslyn 
 was one of his young adherents who showed symptoms 
 of humanity that might develop, if he were permitted to 
 run free and unhaltered. 
 
 When Pingree began to find out how things were in a 
 social and political way, he began to raise the dickens. 
 This marked him as a troublemaker and undesirable by 
 the machine. James McMillan was a United States 
 Senator of Michigan, and chairman of the Republican 
 
HAZEN S. PIXGREE 129 
 
 State Central Committee. He was a rich, Scotch Ca- 
 nadian, whose money had been gleaned from public land 
 grants, and playing the game as honestly as it was 
 played in that time by the big fellows and those who 
 parroted them. Anything was legitimate during that 
 epoch, that would not land a man in the penitentiary, 
 and the function of lawyers was to steer their clients 
 so that they could do business and keep out of jail 
 but do business. Senator Stockbridge had died in office 
 with the peaceful consciousness that he had had Schuyler 
 Olds pay for all he got. John Patton had been ap- 
 pointed by good Governor Rich to the vacancy, and, 
 being in advance of his time in morals and ethics, he had 
 to be displaced, because his fellow citizen, Blodgett, a 
 lumber king, decided to buy the place for Julius C. Bur- 
 rows. The railroads, and principally the specially 
 chartered Michigan Central, at the head of which, under 
 the Vanderbilts, was the master mind of Henry B. 
 Ledyard, exercised a large political influence in the 
 State, often secondary, however, to the McMillan in- 
 fluence. Mr. Ledyard and Mr. McMillan were too 
 strong individually, and had too many clashing inter- 
 ests, always to work in harmony. 
 
 General Russell A. Alger, with a disposition as sweet 
 as a good woman's, brave when he knew where and 
 how to strike, cherishing a high desire to be right and 
 do right, clean as a man could be and be in big busi- 
 ness in those days, was a friend and ally of Ledyard 
 and also was Tom Platt's agent in Michigan. 
 
 This is a partial mirror of political conditions when 
 Hazen S. Pingree began to horn down the shelves of the 
 china shop. There had not been a big man in the pub- 
 lic life of Michigan since the passing of Zach Chandler. 
 Big occasions make big men; just mean money grab- 
 
130 THE IRON HUNTER 
 
 bing does not. The Pingree crowd, and it was as crazy 
 a crowd finally of irresponsibles as ever was permitted 
 to gather around a man whose greatest weakness was his 
 inability to judge men, could not work with any ex- 
 istent political entity. So it worked alone. Pingree 
 wished to be governor. It was natural for a lot of 
 reasons that he should. Many of the sycophants nearest 
 to him wanted to use him as such. Others who believed 
 in him were certain he had a mission. Such modernists 
 as Captain Gray, of Glasgow, and William T. Stead 
 spurred him honestly. And the " Old Man " himself 
 had his fighting blood at boiling point. 
 
 Every newspaper in Detroit was against him. He 
 had to put up bulletins in the city hall in order to se- 
 cure any kind of publicity. Not one of the papers could 
 be induced to mention him for governor. Among the 
 old liners he was either a rattlesnake or crazy. Al- 
 bert Pack finally lined up with him. Pack was to suc- 
 ceed Burrows as United States Senator if things came 
 out right. Pingree started on a tour of the State with 
 O. C. Tompkins, who later, as warden of Marquette 
 Prison, shot off some fingers of Holzhay, the Gogebic 
 bandit. Very few outside of Detroit had any crystal- 
 lized convictions about the man. Perry Powers, of 
 Cadillac, while president of the Michigan Press Asso- 
 ciation, had made a fight for my appointment as state 
 game and fish warden by Governor Rich, which I had 
 clinched by waylaying the Governor between three and 
 four o'clock one morning. This had introduced me 
 into state politics. Consequently I knew Mayor Pin- 
 gree, and I had some idea of what he was up against. 
 When he came to the Sault to see me I at once enlisted 
 in his cause, and agreed to bring him out for governor 
 in the Sault News, which I did. It took some scoring, 
 
HAZEN S. PINGKEE 131 
 
 but he finally won. I was continued in the office I held ; 
 in fact my term was for four years, and I had two more 
 to serve when Governor Pingree was inaugurated. He 
 began many reforms and had a knock down and drag 
 out fight every minute with the legislature, while it was 
 in session. The notorious " Immortal Nineteen " lined 
 up against him in the senate and headed him off at 
 every turn. 
 
 So it went for two years. When he came up for re- 
 nomination we hoped to get him through on a truce. 
 Prospects were not good. I went to Washington and 
 had a number of sessions about the matter with Senator 
 McMillan, during which I made the discovery that there 
 was no reason to be afraid of a United States Senator; 
 that even the strongest of them are not supermen. 
 
 Decision was made that Governor Pingree had so 
 intrenched himself that he could not be successfully 
 opposed without more of a fight than was worth while. 
 I had a good many reasons for desiring to be a factor 
 in the second Pingree convention. Principally I de- 
 sired to secure the nomination of Horace M. Oren, of 
 my home town, for attorney general. The idea was put 
 into my head by Fred A. Maynard, whose time had come 
 to retire from that office, which he had ably filled. 
 There was no fight on Pingree, but there was plenty of 
 opposition to everybody else. 
 
 I succeeded in organizing and controlling the conven- 
 tion, and our slate went through, of course including 
 Oren. I did not know then that the attorney general 
 has a fat lot of state law business to give out, with the 
 consent of the Governor. It was, and still can be, one 
 of the most productive sources of graft. 
 
 Eli Sutton, a son-in-law of Governor Pingree, seemed 
 to have his ear and his confidence to a greater extent 
 
132 THE IRON HUNTER 
 
 than anybody else. Others of the kitchen cabinet were 
 Bill Judson, of Washtenaw, Sybrant Wesselius, John 
 Atkinson, Arthur Marsh and Charley Joslyn. Now and 
 then Oren and I would be invited to the " meetings," 
 but I was not often taken into the inner circle. 
 Whether it was because they were going to " bunk " 
 the Old Man or do some dirty work, I do not know, but 
 they were careful. Personally, I do not think a single 
 one of the intimates of Governor Pingree was dishonest 
 intentionally. Some of them had supported him on 
 principle and others, who were outside the political 
 breastworks, picked him as a hundred to one shot. The 
 kitchen cabinet was in disagreement. Wesselius seemed 
 to lead one wing and Eli Sutton the other. Button 
 won out. 
 
 Wesselius was commissioner of railroads ; a big, able, 
 unpoised man. To my surprise that place, about the 
 best in the gift of the Governor, was offered to me. I 
 did not want it. But I had come to know and love and 
 trust General Alger. So I asked his advice. He was 
 emphatic in telling me to take it. There was some de- 
 lay, not serious, in my confirmation. Then the office 
 was turned over to me. When I walked through the 
 door I thought that about all the equipment I had for 
 the job was acquired when I was one of the Chicago & 
 Northwestern construction gang. Mr. Wesselius and 
 his friend, Fred Britton, one of the best of Michigan 
 newspaper men, were the only occupants of the office, 
 and I was alone, so simple may be the investiture of 
 authority. Some commonplaces were exchanged during 
 which I observed that I hoped to administer the office in 
 the interests of all the people, but with no unfairness or 
 injustice to the railroads, whereupon Wesselius snorted : 
 
 " Young feller, you pray to God and ask him to look 
 
HAZEN S. PIXGBEE 133 
 
 out for you and the people; the railroads will look out 
 for themselves." 
 
 Now I was commissioner of railroads of the State of 
 Michigan, with more authority, positive and negative, 
 if exercised, than any one man should ever have. 
 
 As long as I occupied the office Governor Pingree 
 never crossed its threshold. He sent for me the first 
 day and told me that he had promised that Senator 
 Frank Westover, of Bay City, an able man, should be 
 appointed deputy commissioner. That was exactly the 
 time for a show down as to whether I was commissioner 
 of railroads or a dummy for the Governor, or much 
 worse perhaps, for some of his advisers. I told him 
 that I did not know Mr. Westover, that I had nothing 
 against him, that I did not wish to thwart him as gov- 
 ernor and even would help him carry out his promises 
 when I could adjust actions to public interests. Then 
 I told him 1 would resign, that there would be no feel- 
 ing and that he could appoint Mr. Westover as com- 
 missioner. 
 
 Secretly I think he liked my straight talk and re- 
 spected me, but outwardly he sniffed and snuffed air 
 through one side of his nose, and we never became inti- 
 mate. I did not know then, nor until long afterwards, 
 that I had been appointed really because General Alger 
 had asked Governor Pingree to do so, and Mr. Ledyard 
 had asked General Alger. Not another request was 
 made of me by the Governor, nor did General Alger or 
 Mr. Ledyard ever ask a favor that had any bearing on 
 my official acts. 
 
 Governor Pingree had Ealph Stone as private sec- 
 retary. Then the position of secretary carried the title 
 of major. He was even then, though a young man, pos- 
 sessed of superior attainments of heart and mind. 
 
134 THE IRON HUNTER 
 
 While with the Michigan Trust Company at Grand 
 Rapids, Major Stone acquired valuable business experi- 
 ence to supplement his academic law training at the 
 University of Michigan. At the 'Varsity he had been 
 an independent and a leader among the " non-frats." 
 This was due to a deeply set humanity, probably in- 
 herited from a sensitively organized father, who at that 
 time was a Unitarian preacher in New Jersey. Be- 
 tween Major Stone and the purely political crowd there 
 was always friction. The secretary was constant in his 
 endeavors to protect his chief from the wolves. More 
 than once he tore up wild speech manuscripts that had 
 been supplied the governor, and wrote addresses to re- 
 place them. Very much credit for the many concrete 
 achievements of Governor Pingree's administration be- 
 longs to Ralph Stone. I always found it a satisfaction 
 to cooperate with him, and early I was impressed with 
 his clean and clear and courageous thought processes, 
 his poise and good judgment, and his common sense 
 and kindliness. He had deeply at heart the welfare of 
 the masses with no desire to make political capital of 
 his sentiments. And yet, when he sought employment 
 after leaving the executive office, he found that capital 
 regarded him as a dangerous socialist, if not an an- 
 archist. This made his ladder climb to the presidency 
 of the Detroit Trust Company a trial of his manhood 
 and principles. Ralph Stone was one of the first to 
 demonstrate the reasonable and human tendency in 
 modern business. 
 
 Governor Pingree made enemies in phalanxes. They 
 dogged him everywhere, as always is the case when men 
 in public or private who are worth while, assail the 
 established order, no matter how bad the established 
 order may be. Pingree fought back bravely. The 
 
HAZEN S. PINGKEE 135 
 
 Detroit Free Press, which has had a history of malig- 
 nancy unsurpassed since the days it hounded Lincoln, 
 and was the organ in London of the rebel Knights of the 
 Golden Circle, set its spies on his track and after all of 
 those who were a part of his administration. 
 
 As is often the case, internal conditions proved fatal 
 when external attacks are easily resisted. There was 
 crookedness in the Governor's official family. Probably 
 the acts were not more dishonest than many past prac- 
 tices, but always higher standards are being erected by 
 which public acts are judged, and no one had done more 
 than Governor Pingree to improve conditions in this 
 respect. 
 
 One evening I received a hasty summons to come to 
 the Executive Chambers. Assembled was every friend 
 of the administration that could be reached. The mil- 
 itary scandals had been unearthed. Then occurred a 
 demonstration of the wonderful, though blind, personal 
 loyalty of Governor Pingree. He would not believe a 
 single charge made. It was the work of his personal 
 enemies who, because they could not " get the old man," 
 were determined to ruin any or all who were his friends. 
 And in this view he persisted to the last, finally pardon- 
 ing those who pleaded guilty so as to give him an op- 
 portunity to do so, rather than to trust their fate to a 
 succeeding governor. 
 
 While the grand jury was in session, nearly all the 
 Governor's appointive heads of departments took to the 
 woods. No one molested me, because there was nothing 
 that could be tortured into a dereliction. They hounded 
 me though, and I enjoyed it, because I have never 
 feared that a clear case could be made out against a 
 man unless he had left himself open somewhere, either 
 by carelessness or dishonesty. In every way I had 
 
136 THE IRON HUNTER 
 
 taken my public work seriously arid had tried to do more 
 than the law required me to do. It was not enough for 
 me to do what the law specified. I tried to carry out 
 anything and everything within my power in the in- 
 terest of the public, that the law did not forbid. Very 
 little time elapsed before I discovered that the strong 
 have a way of sending special representatives to a state 
 capitol, and that the weak and unorganized are not rep- 
 resented at all, unless public officials constitute of them- 
 selves their especial guardians. That was my view of 
 public duty. 
 
 One of the first things I had to decide was whether 
 I would accept passes and permit my subordinates to 
 use them also. In the past it had been the practice of 
 all public officials I knew anything about, who could 
 get passes, to take them, use them and charge up their 
 railroad fare to the State just as though they had paid 
 it. There was no commoner graft, and while petty in 
 one, it amounted to a big total when all did it. There 
 was no law then against accepting a pass on anything. 
 It was easy to determine that the passes were sent to me 
 as commissioner of railroads, and not personally. So 
 to each railroad and other transportation company that 
 sent a pass, I wrote the following: 
 
 " Received as a courtesy extended to the State of 
 Michigan, to be used as such." 
 
 And of course I did not charge, or permit to be 
 charged by subordinates, to the State, any railroad fares. 
 The saving thus made was considerable in four years, 
 but it was much greater in principle, because it was an 
 index of that right performance, which made it im- 
 possible for the many who subsequently delved into my 
 record to " get anything on me." 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 I BECOME A CANDIDATE FOR GOVERNOR TO SUCCEED 
 HAZEN S. PINGREE 
 
 AS the Pingree second term waned the question of 
 a successor to him began to seize all concerned. 
 The political pendulum had been pushed by 
 Governor Pingree as far as it would go in the reform 
 direction and was already starting on a reverse oscil- 
 lation. The McMillan machine had received a jolt that 
 made it rickety. The railroads, between which and the 
 McMillan bund there had been a partial truce, always 
 sufficient in effect before the election of Governor Pin- 
 gree to protect the transportation interests in the legis- 
 lature and control the appointment of the railroad com- 
 missioner, had been badly shaken up. At the same 
 time, the Pingree organization had been flawed by the 
 state militia exposures. It is always the case that polit- 
 ical chaos produces numerous candidates. The mixed 
 conditions during the last year of the second term of 
 Governor Pingree did not prove an exception to this. 
 Probably the McMillan machine showed the most vi- 
 tality and best cohesiveness. While it failed to beat 
 Alger with Ferry it easily defeated Albert Pack for 
 United States Senator with Julius Caesar Burrows. 
 
 Senator Stockbridge, who died in office, was succeeded 
 by John Patton, of Grand Rapids. Governor Rich 
 often showed signs of independence, and this appoint- 
 ment of Mr. Patton was an instance. When the brief 
 
 137 
 
138 THE IKON HUNTER 
 
 term served by Senator Pattern expired, his place was 
 taken by J. C. Burrows, of Kalamazoo. This result 
 was a perfect mirror of existing political conditions. 
 John Patton was a citizen of unusual strength. He was 
 a lawyer, a man of culture and force, independent and 
 courageous, desired only the best and acted upon well 
 considered convictions. Naturally, he could not be 
 handled willy nilly. The politicians and interests had 
 no manner of use for him because they could not use 
 him. Politics appeared to be a question of profit of 
 some kind for nearly everybody. Some one more bid- 
 able than John Patton was wanted in the national 
 Senate. Mr. Burrows, then for some time in the House 
 of Representatives, was selected as the man. Delos 
 Blodgett, a wealthy lumberman of Grand Rapids, for- 
 got the amenities that are supposed to subsist between 
 fellow citizens, in the desire that submerged him to 
 have some one who would vote right on the lumber 
 tariff and other things. Mr. Blodgett sought and ob- 
 tained the McMillan vehicle, which was not difficult, 
 because James McMillan, the senior senator, did not 
 look pleasantly upon a junior senator of superior cul- 
 ture, who would not play second fiddle to him. The 
 machine worked so well that Mr. Patton got the guil- 
 lotine expeditiously. It worked quite as well against 
 Albert Pack, who had lined up with the Pingree forces 
 and tried with their aid to beat Senator Burrows, after 
 his first term. I had impotently supported both Patton 
 and Pack. 
 
 With these scalps in their belt the McMillanites quite 
 confidently trotted out D. M. Ferry, of Detroit, as a 
 successor to Pingree. Aaron T. Bliss, of Saginaw, had 
 the Alger-Ledyard railroad support. I was offered the 
 support of one wing of the Pingree following, including 
 
A CANDIDATE FOR GOVERNOR 139 
 
 that of Justus S. Stearns, of Ludington, then secre- 
 tary of state. It was not long after he had urged me 
 to become a candidate for governor and had pledged 
 his support to me, before he decided, as was his right, 
 that he would be a candidate himself. This was the 
 result of influence upon him by the Pingree wing that 
 was not for me. It was the mercenary gang, and was 
 stronger than the other following. Nevertheless, inas- 
 much as I had made my announcement, I stuck to my 
 colors. 
 
 James O'Donnell, of Jackson, a newspaper man of 
 standing and ability, who had been in the house of rep- 
 resentatives and also had been a candidate for governor 
 several times before, announced himself. 
 
 Lastly, the commissioner of insurance under Gov- 
 ernor Pingree, Milo D. Campbell, of Coldwater, be- 
 came a candidate. This made six candidates for gov- 
 ernor to succeed Pingree. Three of them, Bliss, Ferry 
 and Stearns were by reputation multi-millionaires. 
 The other three, O'Donnell, Campbell and myself were 
 comparatively poor men. I was youngest of all and, 
 as I view things now, I was not qualified to be governor, 
 although I am, even after sixteen years, unconvinced 
 that I was not as well equipped as any of the others, 
 which is not an immodest tribute to myself. 
 
 There ensued the wildest use of money in politics 
 that had ever occurred in the State. Such a fight as 
 Ferry, Bliss and Stearns put up had never been wit- 
 nessed before. The serpent of corruption made a slimy 
 trail all over the State, and debauched and debauchers 
 could be tracked by the spoor of dollars. When the 
 thing got hot, delegates were offered three thousand 
 dollars for a single vote, and perhaps more. Friends 
 of mine witnessed an offer of two thousand, five hundred 
 
140 THE IKON HUNTER 
 
 dollars to a delegate favorable to me, and saw him 
 refuse in anger. That honest man is Oilman M. Dame, 
 since then for a time chairman of the Republican state 
 central committee of Michigan. That act explains the 
 origin of my friendship for him that began then and 
 has subsisted without a break to the present time. 
 
 I made a red-hot personal canvass as far and as fast 
 as I could go. With no money to spend I was not 
 tempted to spend any. O'Donnell and Campbell were 
 in the same moneyless boat so far as concerned ability 
 to compete with Ferry, Bliss and Stearns. My stock 
 in trade was my political and administrative record up 
 to date. As state game and fish warden I had done my 
 best at every turn and had really gotten results. As 
 commissioner of railroads I had enforced two-cent pas- 
 senger fare laws for the first time in the history of the 
 State; had clung to a policy of grade separation con- 
 sistently and doggedly, only to see it die when I went 
 out of office and remain unresurrected to this time 
 and had done all the law required and quite a good 
 deal more. 
 
 My grade separation work had just been tragically 
 emphasized by an accident at Flint, in which Major 
 Buckingham, Mrs. Applegate and Mrs. Humphrey had 
 been killed. Application had been made for a certain 
 grade crossing at Flint. The hearing was attended by 
 a large number of citizens of that town, including 
 Major Buckingham. That gallant gentleman had 
 abused me roundly when I decided against those who 
 desired the unopposed request. Special legislation was 
 sought and obtained, reversing my decision in effect. 
 The grade crossing was put in, and within a short time 
 afterwards Major Buckingham and his guests were 
 killed upon it. 
 
A CANDIDATE FOB GOVEKNOK 141 
 
 The grade crossing policy caused more friction than 
 anything else during my administration of 'the railroad 
 commissioner's department. It was an active era of 
 electric road construction. Very frequently indeed 
 there was trouble over crossings between steam and 
 electric roads. I was called upon almost continuously 
 to grant hearings, at which appeared the best lawyers 
 of the State and many capitalists. One incident dis- 
 covered to me how the situation might be made extraor- 
 dinarily profitable by one so inclined. 
 
 I had made a decision requiring six grade separations 
 to cost ten thousand dollars each, a total of sixty thou- 
 sand dollars. The electric road builder who would 
 have to do this work called upon me in my office 
 early one forenoon, before the separation orders had 
 been issued. After preliminaries he said he had come 
 to "lose thirty thousand dollars under the carpet of 
 my office." 
 
 For just a moment I really did not understand him, 
 but in the next half second it flashed to my mind that he 
 was trying to bribe me. It was probably the play for 
 me, according to the story books, to be insulted and 
 knock my tempter down and throw him out, or do some 
 such dramatic stunt. But I only saw the humor of the 
 thing and told him that if the money was lost under the 
 carpet, the janitor would find it after a while and return 
 it, but he would lose his interest. 
 
 Disgusted with what he appeared to think was my 
 stupidity, he soon departed. 
 
 It was the only time in my life that I have been 
 offered a bribe. He was going to split fifty-fifty with 
 me and not separate the grades. A lot of money to me 
 was thirty thousand dollars, but it required no acces- 
 sion of honesty to refuse it; in fact it was not even a 
 
142 THE IRON HUNTER 
 
 temptation, and I did not seem to get for myself from it 
 any real measure of my true character. 
 
 The charm of the governorship campaign was the 
 attitude towards me of certain personal friends and 
 particularly of my home town and county, and the 
 entire Upper Peninsula. I had every Upper Peninsula 
 county behind me except Luce. The two delegates from 
 Luce County were controlled for Stearns by Con Dan- 
 aher, a fellow lumberman. In the Lower Peninsula 
 I did not have much support, but it was more than 
 enough to offset the loss of Luce. 
 
 The convention deadlocked, but not for long. The 
 Ferry forces decided early that they were beaten. They 
 caucused. Their leaders saw they might dictate the 
 nomination by throwing to O'Donnell or to me. In a 
 vote between us I lost by two. If the Ferry delegates 
 had come to me I would in all probability have been 
 nominated, because I had a large second choice fol- 
 lowing, that would have come to me on the break that 
 followed. Power above man pilots destiny. Bliss was 
 nominated. 
 
 I have always thought that James O'Donnell joked 
 himself away from serious consideration. He was a 
 fine man. In public he was a monologist, and came to 
 be regarded as a funny entertainer. This threw a 
 curtain over his solider merits. Ecclesiastes : " Dead 
 flies cause the ointment of the apothecary to send forth 
 a stinking savor ; so doth a little folly him that is in 
 reputation for wisdom and honor." 
 
 Defeat for nomination as governor at the Grand 
 Rapids convention did not in the least discourage me. 
 On the contrary it opened my eyes. The three con- 
 testing millionaires had spent three quarters of a mil- 
 lion dollars. Disgust was written as large in the State 
 
A CANDIDATE FOR GOVERNOR 143 
 
 as shame had been. It is as though the individual is 
 a phagocyte and sustains the same relation to the great 
 body politique as that bacillus does to the human body. 
 When a sickness threatens death they are stimulated 
 as never before to work to save it. 
 
 I shared in the common desire for better and cleaner 
 things. This was intense enough within me to cause 
 me to decide that I would get out of politics and remain 
 out until I could participate as an independent. 
 
 There were only two ways then, and that is all there 
 are now, by which a man could become a candidate. 
 One was as the creature of interested persons, and the 
 other was upon one's own initiative as an independent. 
 In fact, the latter way offered the only possible chance 
 for freedom in public service. I could not see how a 
 poor man could be wholly independent under our polit- 
 ical systems and conditions then, and cannot now. The 
 thing then for me to do, I decided, was to make enough 
 money to be independent and to make it by methods so 
 honest that I could not reproach myself, or be assailed 
 by an opponent or an enemy. It took me twelve years 
 to do it. 
 
 My next decision was to reenter politics, or at least 
 to offer to serve, and particularly to expose and oppose 
 all forms of political corrupt practice. My happiness 
 was not to be found in holding office, but in work of any 
 kind and in any and all directions, so far as my power 
 went, that would help mankind. Nor could I convince 
 myself that I was unselfish, because I soon found that 
 there is more joy in offering to serve and in conscien- 
 tiously doing one's best when opportunity comes. I 
 was after that sweetness. 
 
 Upon all sides I saw the hardness and the misery 
 and the discontent of wealth. Strong men would phle- 
 
144 THE IKON HUNTER 
 
 botomize everybody they could, and then in an anguish 
 of remorse, seek happiness as professional philanthro- 
 pists through channels of belated restoration, only to 
 gather disappointment and increased bitterness. 
 
 Somewhere between too much and too little is the 
 economic Utopia that Solomon quotes Agur, the son of 
 Jakeh, as praying for when he asks : " Give me neither 
 poverty nor riches." 
 
 That also became my prayer. I was thus, I think, 
 prevented from having an incurable case of money 
 grubbing. When my possessions got to the fairly cer- 
 tain value of two hundred fifty thousand dollars, I di- 
 verted all my strength to public service in any way that 
 gave me a chance. 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 
 THE POETRY, CHARM, ROMANCE AND USEFULNESS OF 
 IRON ORE 
 
 FOK a period of years Indian after Indian brought 
 me samples of ore: iron, copper, nickel, silver, 
 gold. I paid no attention to any but iron. It 
 is as staple as wheat. During the period of no snow 
 I searched the wilderness of the North from one rock 
 zone to another, and always and ever east to west across 
 the continental formation. In the winter I traveled. 
 My idea was to know my own country first hand. I 
 found it did not cost any more to travel than to remain 
 stationary. In fact I was able, by increased knowl- 
 edge, to earn more by traveling than if I had stayed at 
 home. It appeared to be just as easy in traveling to 
 have my wife with me, as to leave her alone at home, 
 and we were both benefited, and it made us more con- 
 tented and happy. Searching for further justification 
 for travel, I happened to hit upon the rather lugubrious 
 fact that the world does very well without all of us, 
 so far as we know, after death, and if so, it, or any 
 portion of it, ought to spare us handily during life. 
 
 Very early I discovered that in order to get the most 
 good from travel, it was necessary to have clear-cut ob- 
 jects and purposes. So I decided to visit all the places 
 in the world, if possible, where iron ore is produced in 
 commercial quantities. A big undertaking. Natu- 
 rally that involved a study of other lands, their resources 
 
 145 
 
146 THE IKON HUNTER 
 
 and geology. Even that was not enough, so I added the 
 study of government, and particularly the methods of 
 Colonial government adopted by those powers chiefly 
 engaged in colonizing the world : Great Britain, France, 
 Eussia, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Spain and Holland. 
 At one time or another, those peoples, possibly except- 
 ing Teuton and Slav, have ruled the earth. 
 
 From the study of modern government it was an easy 
 step to interest in the history of the yesterdays, and in 
 dramatic personages such as Tsin, Akbar, Attila, Alaric, 
 Timur Leng, Genghiz Khan, Alexander, Xenophon, 
 Cyrus, Xerxes, Napoleon and other first-class map- 
 makers of the world. As a result I found myself travel- 
 ing and studying the world in the winter and threading 
 a trackless wilderness in the summer. It was an ideal 
 and also a selfish life, which I was determined to desert 
 as soon as I had visited every country in the world that 
 had its own autonomy, and every suzerain state and 
 colony of any importance. This my wife and I com- 
 pleted to our satisfaction in 1013, after more than 
 thirty years of travel. Before we left our own country, 
 we went into every State and to Alaska and also visited 
 our insular possessions as rapidly as they were secured 
 by the United States. 
 
 There is a romance about iron that has always fas- 
 cinated me and it holds me yet as a magnet attracts. 
 I wonder if the courageous men who seek it in the 
 bowels of the earth realize their big part in the life of 
 the world ? Do the brave, bare bodies, that reflect the 
 furnace light and the gloating glow of the smelter, do 
 their work because of a subtle subconsciousness of the 
 fact that the wheels of the world and civilization would 
 stop if they stopped? 
 
 Iron ore and steel are of greater importance than 
 
USEFULNESS OF IBON OEE 147 
 
 wheat, because there are many good substitutes for 
 wheat. There is none for iron ore. It has a glory of 
 usefulness all its own. Those who are associated with 
 its production should know of the dignity of their call- 
 ing; should realize it and then their hearts and souls 
 would fill their big bodies until brawn and spirit are 
 one, as an instrument of the joy of existence in the keen 
 sense of service. There would be a brotherhood of iron 
 that could not know strife if the totality of performance 
 could be shown to the eyes of all those who inhabit the 
 world of steel. Nor would its boundaries be smaller 
 than those of the earth, for it would tie together the best 
 developed American iron worker and the lowliest 
 African. 
 
 If the miner who blasts or shovels or trams a pound 
 of iron ore could follow it to its destinations and uses, 
 he would at once conclude that he is one of the most 
 valuable and important factors of society. This is the 
 truth. The same is true of the furnaceman and the 
 foundryman, the worker in the steel mill, and the 
 artisan of keen eye and trained hand who fashions the 
 products of iron ore with mind and heart. True also 
 of the master captains, who have organized the armies 
 of the age of steel and iron, and who are really learning 
 that their industrial soldiers give up their lives even 
 more bravely upon the battlefields of constantly applied 
 human effort, than those who rend each other at the can- 
 non's mouth. 
 
 From this realization it is only a step further to the 
 practical conviction that they are entitled to even more 
 consideration; to continuous employment (what kind 
 of an army would it be that did not keep its soldiers 
 constantly, but depended upon picking them up, helter 
 skelter, when needed), to a minimum wage, to old age 
 
148 THE IRON HUNTER 
 
 insurance and pensions, to adequate compensation for 
 injury and death resulting from the risks of their work, 
 to sanitary housing and moral environments. Menaces 
 such as saloons are being removed. All of these things 
 are of the moment. At first they were adopted because 
 it is good business. Already they are reaching the 
 deeper and finer source of their cause in the hearts and 
 souls of mankind; in taking intimately home of the 
 law of laws: I am my brother's keeper. And this 
 must comprehend social kindnesses as well as economic 
 guardianship. 
 
 When industry was young, master and servant com- 
 posed the family. There was friendship and acquaint- 
 ance and sympathy. When growth reached such an 
 extent that the master could not know his many servants 
 and feel for them deeply, labor troubles began to beget. 
 With the advent of artificial masters, corporations born 
 by the law, marblesque and lacking human responsi- 
 bility, the hiatus between master and servant widened 
 almost unbridgeably. The cure is coming; is on the 
 way ; has already arrived sporadically, in the re-human- 
 izing of industry. 
 
 Only can this finally be achieved by the master 
 thinking as the servant thinks, and the servant thinking 
 as the master thinks. There will then be no master and 
 servant as now defined. Rather there will be such a 
 mutualization as will make for leader and led; for 
 helper and helped. 
 
 Famished are the masses for want of human recog- 
 nition and consideration. They unconsciously resent 
 arrogance and overlordship with its coldness and auto- 
 cracy; even the benevolent despotism of money. In 
 America this is more true than it is in other countries. 
 
 Hunger for freedom, for equality, for opportunity, 
 
USEFULNESS OF IKON ORE 149 
 
 for escape from the oppression of false human pride has 
 milked the best of the earth into our national pail. 
 Here they swiftly obtain and ravenously cherish the 
 wholesome idea that one man is as good as another. To 
 believe that way ; aye, to feel it in their heart of hearts, 
 is why they have come here from the valleys and moun- 
 tains of the earth. 
 
 Then when they see Old Man Slobson's son Andy 
 throwing on dog, chest swelled, elephantiasis of the cra- 
 nium, hard of voice and glassy of eye, bossing them 
 around like dogs, running over their children in his 
 automobile and running over them in his manner, the 
 very devil in them is aroused. They have known Old 
 Man Slobson since boyhood; worked underground and 
 on the surface with him, and they know that Andy is no 
 better than they are. 
 
 But he is stronger, he can drive them; yes, and he 
 can also enrage them. The artificial master without 
 heart or conscience has set Andy up over them to grind 
 their bodies and their souls. As an emolient to passion 
 they do build libraries and clubs and schools, and gym- 
 nasia and such things, and these are all very well, but 
 they mean nothing at all in the way of removing the 
 sharp instruments, pride and power, that are digging 
 away at the tender spots in labor's manhood. 
 
 Everything physical may be supplied to those who 
 work under bosses, good wages enough and all, and they 
 will remain discontented and rebellious until the human 
 touches are supplied: love, fraternity, association, kind 
 words and deeds from the heart and not from the pocket 
 book ; real interest transcending commercial concern. 
 
 There never has been labor trouble where there has 
 been personal understanding, personal acquaintance, and 
 personal friendship, regard and respect between em- 
 
150 THE IKON HUNTER 
 
 ployer and employee. I know, because I have been an 
 employee with pick and ax and barrow and shovel, and 
 many a time I have felt like smashing the head of an 
 arrogant boss, not because I was hungry, but because I 
 was not treated as considerately as I would have been if 
 I had been a brute. 
 
 I guess we got off the iron ore trail, but not far, for 
 it leads into the hearts and minds of men, as well as into 
 their arms and backs and purses. 
 
 There is war, that leveler of society ; the great master 
 surgeon of nations, operating upon the earth as the in- 
 dividual surgeon operates on the body. The knife is 
 guided by the same unerring hand, directed by the All- 
 seeing eye, and as the layman cannot see and know the 
 mysteries of the hospital operating room, just so we 
 cannot comprehend the purposes of the Great Surgeon 
 of the universe. 
 
 Into cannon and into the surgeon's knife enter iron 
 ore. The bellowing death of one and the delicate life- 
 saving of the other, involves the use of steel. They 
 were a lump of iron ore yesterday. Great locomotives 
 made from iron rush over rails of iron ore, performing 
 missions of peace and war. Harvest fields are gambo- 
 gian in their ripeness and renitent until the reaping 
 machines come. Then they lie down peacefully with 
 that child of iron ore. 
 
 When the Crusader dreamed and gave his life to 
 recover the land of Christ, the sword that gleamed with 
 the glory of heaven and the zeal of deep desire was a 
 thing of iron ore. The bread we eat is baked in pans 
 made from iron ore, in ovens made from iron ore. 
 Our span of life is ticked off by springs of iron ore in 
 clock and watch. 
 
 Huge pumping engines, made from iron ore, handle 
 
USEFULNESS OF IKON OKE 151 
 
 water through pipes of iron ore for all the purposes of 
 life. Ocean steamships, made of iron ore, throb with a 
 life that is more than artificial. Giant cranes, made 
 from iron ore, move about in Gargantuan majesty. 
 One can look nowhere and think nowhere without en- 
 countering manifestations of iron ore dug out of the 
 earth and handled purposefully by real men. There 
 is iron ore in our blood and body. 
 
 It is the age of iron ore. Let those who produce it 
 hold up their heads with dignity and walk erect among 
 men. They give to it their lives that it may serve man- 
 kind. No wonder the sewing machine and the auto- 
 mobile and the locomotive and the ship and all the 
 things made from iron ore are so human. They are 
 human, in that they have cost myriads of lives while 
 making. 
 
 A workman's average working life is twenty years. 
 Many labor for a longer time, but few are at their 
 best for even twenty years. A prize fighter's life is ten 
 years. The same forces are employed by the prize 
 fighter and the skilled mechanic. Of course the latter 
 applies them to higher purpose. He hammers some- 
 thing into useful shape, while the pugilist is hammering 
 something into useless shape. 
 
 The heart beats seventy times a minute; forty-two 
 hundred times an hour; one hundred thousand times a 
 day; sixteen million times a year, and as many times 
 sixteen millions as a person lives years. Each time the 
 heart beats it lifts nearly a half pound of blood, and all 
 of the twenty to thirty pounds of blood in the body are 
 forced through the heart and lungs every minute. Each 
 heart beat represents a punctuation of death. Just as 
 the tick-tock of a clock tells off a measure of time that 
 will never be again for you and me, so does each heart 
 
152 THE IKON HUNTEK 
 
 beat reduce the total heart beats. The moment a child 
 is born it begins to draw upon its bank account of ex- 
 pectant heart beats and expend them. A third of life is 
 utilized in preparation for that portion of the span that 
 is useful in a creative sense. 
 
 Every time an iron worker, or any other, lifts his 
 hand or bends his back, just as many heart beats as oc- 
 cur during the time required for these physical demon- 
 strations are expended, and the worker has given of his 
 life in the proportion that they bear to all of the heart 
 beats he will be vouchsafed. 
 
 In this way may be had some idea of exactly how 
 men and women give their lives in labor. It may be 
 imagined, if not yet quite proven, that their lives enter 
 into their productions affecting the character or quality 
 of the article that is made. It is well known that the 
 work of prisoners never makes for perfection. The 
 more deeply one is in love with his work the better the 
 product, and the happier the performance. All great 
 inventions have resulted from freedom of effort ap- 
 plied with love. 
 
 When we think in this way we are not unreasonable 
 if we think we can detect man's life in all those things 
 that are commonly called artificial, just as we may so 
 plainly see God in everything. 
 
 In order to do the best work it follows that the worker 
 must love to work and be loyal to self and to employer, 
 whether the employer is yourself or some other. This 
 feeling is possible in any degree of purity only when the 
 spirit of the worker is permitted to flow freely, without 
 being dammed by resentment and bitterness. 
 
CHAPTER XVII 
 
 IRON OBE BACTERIA 
 
 THE origin of iron ore is a mystery just as all 
 things are a mystery, unless one has faith enough 
 to find the cosmic cause in God. Iron is present 
 in some form in almost everything. Economic geolo- 
 gists know a good deal about how it has been gathered 
 and deposited as it is found in the earth. Also there 
 is a good deal yet that they do not know, which makes 
 their work all the more interesting. 
 
 Iron present in solution in the subterranean hydro- 
 sphere has been deposited upon impervious basements. 
 Sometimes there have been lithospheric and atmospheric 
 actions causing mechanico-chemical alterations that have 
 won the iron ore. 
 
 The most interesting and most modern discovery is 
 that iron ore is made by bugs. European physicists 
 have known for some time of the existence of what is 
 called iron ore bacteria. Now the fact is commonly 
 accepted in America. 
 
 E. C. Harder and R. T. Chamberlain, well-known 
 American geologists, mining engineers and investi- 
 gators, attribute the great iron ore deposits in the Ita- 
 bira district of Minas Geraes, Brazil, to iron ore bac- 
 teria. 
 
 With great respect for the basic flow theories of Van 
 Hise and Leith, and equal regard for the similar ideas 
 
 153 
 
154 THE IKON HUNTER 
 
 of igneous influence held by T. C. Chamber lin and 
 Salisbury, they did not find sufficient evidence of vol- 
 canic intrusions in Brazil and were compelled to look 
 further for a source. Referring to the Itabira forma- 
 tion Harder and Chamberlain say in the Journal of 
 Geology, Vol. XXIII, Part I, No. 4, May-June ; Part 
 II, No. 5, July-August, 1915 : 
 
 " The Batatal schist represents a slackening of sedimen- 
 tation from the rapid deposition which characterized the 
 laying down of the sands composing the Canaga quartzite. 
 This slackening of clastic sedimentation continued until 
 the close of the Batatal epoch, when very little clastic 
 material was being washed into the sea in the region con- 
 sidered. The land presumably had become so low as to yield 
 very little mechanical sediment, and with the lowering of 
 the land surface there was probably combined a gradual re- 
 treat of the shore line. Simultaneous with the great di- 
 minution of mechanical sediment deposited in the area 
 under consideration, there commenced a precipitation of 
 ferric hydroxide from solution, materials in solution being 
 probably carried beyond the border of the region of clastic 
 sedimentation. This precipitation may have been due, 
 either to purely chemical reactions taking place in the sea, 
 or perhaps to the operation of the well known iron bacteria, 
 which cause the deposition of ferric hydroxide from waters 
 containing ferrous carbonate in solution. These iron bac- 
 teria are said to possess the peculiar property of utilizing 
 as food, the carbon dioxide locked up in very dilute solu- 
 tions of ferrous carbonate. Ferric hydroxide is left behind 
 and is deposited as a sediment. . . . Not having much con- 
 fidence in the hypothesis that the iron oxide was precipi- 
 tated directly from sea water by ordinary chemical means, 
 we prefer to turn to the iron bacteria as perhaps forming 
 .a better working hypothesis. . . . Xt is now known that 
 much of the bog iron ore being formed in lagoons at the 
 present time is the result of the activity of a certain group 
 of bacteria known as the iron bacteria. The iron bacteria 
 include many individual species, of which the thread bac- 
 
IKON OEE BUGS 155 
 
 teria Chlamydothrix, Gallionella, Spirophyllum, Crenothrix, 
 and Clonothrix, and the coccus form Siderocapsa have per- 
 haps been most carefully studied." 
 
 Van Hise and Leith do not claim that all iron ores are 
 deposited or concentrated by fire action. They only 
 suggest that the great iron ore bodies in the Michigan 
 and Minnesota ranges of the Lake Superior region have 
 come from associated basaltic lavas, either from the 
 magmatic waters or from chemical reactions between the 
 hot basic lavas and the ancient sea waters. 
 
 Iron bacteria live in either standing or running clear 
 waters that contain iron compounds. Turbid waters, 
 and those containing much organic matter, do not offer 
 them asylum. So active are iron bacteria in making for 
 conditions that leave ferric hydroxide behind, that water 
 pipes of cities where the water contains ferrous car- 
 bonate have been known to be completely closed by them. 
 
 Sheaths of dead iron bacteria have been found in 
 multitudes in limonite deposits. Enormous deposits of 
 several kinds of iron ore are known to result from the 
 work of iron bacteria. It is believed that the vast 
 Brazilian deposits, among the most extensive known, 
 were formed with comparative rapidity. Winogradsky 
 offers a chemical formula in explanation of the methods 
 of iron bacteria. Little enough is yet known about 
 them. It is not beyond reason that they are at the very 
 threshold of life origin, and work as mitosis and metab- 
 olism, one set of bacteria performing anabolism, and 
 another katabolism one building as the other tears 
 down. So much for the bugs that make iron ore. They 
 are closely akin to the enzymes that seem to be every- 
 where and in everything. 
 
 What mostly is of importance is that iron ore exists 
 
156 THE IKON HUISTTEK 
 
 and that it is distributed all over the earth with fine 
 reference to economic convenience. Another thing is 
 known to be a fact and that is that James J. HilFs 
 statement that there would be an exhaustion of the 
 world's supply of iron ore within a few years, is inac- 
 curate. There is enough iron ore known of to supply 
 the world for centuries, and not a tithe probably of what 
 exists has been discovered. 
 
 The fascinating truth that iron bacteria are manu- 
 facturing new deposits all of the time is not of great 
 importance in bearing upon supply, for while it is be- 
 lieved that ore bodies are created with greater rapidity 
 than was formerly thought, it cannot be hoped that na- 
 ture is now keeping up with man's demands. 
 
 It is interesting to contemplate that the greatest oper- 
 ated deposits of iron ore in the world are located in 
 arctic and sub-arctic regions, or in zones where nearly 
 half the year is winter, as in the Lake Superior country. 
 This may be partially accounted for by the potentiality 
 of and volume of commercial activity in the colder re- 
 gions, for there are extensive iron ore formations in the 
 tropics and sub-tropics. 
 
 Remember also that iron bacteria live in clear water 
 and are not at home in impure water. In the colder 
 regions water is most likely to be pure ; in hotter zones 
 it is most apt to be impure. 
 
 Along the isothermal of half a growing year and 
 half a resting year life is intense, as the period of 
 inertia is perfect rest. Consequently here Nature 
 seems to do more work than in the tropics, and of a bet- 
 ter quality. This is proven by the extreme tilthfulness 
 of certain sections of the Lake Superior region and of 
 Siberia. 
 
 There are several kinds of iron ore if consideration is 
 
IKON OEE BUGS 157 
 
 given to close technical classification. For the practical 
 purposes of the explorer and prospector it is almost 
 enough to know iron stone from other stones. Next he 
 learns that magnetic ore or magnetite attracts the com- 
 pass needle and that hematite ore does not. By " heft- 
 ing " it in his hand and by scrutinizing the texture he 
 can give a close guess to its percentage of metallic iron 
 content; can come quite close to it by weighing it in 
 the air and in the water, so as to learn the relative spe- 
 cific gravity of the specimen under examination. If 
 there is much sulphur it is indicated by a showing of 
 iron pyrites. 
 
 Phosphorus is a disturbing component and can only 
 be determined by analysis. Titanium is worst of all 
 and cannot be detected without an analysis. It is al- 
 most never formidably present in hematite. Upon be- 
 ing powdered, hematite shows reddish, hence its name. 
 Magnetite powder black and limonite, yellow. It is 
 not important to recognize martite independently. In 
 America better ores rendered siderite valueless for a 
 time, although it is profitably mined in Austria and also 
 in Canada. 
 
 Once it was supposed that all iron ore deposits of 
 sufficient size to be commercially valuable, showed an 
 outcropping somewhere. This idea has been abandoned 
 for the more accurate one that all iron ore formations, 
 near enough to the surface to contain reachable enrich- 
 ments, show somewhere upon the surface. Where they 
 dip below the top of the ground they may be traced 
 accurately nearly always by the use of dial compass and 
 dipping needle; preferably the former. All magnetic 
 ore formations are easily mapped. Zones of hematite, 
 taconite, siderite, itabarite and some others, can be de- 
 pended upon to have formational attraction that can be 
 
158 THE IRON HUNTER 
 
 utilized very satisfactorily in mapping. Limonite, mar- 
 tite and kindred bog ores, may possess no associated 
 magnetism and consequently, if covered by much over- 
 burden, their discovery is accidental, through the chan- 
 nels of excavations and erosion artificial and natural. 
 Where igneous flows intrude sedimentary rocks, the 
 iron hunter looks with greatest care. 
 
CHAPTEK XVIII 
 
 READING THE STOBY OF THE STONES AS PRINTED ON THE 
 PAGES OF THE EARTH^S SURFACE 
 
 IN general iron ore reconnoissances where much ter- 
 ritory must be covered and frequent long marches 
 made, little attention is paid to anything but out- 
 cropping rocks. In this way alone it is possible almost 
 beyond a doubt easily to determine whether a region 
 contains an iron ore formation. This statement is pred- 
 icated upon the fact of a reasonable frequency of rock 
 exposures. In a land of tundra, and stream and glacial 
 drift, more care must be exercised. 
 
 Such a section is not attractive to the ordinary pros- 
 pector. Sometimes it is the case that glaciers have cut 
 off and picked up extensive iron ore lenses and trans- 
 ported them for hundreds of miles. When the travel 
 has been for a long distance, the ore is lost amidst the 
 other glacial cargo or dissipated by water action upon 
 lateral or terminal moraines. 
 
 It may be possible that in some instances the ore 
 may be carried for only a short distance and dumped in 
 large pockets. Some keen geological observers contend 
 that the iron ores of Michigan and Minnesota have been 
 carried from the Lake Superior north shore in Canada 
 in this manner. Interesting speculation if nothing 
 more. 
 
 When an iron ore region is found, more careful work 
 
 150 
 
160 THE IKON HUNTER 
 
 is necessary in order to define the length, width and di- 
 rection of the iron formation. Still more care must 
 be given in order to find the richer concentrations that 
 do not extrude obviously. 
 
 To learn the boundaries of the iron formation, the 
 territory may be cut into sections, roughly mapped and 
 then gone over expeditiously with eye for outcrops, and 
 the dial compass and dipping needle for under-ground 
 evidence. 
 
 The search for " shipping " ore, that is ore that can 
 be marketed to a profit, is most compelling, and in its 
 prosecution hundreds of millions of dollars have been 
 expended. The prospector does much preliminary 
 work, which is sometimes rewarded. He follows every 
 creek and even searches the river shores and especially 
 at gorges, where rock formations are exposed. Ravines, 
 gullies between hills, and every depression that is 
 touched by running water may yield rich returns in 
 knowledge. Cavities left by the overturned stumps of 
 trees and the material clinging to their roots, may give 
 up secrets never told before. A windfall in a forest 
 in an iron ore country may expose as much ledge and 
 formation as could otherwise be done by the expenditure 
 of thousands of dollars. Classification and study of the 
 pebbles in a stream bed should not be neglected. 
 
 I think the greatest charm of prospecting is not the 
 hope of finding wealth ; it is the life in the clean, unhurt 
 out-of-doors. God is in the lakes and streams, in the 
 sky and stars, in the hills and valleys, in the throat of 
 birds and even in the ululations of wolf, owl and frog, 
 in everything, of everything Everything. 
 
 Time after time I have come upon a little lake set as 
 a jewel in the hills that adorn nature's wedding ring 
 to heaven, the circle of the horizon. No human eyes, 
 
THE STORY OF THE STONES 161 
 
 i 
 
 perhaps not even those of the stream-Haunting aborig- 
 inal north man, had ever beheld it. 
 
 Then always I would kneel down on the escarpment 
 and whisper a word of praise to God, or I would raise 
 my eyes to heaven, drop my tump line to my chest, lift 
 my hat and let my soul pour out in mute and helpless 
 thanksgiving. I wish I could tell just how I felt at 
 such times ; better yet, I wish every one might feel the 
 same thing. No poet's ecstasy or musician's rhapsody 
 could be half so sweet, it seems to me, unless they are 
 much the same. 
 
 Lying at night on the rocks with only the starry 
 heavens above me I seemed sometimes to hear with 
 Pythagoras the music of the spheres. 
 
 Prospecting in the north country is hard or easy, de- 
 pending upon the prospector, his thoughts, his desires, 
 his heart, his whole being. If he is so constituted that 
 he can see and feel the divinely raptured solitudes, his 
 life will be biggened and he will develop within him- 
 self those rich things of spirit, that are worth more than 
 even all the iron ore in the world ; also he may find the 
 iron ore. 
 
 I do not think I have reminded you, as having a bear- 
 ing upon the selfish side of the proposition, that the iron 
 ore of the world is worth more in dollars and cents than 
 the combined value of all the diamonds, gold and silver. 
 After manufacture, it possesses a greater money value 
 than all the wheat in the world. But it is so big and 
 common and near that it is not appreciated particularly 
 any more than are pure air and sunlight. 
 
 I am writing these things down because of my pre- 
 viously stated belief that more iron ore exists and will 
 be discovered in the future, than has been found in the 
 past. North of us lies the vastest unexplored territory 
 
162 THE IRON HUNTER 
 
 in the world. I refer to the Dominion of Canada. It 
 is rich, and where it is untouched by man, it is clean. 
 There is not a drop of unwholesome water nor any 
 poisonous insects nor reptiles between Lake Superior 
 and the aurora borealis. In summer there are mosqui- 
 toes, black flies and noseeums, but these are only trifles 
 to the real man. Even the poor Indian and Esquimo 
 become immune to them, and then why should not the 
 white man with his alleged superiority, if he really has 
 the goods. To young men of courage and resource the 
 limitless North offers the cleanest fight in the world, 
 and if you win, the fruits of victory are plenteous and 
 satisfying. 
 
 This cannot be said of Michigan, Wisconsin and Min- 
 nesota, where exist the largest and richest iron ore 
 deposits in the world, and where much ore will be found 
 that is not known of now, because the possible districts 
 are nearly all held by private owners. The great iron 
 and copper companies have had visions, and have bought 
 extensive holdings wherever there is a chance that values 
 exist. I suppose there are two sides to this state of 
 affairs, but I must confess that I think it is all wrong. 
 
 Even the lumbermen, who bought the public domain 
 for a dollar and twenty-five cents an acre, reserve the 
 mineral rights when they sell. Undeveloped wealth 
 of this kind has been easy to hold so far. Frequently 
 it has paid no tax at all and it never has paid enough. 
 In Minnesota, before the Mesaba Range was discovered 
 and even afterwards before the range had been mapped 
 with any accuracy, lumbermen cut off pine and then 
 abandoned their timber lands to the State. In quite a 
 few instances valuable iron ore has been discovered 
 upon these lands, from which the State receives a very 
 considerable income in royalties. 
 
Author in typical primeval jungle on the Hudson Bay height 
 
 of land 
 
.V f K \l 
 
THE STORY OF THE STONES 163 
 
 When the United States Government survey was 
 made in the Lake Superior country, any mineral values 
 that were in evidence along the survey lines were faith- 
 fully reported. There was not much value then to 
 tempt them not to do so, because the country was new 
 and without transportation facilities and generally un- 
 developed. 
 
 Since that time a great deal of important geological 
 work has been done by the Government, and by the 
 States of Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota and 
 others. This work has had particular economical pur- 
 poses. 
 
 Such distinguished names as Douglas Houghton, 
 Brooks and Pumpelly, Charles Wright, Irving, Smythe, 
 Lane, Winchell, Chamberlain, Seaman, Van Hise, 
 Leith, Hotchkiss, Merriam, Allen, Coleman, Miller and 
 others are familiar to those who are interested. At a 
 time when most of these men could have turned their 
 knowledge into money, they have been ethical to an 
 extent that is most praiseworthy. I do not know one of 
 these who took advantage of his chance to make a profit ; 
 not a single quack among them. 
 
 Dr. R. C. Allen was the state geologist while I was 
 governor of Michigan. I asked him why he did not 
 endeavor to trace the Gogebic Range across the Wis- 
 consin boundary southward. To the west across the 
 Montreal River, the Gogebic Range takes the name of 
 the Penoka. It has not yet been very productive of 
 commercial ore bodies. I thought that to the south or 
 southwest of Sunday Lake and Wakefield there might 
 be values. Dr. Allen had been thinking along the same 
 line and had even done a little work. He went into the 
 field work there more eagerly. 
 
 Soon he was approached by Chicago land owners 
 
164 THE IKON HUNTER 
 
 who had the title to a wide area under examination. 
 Dr. Allen came to me at once and asked me to advise 
 him what to do. He greatly wished to see such drill- 
 ing done as would expose the formation, hut he did not 
 wish to engage in private work for others while em- 
 ployed by the State ; nor did he desire directly or indi- 
 rectly to give data that belonged to all the people of the 
 State to these few persons, in advance of his reports, 
 which would convey the knowledge to the public. 
 
 I told him to talk the matter over with the land 
 owners and see if he could not get them to do drilling 
 that would be of value to both the public and them- 
 selves. He succeeded in this. 
 
 The same question must have come to other state 
 geologists many times. Their uniform attitude of un- 
 selfishness and fidelity has impressed me deeply, and 
 has helped me to higher planes of thought. Their fine 
 character has not been known or appreciated by the 
 public at large. 
 
CHAPTEE XIX 
 
 GREAT LEAN OUTCROPPING OF IRON ORE UNSEEN UNDEB 
 THE VERY EYES OF THE WORLD 
 
 THEEE is not in the whole world a shore line 
 more interesting than that of the north coast of 
 Lake Superior. Black and brown and green 
 and gray and red cliffs guard there with as much im- 
 portance as though they were true continental shelves. 
 At intervals crowning peaks, like Cape Choyye and 
 Noble Promontory, stand up like titanic watch towers. 
 Choyye and Garganiua, as they are called commonly 
 by the few fishermen and Indians alongshore, supply a 
 clew to the classical types of men who gave them name. 
 Choyye was Capuchin, and the other was Rabelais' 
 monster. Behind Gargantua is Pantagruel, never men- 
 tioned by the habitants. Just above they are better ac- 
 quainted with Menebozho and his wife and two dogs. 
 Never passes an Indian, whether Majinutin, Wauboosch 
 or Nishishinawog or Bill Waiskai's grandfather, who 
 does not place tobacco on the stone lap of the Indian 
 god, next in power to Kitchee Manido. I have seen 
 them do it ; sometimes hungrily and regretfully, because 
 tobacco is tobacco among them. But if perchance co- 
 incidence would note some evidence of the pleasure of 
 the Chippewa Sphinx, such as the lessening of a gale, 
 or the arrival of a breeze after days of doldrums, the 
 stoical visage of the devotee becomes almost a smiling 
 mask, 
 
 165 
 
166 THE IRON HUNTER 
 
 The waters of Lake Superior are the coldest and the 
 purest in the world, not even excepting Lake Baikal, in 
 Siberia, and in their clearness, that must be seen to be 
 realized, they offer the greatest possible contrast to the 
 murky, sickening, hot infusorial waters of Victoria Ny- 
 anza, the only body of fresh water that rivals it in size 
 and that only in surface area. 
 
 Rivers and creeks hurtle down from the height of 
 land, which is from seventy-five to one hundred and 
 fifty miles northward, as though glad to escape from the 
 salt demons of Hudson Bay and Arctic Ocean. These 
 rivers supply natural hatcheries for brook trout. This 
 has given Superior, from Nepigon to Batchewaung, a 
 bepurpled reputation among sportsmen everywhere. 
 In the streams and along the rocks the trout fishing is 
 unsurpassed. Perhaps the rock fishing offers the best 
 sport. Little jagged bays filled with talus make shad- 
 owy places where the shy fishes may hide. Benches of 
 rock drop off into many crystal fathoms, and in their 
 blackened cracks lurk old speckled kings that rise to flies 
 eagerly, and would rather fight than eat. Olivines and 
 epidotes make floors of verde antique, and pegmatite 
 shows red as blood above and also beneath the waters. 
 Columnar basalts, some lying like corded wood and 
 others erect as the Giant's Causeway, occupy what were 
 once crevasses in the granite gneiss and syenite before 
 the molten lava filled the world-making mold. Beach 
 line upon beach line, terraced, mark the recession of 
 the contents of the earth's greatest basin of sweet water. 
 Underneath the boulders of these beaches icy cold 
 streamlets, from some spring or nearby rocky pool, flow 
 into the lake with much gurgling glee. Sometimes these 
 unseen laughing waters are boisterous, and one is called 
 Noisy River. The last ice belt disturbed many of the 
 
OUTCROPPING OF IRON 167 
 
 ancient beaches and pushed the boulders into heaps, at 
 right angles to the lake, like so many lateral moraines, 
 which they are not. 
 
 There is not a house along hundreds of miles of 
 shore. It is a wild bright land in the summer; death 
 on all sides in the winter. Rock-embraced harbors are 
 at intervals of twelve to twenty miles. Moose and car- 
 ibou and red deer, bear and wolves and wolverines, 
 beaver, otter and sable are in the hinterland, and birds 
 and hares and little red squirrels and a few singing 
 gophers. Summer companions are black flies and 
 mosquitoes and midgets. Banksian pine on the slopes, 
 spruce and balsam in the valleys, high bush cranberries, 
 sand cherries, blue berries and Indian plums (shad 
 bush berry), white birch, mountain ash, pinus strobus, 
 tamarack, black currants, red raspberries, pin cherries, 
 skunk berries, juniper, yew, seven bark wood and a lot 
 more vegetation grows, and berries ripen in the fleeting 
 period between snow and snow. 
 
 It is a wild race between summer life and winter 
 death. Ice does not thaw in the woodland lakes until 
 June. Tripe de roche decorates the barren rocky 
 tumuli and is sought by caribou, and when famine 
 shows its bony clutches man also uses this rock tripe 
 lichen for food. 
 
 Some day no traveled person will be content until he 
 Has seen the north shore of Lake Superior. Now only 
 a few fish boats ply there, and to visit the region, one 
 must either take these or fit out an Indian Mackinac 
 boat and crew, or have his own yacht. Inaccessible as 
 it is, the north shore is visited by a good many eadh 
 season, and sometimes thousands go to the often-crowded 
 Nepigon. The best stretch is the long one between 
 Nepigon Bay and Bachewaung Bay. An ideal way is 
 
168 THE IRON HUNTER 
 
 to coast along the shore in a Mackinac boat, camping 
 and fishing at the mouths of the many rivers, or where 
 attractive coves lure one. 
 
 Rock fishing is the most luxurious and artistic way to 
 take trout. The rod must have plenty of backbone. 
 A two and a half to a four ounce rod will give satisfac- 
 tion on a stream, but off the rocks of Lake Superior a 
 rod weighing from five to six ounces is better. Seated 
 in an Indian boat of good size and plenty of free board, 
 because summer squalls are fierce and sudden, with one 
 Indian to row, and a parmacheenee belle leader and 
 Montreal dropper, the gods of joy are awake. The In- 
 dian, a Chippewa and probably from the tribe at Bache- 
 waung, rows slowly and you cast towards the rocks. 
 The water is as clear as plate glass and you can see the 
 fish; see them dart into dark places under the rocks 
 when they are frightened, and also see them plainly 
 enough when they tower toward the surface, not unlike 
 a swallow sweeping in midair, as they rise to the fly, 
 swooping off if unhooked, or making such a gamy 
 fight if caught. Artfulness is necessary, and one must 
 be prepared to make a cast of forty to sixty feet and 
 drop his flies as lightly as falling moth wings that do 
 not splash. 
 
 I have traversed every foot of the Lake Superior 
 shore clear around. Rock study on the north shore is 
 more interesting than fishing. I am going to tell you 
 of two interesting shore exposures. If you are young 
 and ambitious perhaps you will look them up and trace 
 out their meaning. I know of only three other persons, 
 one of them Justice Joseph Hall Steere, of the Supreme 
 Court of Michigan, who know them by name, and they 
 have their information from me. This, notwithstand- 
 ing the fact that these rocks have been seen by thou- 
 
OUTCROPPING OF IRON 169 
 
 sands. Dozens of times I have rowed past them with 
 the late Alfred Noble, who was an engineer of the 
 Pennsylvania tunnels and subways at New York, and 
 who was largely responsible for the decision to make the 
 Panama Canal a lock canal and not a sea level canal. 
 Mr. Noble was one of the most able of Americans. He 
 was a charming camp mate and most observant. Time 
 after time we visited one of these rocks together be- 
 cause it is on a famous fishing stretch, and he often 
 went to it alone and with others, but he never recog- 
 nized it. Each season I was determined to tell him, 
 and then I would be tempted to wait and permit him to 
 have the satisfaction of discovery. I went off to Africa 
 and Madagascar for a couple of years, and while I was 
 away Mr. Noble took the long rest. 
 
 Those who fish the north shore know Brule Harbor 
 and Indian Harbor as well as they know their own back 
 yard, if they possess a back yard. Just below Brule 
 Harbor debouches Old Woman's River in a bay, the 
 bottom of which is covered with small boulders toward 
 Brule, and sand carried out by the river on the other 
 side. The boulder patch offers fine trout up to four 
 pounds and on the other side of the sand, where the 
 cliff rocks begin, and where for years lay the wreck 
 of the Golspie, a well-known tragedy of the shore, 
 trout of five and six pounds may be killed. Noble 
 Promontory, with a simian's face when caught in right 
 alignment, exults the landscape. About halfway to 
 Indian Harbor is majestic Cape Choyye, and the fish- 
 ing all the way is unsurpassed. There is not a harbor, 
 even for small boats, between Brule and Indian Harbor. 
 Just after leaving Choyye, bound down, quite a deep 
 bay sets in. On the lower side a well defined sand spit, 
 covered with stunted birch and conifers, makes a con- 
 
170 THE IEO1ST HUNTER 
 
 trast to the miles of frowning headlands on either side. 
 At the bottom of this bay, just above a shelving beach 
 where Justice Steere and I were once wrecked by a tidal 
 wave, a little river flows in. It is the outlet of a chain 
 of pretty lakelets. Exactly opposite the mouth of this 
 stream, and concealing it from the view of a person 
 rowing by, is a big, picturesque red rock. It is simply 
 called the " redrock " and is a landmark. Standing 
 more than a hundred feet high and some hundreds long 
 and wide, it is as interesting as a Magna Mater when 
 you recognize it as hematite iron ore. That it is very 
 lean, so far as percentage of metallic iron content is 
 concerned, is true, which does not detract from its inter- 
 est and even value too, when considered as evidence. 
 
 As one faces down stream on the right wall of the 
 creek, a short distance from this hematite exposure, one 
 can see a big showing of carbonate of iron siderite. 
 The district near these has not been carefully examined. 
 Eor years I have hoped to find time to do so, and only 
 tell of it now as my contribution in part payment for 
 what I have learned from unselfish geologists and sur- 
 veyors. Somewhere not far distant should be found 
 valuable deposits of iron ore, so convenient for trans- 
 portation as to be unusually desirable. 
 
 Proceed with me down shore to Indian Harbor, on 
 around the point and among the islands, whose water- 
 worn caverns contain agates, chlorastrolites, thompson- 
 ites, calcites and amethysts to be had for the gathering, 
 to Gargantua. One passes within a foot of Menebozho 
 and his wife and dogs if he cares to. Sail on past the 
 hidden harbor that marks Gargantua, the entrance to 
 which is closed by an island like a cork in the neck of a 
 bottle. There is a lighthouse on the island. A couple 
 of miles below the lighthouse one comes to a red shore 
 
OUTCKOPPING OF IKON 171 
 
 line. It is prominent for a mile or more perhaps. I 
 have never measured the distance. All these reddish 
 " rocks " are lean hematite ore. If they were to be 
 found on the American side it would cause a sensation, 
 and long ago they would have been owned by trusts. 
 
 I cannot easily account for the reason why these 
 really wonderful outcrops are not known. I took Kirk 
 Alexander and Tom May, of Detroit, to see the big red 
 rock first described and told them about it, and showed 
 them the siderite in the creek. Only Justice Steere has 
 been with me when I visited the meaningful iron ore 
 shore line below Gargantua. Once he sailed past it 
 with Michel Cadotte, a north shore guide and now in the 
 Happy Hunting Grounds. 
 
 Michel said, " See rocks, not rocks, different from 
 rocks." 
 
 He tried to tell the Justice something but did not 
 succeed, and it was my pleasure to impart the secret to 
 him. It is not unreasonable to expect that there are 
 richer concentrations near in a region of such extensive 
 lean ore exposures. 
 
 An iron formation skirts the Lake Superior north 
 shore for hundreds of miles. Not much work has been 
 done along it because it is in Canada, where the mining 
 laws act as both guardian and deterrent. Also interest 
 in this field has been small because upon the American 
 side there has been enough ore to supply the demand; 
 ore of fine quality and attractive economic location. 
 
 Two shipping mines on the north shore, the Helen 
 and Magpie, near Michipicoten, have proved valuable. 
 Quite a little is known about the Antikokan range in the 
 Port Arthur district, and enough exploratory work has 
 been done at different places to warrant the belief that 
 the north shore will be highly productive. 
 
172 THE IKON HUNTER 
 
 Another iron ore region of the north shore that is lit- 
 tle known comparatively, lies adjacent to the Pukoso 
 River, a half day's row above the Michipicoten. A lit- 
 tle work has been done along the Pukoso by Indians, 
 trappers and lumberjacks, which is as good as saying 
 that not much has been accomplished. There is an ex- 
 tensive formation here of banded magnetite. Some of 
 the bands are quite wide and rich. One day these ores 
 will be won by electric concentration as at Moose Moun- 
 tain, Dunderland and Lulea. Here the land may be 
 staked. Most of the few claims that were taken along 
 the Pukoso have been forfeited because of failure to ful- 
 fill the requirements of the Canadian Mining laws. 
 
 Even more attractive than the Pukoso country is the 
 hinterland at Otter Head and above and below. I have 
 seen good-looking surface showings over quite a wide 
 stretch of country in this region, and believe confidently 
 that the future will reveal iron ore and other mineral 
 values. 
 
 And so on I could tell such a long story of the attrac- 
 tions and prospects of the Canadian north shore. It is 
 a way that every age has, wherein young men contem- 
 poraries sigh and state that there are not as many op- 
 portunities now as when their fathers were boys. For- 
 ever will this be true. The young man alert with in- 
 dustry and ambition will have more chances than he can 
 take advantage of; the other kind would not know it or 
 avail himself if he were thrown among a million oppor- 
 tunities. I would not urge the young man to money 
 grub who is not compelled to; rather let him give of 
 himself to society in some useful way as Theodore Roose- 
 velt has done. All of us cannot be Roosevelts, but all 
 of us can do our best, which will be something anyhow. 
 
 To the young man who has not and must have, in 
 
OUTCROPPING OF IRON 173 
 
 order to steam himself up, the north is calling ; the west 
 is beckoning; the soil is coaxing. Everywhere masters 
 are in search of trustworthy, energetic, loyal youth. 
 Never was there such an era of plenty to be plucked by 
 all who will bestir themselves out of the common ruts of 
 sloth and indolence. What a measure of boys I have 
 gotten when I have had half a hundred of them in the 
 wilderness with me, and have offered a reward to all 
 who would beat me to the bathing place in the morning. 
 Out of fifty not more than one or two would race with 
 me to the creek or lake near camp. When we had to 
 break the ice in the late autumn in order to bathe fre- 
 quently not one boy in a hundred would do it. For 
 near forty years now I have lived in the robust north 
 and in winter I have taken a run naked and rolled in 
 the snow every morning before breakfast, when in the 
 woods, say at four o'clock. In all that time I have 
 known of only one young man who would follow my ex- 
 ample, without being ridiculed into it or compelled in 
 some way. 
 
 There are only two driving forces: one is necessity 
 and the other is love, and the latter is best. One may 
 have love of work without necessity, and the effort is 
 noble that is thus made. Necessity and love together 
 beget twice-born offspring. 
 
CHAPTER XX 
 
 INTO THE HEART OF THE ARCTIC LAPLAND WHERE 
 
 THE MYSTERIES ARE ATTUNED TO THE 
 
 MUFFLED FOOTFALLS OF SILENCE 
 
 ONE winter near the close of the last century, I 
 found myself alone in Europe engaged in visit- 
 ing iron ore fields. I started in the United 
 Kingdom and then proceeded to Spain, where I found 
 the old Bilbao district of consuming interest. I did not 
 tarry long in Italy but proceeded into Germany and on 
 into Russia, and over the Urals. Doubling back I went 
 into Finland at Helsingfors. North to Uleaborg I 
 found good enough railroad conveniences, with women 
 for sleeping car attendants. At Uleaborg I decided to 
 travel on north to Tornea, at the head of the Gulf of 
 Bothnia, and around the gulf to Lulea in Sweden. As 
 usual, not two persons told me the same distance. The 
 map route measured about three hundred miles, but 
 there was no road, and all the way until we reached 
 Haparanda a direct course would be impossible. My 
 destination was the Gellivare, Kirunavaara and Luosa- 
 vaara iron districts in Lapland, all within the Arctic 
 zone. It would have been easier and quicker to have 
 doubled back to Abo, thence to have gone across the Bal- 
 tic through the beautiful Aaland Islands to Stockholm, 
 and north through Upsala to Lulea and Gellivare by 
 rail. But I had a chance to go among the Lapps and 
 traverse an Arctic region that is visited almost never 
 
 174 
 
THE HEAET OF THE AKTIC LAPLAND ITS 
 
 in the winter, and seldom enough in the summer. It 
 was middle February. The weather was below zero all 
 the time, and some of the time far below. There was 
 plenty of snow. I engaged several Lapps and enough 
 reindeer to draw me and them, having at the time 
 no idea how many would be required. To my com- 
 plete surprise I learned that men, women and children 
 would all go with me. It was interesting. Rarely 
 will Lapp families permit themselves to be sepa- 
 rated. When they get down to brass tacks the women 
 are the rulers. I made all of my arrangements with a 
 squat, fat, little head man or chief, but I noticed that 
 he engaged in frequent consultations with his wife. 
 The greater number of them are Lutherans and good 
 and kindly, but an exceedingly independent people. 
 Resembling the Esquimo in physique they possess a bet- 
 ter intellect, and temperamentally are more like the Ka- 
 chins of Upper Burma or the Thibetans. I am just 
 about six feet tall. There was not a Lapp in my party 
 that could not walk erect under my arm extended hori- 
 zontally. 
 
 Men, women and children are fat and greasy, and as 
 they seldom bathe they are, in a sense, dirty. Such 
 habits of life as they have could not endure in a land 
 less clean and wholesome. In all Lapland there is not 
 an unclean thing except the Lapps, and really I soon 
 forgot to think of them as being dirty, even with the 
 contrast they made to the sweet air and the immaculate 
 snow. As a people they are rich and independent. 
 Their government is tribal, and to a considerable extent 
 it is communal. 
 
 There had been a famine in the north Baltic and 
 Bothnian regions, and zealous persons, who too often 
 make it their profession, had been collecting money 
 
176 THE IKON HUNTER 
 
 from liberal countries for their relief. None of this 
 was desired by the Lapps or accepted by them. There 
 was no poverty among them, and while their standards 
 of living are not high, they never are in want of neces- 
 saries. Property is not held in common exactly, but 
 may be used in common in case of need. I saw one 
 chief Lapp of whom it was said that he owned twenty 
 thousand reindeer. He was a Lapp millionaire but did 
 not conduct a reindeer trust. 
 
 Wealth in Lapland is measured in reindeer. They 
 are everything, and when compared with gold they take 
 on a warmth of value that is appealing. The Lapp 
 drinks the milk of the reindeer, eats its flesh, makes 
 clothing of its skin; weapons, implements, furniture 
 and harness of its bone. He even uses its hair for many 
 purposes and the sinews and viscera are very valuable. 
 Fancy being able to do this with a chunk of gold. A 
 drink of milk of gold would be a mockery, and if you 
 do not believe it just take a swallow of the delusive 
 German goldwasser beverage. The yellow metal is only 
 a convenience. It has no real value and is only a meas- 
 ure of or representative of value. It is a necessity, no 
 doubt, but it is also concentrated selfishness, and givee 
 people an incurable disease that permits a few to con- 
 trol the wealth of the world to an extent greater than is 
 for the good of mankind. Robinson Crusoe could do 
 nothing with gold, but he could have done famously 
 with a reindeer. 
 
 The Lapps almost worship them, but do not treat them 
 with the demonstrations of endearment that a Bedouin 
 lavishes upon his she camel, only because that is not 
 their nature. In the winter they feed their working 
 reindeer on rock lichens or reindeer moss. They are 
 kept in the lowlands and valleys in the winter. Dur- 
 
THE HEAET OF THE ARTIC LAPLAND 177 
 
 ing the short season of summer they are herded at an 
 elevation that insures cool, if not cold weather and even 
 snow, for they die off if subjected to warmth. In this 
 respect they are like the llama that will not thrive in 
 most of the Andean lands below an altitude of two or 
 three thousand feet. The Lapps themselves fare better 
 in the highlands in summer and there they go. 
 
 Christmas is their great feast day. It is also their 
 funeral season. They bury their dead once a year. 
 Preserved in snow and ice during the year, corpses are 
 disinterred from their frigid temporary mausoleum at 
 Christmas and given a ceremonial, final burial. 
 
 A reindeer sledge is quite exactly like a Hoosier hog 
 trough. It is hollowed out of a log about four feet, 
 sometimes four and a half feet, long and rounding, log- 
 shaped on the bottom. This causes the thing to roll 
 over if given any kind of a chance. To acquire the 
 art of riding in one is a similar experience to learning 
 to ride a bicycle, and something like learning to swim. 
 A six-foot body crumpled into a four-foot sledge and 
 calked with furs is at first a clumsy arrangement, but 
 it is possible for it, as I found, to become a part of 
 the sledge when the feat of balancing comes to one. It 
 does come, for all of a sudden your mental gyroscope is 
 automatic, and you do not know how you have done it. 
 
 A sledge may be drawn by one, two or three reindeer 
 with spare and bare animals trotting behind or along- 
 side. There was never less than two hitched to my 
 sledge. This was done by fastening a reindeer thong, 
 a Boer would call it a riem, to the bow of the sledge, 
 passing it between the legs of the reindeer and tying it 
 to a names at the breast of the base of the neck and 
 below. These hames were made of reindeer ribs and 
 fitted snugly. They never seemed to gall. The second 
 
178 THE IRON HUNTER 
 
 reindeer was attached tandem by fastening the single 
 tug to the first one, just behind the hames. And so on 
 the third would be tandem also. Headmen at ceremo- 
 nies sometimes have fifty or even more reindeer in a 
 tandem team, and then it is not uncommon for several 
 sledges to be tied together, one behind the other. 
 
 The food and its preparation was very interesting. 
 The headman had several pots of iron and tin. Pot 
 hooks of bone and bone spoons were common to all. 
 Quite a few of them, both women and men, carried 
 crude, home-made knives; there were also skinning 
 knives of bone. My headman had a little, solid silver, 
 home-made pipe, not much bigger than the Japanese use. 
 He kept this going with a mixture of coffee and tobacco. 
 Everybody smoked, mostly bone pipes, if they had the 
 " makings." These pipes, and particularly the silver 
 ones, would get very hot, but the Lapps seemingly were 
 unmindful of this. The chief's cooking was all done in 
 pots. Fuel had to be carried and was scant. 
 
 Some of the others cooked, or rather heated their 
 meat, by placing hot stones in birch-bark buckets con- 
 taining water. No stop of any kind was made without 
 boiling the coffee pot. It was carried by hand, and as 
 its contents were water and milk and coffee, it was han- 
 dled carefully. For seasoning the coffee the Lapps use 
 salt and pepper instead of sugar; not much salt, but 
 plenty of pepper. All hands drank out of the coffee 
 pot, using it as a loving cup. There was always plenty 
 of hair in the coffee. This kept it from slopping out 
 as it was carried, and also compelled one to strain it 
 through his teeth in order to drink with comfort. The 
 Paraguayans have a better way in taking their yerba 
 mate. They suck it through a stem to which a little 
 woven wicker sieve is attached. 
 
THE HEAET OF THE AETIC LAPLAND 179 
 
 We also had raw, frozen fish for a delicacy. The 
 raw fish made me sick finally and I gave it up, since 
 which time I have been unfriendly even to sardellen 
 and kindred preparations. I do not like to be finicky 
 about eating, because I have always thought that it is a 
 measure of mental breadth and elasticity. Notwith- 
 standing, I do not like raw fish. Bah ! 
 
 For bread we had unleavened cakes made from flour 
 and the ground bark of the dwarfed popple and birch. 
 I thought I could tell the popple cakes from the birchen 
 cakes by their greater bitterness. These cakes had been 
 baked for a long time ; weeks, months or years before, I 
 do not know which. 
 
 At night they would erect skin tepees if it was stormy ; 
 in fact, almost always we put them up. If the wind 
 blew hard, snow would be piled around the bottom. I 
 have only occupied an igloo a few times, but I have an 
 idea that they are warmer than the reindeer skin house 
 used by the Lapp. Sometimes I tried to sleep in my 
 sledge, but I would get cramps and would have to dig 
 out and stretch. During the day I often walked for a 
 change. Always while so doing I would be chagrined 
 because I had to make an extra effort to keep up with 
 the stride of the reindeer, and the goose waddle of the 
 Lapps. There were seventeen in the party, including 
 me. The Lapps were of all sizes and sexes. There 
 was no sex false delicacy, but social morals are rigidly 
 observed. 
 
 The snow-covered wastes were like almost level plains 
 and the hardened surface made walking easy. We had 
 fourteen sledges and ninety-one reindeer. Some of the 
 animals were too young to work and some of them were 
 used only as milk cows. Forage made up the most of 
 the cargo. Fuel too. We had no vegetables of any 
 
180 THE IKON HUNTER 
 
 kind. The Lapps and Eskimos seem to be immune to 
 scorbutical attacks. 
 
 We met with no un surmount able obstructions. Mak- 
 ing short cuts across fjords brought us up against wind- 
 rows of ice and snow sometimes which forced detours, 
 or made negotiation more or less exacting. The weather 
 much of the time was clear and cold, and in morning 
 and evening and at night the air would contain fine ice 
 particles. I had seen the same conditions in the Lake 
 Superior and Hudson Bay regions. We were follow- 
 ing the Arctic Circle at about 66 north, varying. Our 
 course was at first north, then northwest, then west and 
 then south. In the middle of the day the sun was 
 warm and dazzling, and I had to protect my eyes from 
 snow blindness. The Lapps were not bothered with 
 anything. 
 
 We had a few pairs of skis, but had no use for them 
 until we reached a Lapp town or winter encampment 
 between Haukipudas and Pudasjarvi. They were pre- 
 paring for a big hunt on skis for wolverines, the great 
 enemy of the young reindeer and the subject of intense 
 dislike by the Lapps. If I could have done so, and I 
 could not, I would not have told them that they call 
 the people Wolverines where I lived. Probably they 
 would have dumped me in a snow cave and speared me 
 with a dull bone spear and left me. 
 
 I wonder why they call Michigan folk Wolverines ? 
 They are not gluttons, and that animal was never nu- 
 merous in the State. 
 
 My party joined the wolverine hunt. A great cir- 
 cle was formed and the contraction of it was achieved 
 in good order, with much guttural yelling. A lot of 
 wolverines were rounded up, some of which escaped the 
 steel and also bone pointed spears. Twenty-nine were 
 
THE HEAET OF THE AKTIC LAPLAND 181 
 
 killed. This was enough to warrant a celebration and 
 feast. Much peppered coffee was drunk and reindeer 
 meat consumed. There were ski races, reindeer races 
 and spear-throwing contests. 
 
 It was good to note the complete absence of alcoholics. 
 Not even the headmen had guns or pistols. I noticed 
 that a good many of the Lapps from farther north had 
 a dangerous-looking weapon made from a stone tied with 
 a thong like a sling. The rock was not supposed to 
 leave the sling when thrown. They use it in capturing 
 ptarmigan and for several hunting purposes. 
 
 I could not tell very nearly how far we traveled each 
 day. Some days we seemed to make good marches and 
 upon others we would not go as far. I think the least 
 distance covered in a day was ten miles and the great- 
 est probably thirty, with an average perhaps of sixteen. 
 We did not go into Haukipudas where I had expected to 
 check up. There were several camps en route but they 
 were movable and temporary. I managed to recognize 
 Simo and also Kemi and I estimated that we should 
 soon arrive in Tornea. In this I was mistaken, and the 
 first thing I knew we had passed it and arrived in Ha- 
 paranda, from which point there is a marked road to 
 Lulea by way of Nederkalix and Tornea. 
 
 Tornea is at the mouth of the Tome Elf, which flows 
 out of the arctic lake Torne Trask, and I had hoped to 
 see it. At Tornea our road, much of it so drifted as to 
 be totally unrecognizable, intersected a road between 
 Lulea and Gellivare. 
 
 We had crossed a number of rivers, called johi in 
 Finland and elf in Swedish. They are considerable 
 streams, as the Bothnian drainage basin extends eight- 
 tenths of the way to the Arctic Ocean, leaving only a 
 comparatively narrow strip between the height of land 
 
182 THE IKON HUNTEK 
 
 and the ocean. There are low mountains between the 
 rivers, and thinly interspersed are fringes of scraggy, 
 dwarfed trees, mostly birches, none of them exceeding 
 a height of ten or twelve feet. Their crooked, gnarled, 
 scarred boles suggested gnomes or little, old, dried-up 
 Japanese men and the dwarfed trees they delight in cul- 
 tivating. 
 
 I did not see much evidence of life, but there was 
 more than I expected to find inland. There are Arctic 
 hares, foxes, wolverines, polar bear (not many), wild 
 reindeer or caribou, ptarmigan and two large gallinae, 
 something like blackgame. The bigger one of these 
 edible game birds weighs ten to twelve pounds. They 
 are not plentiful. 
 
 The only hardship I suffered worth considering was 
 the food, and I think that I would not have minded that 
 much if I had not been made sick by the raw fish. At 
 first I did not know a word of Lappish, and not one of 
 my Lapps knew a word of English. It took forty-one 
 days to make the trip. Every day I learned several 
 words, and it was not long before I could get along very 
 well. One also becomes an expert pantomimist. 
 
 I was glad to reach Lulea. After an inspection of 
 the successful electrical concentration works, that refine 
 the Gellivare magnetite, I was ready to proceed to the 
 source of the ore at Malmberg, near Gellivare. A rail- 
 road built to haul this iron ore to the sea offered a very 
 good passenger service. I think it was the first rail- 
 road to be built in the Arctic zone anywhere in the 
 world. 
 
 At Gellivare I found the manager of the mines a most 
 engaging and hospitable gentleman, who had visited the 
 Michigan iron mines. He was gracious in every way 
 and made my visit to Gellivare pleasant and memorable. 
 
THE HEAET OF THE ARTIC LAPLAND 183 
 
 I studied the ore and iron formations there for a few 
 days and went on to Kirunavaara and Luosavaara. 
 The railroad was being continued by the Swedish gov- 
 ernment to these great ore fields, and in conjunction 
 with Norway across the Riksgransen to an Arctic open 
 seaport, now called Narvik, on Ofoten Fjord. 
 
 Before leaving for Kirunavaara I climbed the Dun- 
 dret, a famous mountain near Gellivare, to see the mid- 
 night sun. It is scarcely worth while to do this if one 
 is to remain long in the " Land of the Midnight Sun," 
 because no special trip is necessary to see it. 
 
 I stopped for a day at Boden, where I witnessed the 
 work of construction upon quite a formidable fort Swe- 
 den was building to protect that portion of the boundary, 
 and especially the new railroad, from the dreaded Rus- 
 sians. Wherever I went in Northern Sweden I found 
 a shadowy fear of the bear's claws, and well-informed 
 Swedes seemed to be certain that in the long run the 
 new Arctic railroad would fall into the hands of the 
 Russians. 
 
 In the more populous portions of Sweden the polit- 
 ical topic most discussed was the strained relations be- 
 tween Norway and Sweden. There was more agitation 
 in Norway over this than in Sweden. It was freely 
 predicted that Norway would secede from the Scandi- 
 navian Union with Sweden, and that perhaps there 
 would be war. Upon my return to the United States I 
 was roundly abused by Swedish-American newspapers 
 for a statement of my belief that the Union would not 
 endure much longer. The only thing that prevented 
 actual hostilities when the break came was the courage 
 and preparedness of Norway, the Norse reputation for 
 valor, and the conviction on the part of Sweden that 
 Norway could neither be conquered nor coerced. 
 
CHAPTER XXI 
 
 DEPOSITS OF IRON ORE AND BEDS OF COAL UNDEB 
 THE SHADOW OF THE POLE 
 
 CROSSING the Arctic Circle anywhere the route 
 on north is a bleak one in the winter. Snow 
 fields, bare, cold, gaunt, rocky ridges, almost no 
 sign of vegetation or animal life, make a region that 
 would repel anything almost but selfish or needful men. 
 Infrequently I saw Lapp winter camps. It is a lone- 
 some world. All visitors to the far north notice the 
 oppressive stillness : " the muffled footfalls of silence," 
 as quiet as a noise too great to hear. 
 
 The Kirunavaara-Luosavaara iron ore fields contain 
 the most extensive deposits of magnetite known in the 
 world. It may be that they possess a greater tonnage 
 than any, even more than the Mesaba of Minnesota, or 
 the Itabira, of Minas Geraes, Brazil. They are located 
 in the northwest part of Swedish Lapland, well within 
 the Arctic Circle, and not far from the boundary be- 
 tween Norway and Sweden. 
 
 The region had not been thoroughly explored when I 
 visited it in the last decade of eighteen hundred, but 
 enough was known to warrant expensive measures to get 
 the ore into the markets of the world. Since the first 
 attack upon it much more has been learned, until there 
 remains no doubt that there is a most remarkable ton- 
 nage. The ore is a magnetite. It runs as high as 
 
 184 
 
UNDER THE SHADOW OF THE POLE 185 
 
 sixty-nine per cent, in metallic iron. I was assured that 
 cargoes averaging as high as that could be shipped. 
 
 Some of it is low enough in phosphorus to make it a 
 Bessemer ore, which process is impossible to ore con- 
 taining more than one-thousandth of one per cent, of 
 phosphorus to one per cent, of metallic iron, unless, of 
 course, that ore higher than that in phosphorus is mixed 
 with an ore much lower in phosphorus. 
 
 Sulphur in the Kirunavaara ore varies. The per- 
 centage is always rather high, but not enough to be pro- 
 hibitive of treatment. The most objectionable ingredi- 
 ent of the ore is titanium, which is present to as great 
 a degree as one per cent. 
 
 It was generally considered among metallurgists that 
 so much titanium as that rendered ore unfit for use and 
 valueless. They had as yet discovered no way to flux 
 titaniferous ore. It would become sticky and mushy 
 and would not flow freely. 
 
 Inability to handle such ore, because of lack of knowl- 
 edge, caused a condemnatory report to be made upon 
 the titaniferous iron ore range north of Port Arthur in 
 Canada, that has kept that region undeveloped to this 
 day. It nearly operated in the same way with the 
 Kirunavaara field. 
 
 Now methods are employed that do away with the 
 objections to the presence of titanium up to one per 
 cent., or even in greater quantities. 
 
 At the time of my visit the Kirunavaara range had 
 been traced for sixty miles. Where the railroad touched 
 the range and the first mining was begun, practically 
 an uninterrupted outcrop of iron ore extended for more 
 than five miles. Some places it was seven hundred feet 
 above the surface. At one point it dipped under a small 
 lake and had been cut with a diamond drill operated 
 
186 THE IRON HUNTER 
 
 upon the ice. Even with the lower wages prevailing, the 
 cost of getting out the ore was greater than upon any 
 of the American ranges. Coal was a problem and I 
 was told that a cargo of iron ore had been sent to Can- 
 ada in exchange for a return cargo of coal. Since that 
 time, John M. Longyear, of Michigan, has opened coal 
 measures upon Spitzbergen, and the fuel question has 
 been solved in a measure. 
 
 From Kirunavaara to the ocean at Narvik the rail- 
 road is a series of snow sheds and tunnels, requiring 
 superior courage and engineering in construction. Nar- 
 vik was just being built. The ore docks, pockets and 
 trestles were of steel and plans for an important port 
 had been made. 
 
 Since then, I am informed, that as much as fifteen 
 million tons have been shipped from Narvik in a year, 
 more than half of it going to Essen, Germany, where the 
 great Krupp iron works are located. 
 
 At Narvik I visited the cod fisheries among the Ofo- 
 ten or Lofoden Islands and formed a new aversion to 
 that efficacious remedy codliver oil. Also I saw the 
 famous maelstrom, caused, as is well known, by the tidal 
 waters choking between rocky islands. A portion of 
 the wild ocean is forced through with roars and hisses 
 and churning and foam. Sometimes the maelstrom re- 
 minds one of the great tidal bores that are to be seen 
 in some of the rivers on the China coast. The twisting, 
 charging, convulsive waters eddy and swirl, and require 
 little imagination to look wicked and justify the demon 
 stories told in Norse by Skald and Saga, from primitive 
 times down to the present. They could easily have 
 wrecked the Viking ships, which were not ships at all 
 but only big, clumsy, mostly open boats, very similar to 
 
UNDER THE SHADOW OF THE POLE 187 
 
 the little traders and fisher craft that dodge in and out 
 along the rocky, saw-edged coast to-day. 
 
 I found good coastwise steamers and had a comforta- 
 ble and pleasurable trip to Tronisoe and Hammerfest. 
 It was not so easy to get to North Cape and over to 
 Spitzbergen, about four hundred and fifty miles from 
 the mainland. 
 
 West Spitzbergen area about fifteen thousand square 
 miles ; North East Land, about four thousand, and Edge 
 Island, about two thousand five hundred square miles, 
 form the No Man's Land group, known as Spitzbergen. 
 They are between seventy-six and eighty-one north lati- 
 tudes. West Spitzbergen is nothing more than a rock- 
 girt ice house. A central plateau of ice forces glaciers 
 down to the sea through giant rifts. All around the 
 coastal belt one may hear roaring, splashing, rumbling, 
 cracking, as the huge ends of ice rivers break off into the 
 sea, fractured by their own ponderousness, and float 
 off as icebergs. Tourists generally visit the west coast 
 where a hotel has been built in connection with a weekly, 
 in summer, steamer service. 
 
 The Dutch are credited with the discovery of Spitz- 
 bergen in 1596, but no nation claims it. If anything 
 it is American, because an American company, led by 
 John M. Longyear, of Michigan, is mining and ship- 
 ping coal from there. They have a shaft down through 
 frozen material more than one thousand two hundred 
 feet, the deepest ice shaft in the world. It is reported 
 that these mines have recently been sold to Russia for 
 thirty million dollars. 
 
 Many interesting fossils have been exhumed, mostly 
 of a tropical nature, proving the polar regions once to 
 have been warm before the tilting ice cap and precession 
 
188 THE IRON HUNTER 
 
 of the equinoxes caused an axial shift. Huge palm 
 fronds have been dug out and vast quantities of im- 
 bedded fossil coprolites have been encountered. In 
 summer the sun glare and reflected heat on the interior 
 ice fields is trying. Over one hundred species of au- 
 tochthonous flowering plants and ferns have been classi- 
 fied. 
 
 Rabot and Sir Martin Con way have done some ex- 
 ploration, but really little is known about Spitzbergen. 
 
 By the time of my return down the Norse coast the 
 headlands, black-bordered shore and shadowy fjords 
 were compelling, and kept one's senses alert and emo- 
 tions stirred. I could easily see how the hardy folk 
 were content to remain the thralls of such environment. 
 Every color that sky and sea could assume was present; 
 the fjords were Rembrandtian bins of gloom with all 
 arrangements of chiaroscuro from arrows of sunlight 
 to pitchy dungeon depths of darkness. 
 
 Over the cliffs poured silvery streamlets fed by melt- 
 ing snow, making a black and white barred coast line 
 and even suggesting troops of white horse cavalry con- 
 cealed over the top of the escarpment, with only their 
 straggling white tails hanging in view over and down. 
 
 The deep green of spear-topped tannenbaum amidst 
 snow formed a fairy background. Altogether the scen- 
 ery in April and May along the north coast of Norway 
 is indescribably fascinating and beautiful. 
 
 Flocks of water fowl took wing, fishes broke through 
 the water to the surface, the clumsy eider duck quacked 
 to its nesting mate, and spring in gnomeland was in the 
 nostrils. 
 
 On the way down the coast I found Throndjem and 
 its ancient cathedral and hall of the Vikings worth some 
 hours. 
 
UNDEK THE SHADOW OF THE POLE 189 
 
 I worked my way inland to the famous older iron 
 fields of Sweden, and finally arrived at Stockholm after 
 a fine canal trip. 
 
 One must be charmed with Stockholm with its sing- 
 ing Malar and its intrusive water roads, so much 
 sweeter than those of Venice, if not quite so romantic 
 and colorful. 
 
 In these days the Swedes give one the superficial im- 
 pression of being sensualists, living only to eat and 
 drink and unrein their passions. There was a deeper 
 side than that in evidence at the smorgos board and the 
 puntsch table, that told of more serious things and higher 
 ideals. 
 
 The culture that starts at Upsala may be traced in its 
 admirable diffusion if one takes the trouble to do so. 
 
 The Swedes are democratic, but not so much so as the 
 Norwegians, who have no superiors as a worthy and 
 fine people. 
 
CHAPTEK XXII 
 
 A STARVATION HIKE TO HUNT FOB A HIDDEN RANGE 
 OF IRON ORE 
 
 IN" the course of my years of summer explorations in 
 Canada I heard repeatedly of an iron dam on the 
 Vermillion River, north of Georgian Bay. Grad- 
 ually I worked in that direction. A Mr. MacCharles, 
 who had been employed by me temporarily to do some 
 work for my newspaper at the Sault, had gone to Sud- 
 bury in 1889. The nickel deposits had been attracting 
 attention to the Sudbury district. Rumors of gold had 
 sent prospectors as far afield as they could get into the 
 wilderness and feed themselves. 
 
 Gold will cause more excitement and turn more people 
 crazy than anything else in the world, not even except- 
 ing diamonds. This has been true of man since Jason 
 and his argonauts went in search of the golden fleece. 
 There is always a pot of gold for somebody at the foot 
 of a rainbow, and the rainbow chasing for gold has 
 caused war and woe, sickness and sorrow, heartache and 
 horror, hardness and hunger among men, from the be- 
 ginning to this day of engulfing strife in Europe. 
 
 There is gold in the Vermillion River valley of Can- 
 ada. It is strewn in fine particles through the sand 
 everywhere, but nowhere has it paid for its winning 
 and perhaps never will. Searchers for the mysterious 
 " mother lode " that is supposed to be the source of all 
 
 190 
 
A STARVATION HIKE 191 
 
 placer gold, have not been successful in the Vermillion 
 country. 
 
 MacCharles wore a tarn o'shanter on his head, whis- 
 kers on his chin, a Scotch haggis dialect in his throat 
 and had brains. From time to time he kept me in- 
 formed as to the gold and nickel activities around Sud- 
 bury. I as repeatedly told him that I was not inter- 
 ested in gold and nickel, but would sit up and take notice 
 if he had any iron ore clews. The fact that I could be 
 interested in iron ore and not in gold, nickel or copper 
 was too peculiar for his thought processes to follow. 
 Nevertheless he was persistently in touch with me and 
 one day told me about an iron dam on the Vermillion 
 River up behind Sudbury, well towards the Height of 
 Land. I had heard of something of the kind before but 
 had gotten no details ; in fact, had not previously arrived 
 at a point where I was prepared to look into the thing. 
 Now I was ready. 
 
 I went to Sudbury. It was October. The Vermil- 
 lion was too low to permit of ascending it in canoes. 
 I got a couple of men who told me they had gold claims 
 near a certain falls on the river, where I had been told 
 were the exposures of lean iron ore. They did not know 
 iron ore when they saw it, but said that the rock at the 
 falls in question was black and heavy, and where worn 
 by ice and water showed a polish like steel. These men 
 had never gone up river except when the stage of water 
 permitted canoeing. However, they claimed to be 
 woodsmen, and I was told they were reliable. Just at 
 this juncture I made the only mistake of the kind that 
 I have ever made. 
 
 An arrangement was entered into by which they were 
 to pack for me and show me the falls of the iron dam. 
 I directed them to outfit for a trip of a month, which 
 
192 THE IKON HUNTER 
 
 they said they could and would do, and I trusted them 
 and did not check over the supplies. This was an in- 
 excusable omission that had a justifiable, if uncomfort- 
 able sequel. 
 
 In the office of the Balmoral Hotel at Sudbury there 
 hung a rough and ready Canadian Pacific Railway ad- 
 vertising map. I glanced at it rather carelessly, but 
 noted with some particularity the general course of the 
 Vermillion River. It was not a very purposive map, 
 but it was the only one I had seen. In fact, the region 
 north of Sudbury had only been surveyed for a few 
 miles, and that work had been done since the nickel ex- 
 citement. 
 
 We started north, three of us. A short cut took us in 
 a day to the Vermillion at Indian Dump. Crossing 
 here we plunged into the trackless wilderness, and within 
 three days more were beyond all signs of human life. 
 I had figured that with any kind of luck at all we ought 
 to have arrived at the iron falls in five days. 
 
 On the eighth day out I became convinced, from sev- 
 eral apparent signs, that my men were lost so far as get- 
 ting to our objective was concerned. When I put the 
 matter to them flatly they admitted it. 
 
 They discovered to me the more embarrassing situa- 
 tion that our grub was running short. Then for the 
 first time to my chagrin I realized my carelessness. 
 These men had been accustomed to traveling with ca- 
 noes ; they were not old packers and woodsmen as I had 
 been told, and were really tenderfeet away from a river 
 that would float a canoe. Instead of taking flour and 
 pork and tea, they had loaded up with a lot of impossi- 
 ble canned stuff, and even had some loaves of bread and 
 crackers. 
 
 It was necessary at once to go on short rations, and 
 
A STARVATION HIKE 193 
 
 might have been the part of wisdom to have turned back. 
 I had never done such a thing as turn back, and it did 
 not even occur to me. The men said they could locate 
 themselves if they could get to the Vermillion. That 
 seemed easy. We were west of that river. I took a 
 course a little north of east and held to it, except where 
 detours were forced by lakes, miry swamps and now 
 and then a talus-footed range of low, rocky mountains. 
 
 On the third clay after I became the guide we arrived 
 at a stream that they said was the Vermillion. Further- 
 more they agreed that we were below the iron dam, 
 which they thought we could reach in one day's march 
 upstream. We checked over our grub carefully and 
 found it distressingly low. I was carrying the cover- 
 ing for all of us, three blankets and a light shed tent 
 done up in a pack sheet, with a tump line or misery 
 strap, which will cut your hair better than the average 
 barber if you wear it outside your hat. 
 
 Without delay we proceeded upstream and, to my en- 
 thusiastic delight, we came within a few hours to a falls 
 and series of rapids that proved to be the ones I sought. 
 At a point quite a distance before reaching the falls, I 
 came upon iron-bearing rock of fine texture resembling 
 an olivine gabbro, and nearby I saw outcroppings of 
 lean, magnetic ore. 
 
 We camped at the iron dam that night. As soon as 
 day broke next morning I began clambering over the 
 rocks. With my little hand pick I freshly fractured 
 hundreds of projections. All of the exposures on both 
 sides of the river were of lean magnetite, carrying about 
 thirty per cent, of metallic iron. 
 
 At one place I found a large boulder of rich iron ore 
 in the dry river bed. Samples from it analyzed later 
 gave seventy per cent, metallic iron. 
 
194 THE IKON HUNTER 
 
 I climbed the hills near by, traversed the ravines and 
 dug under every fallen tree and upturned stump I saw. 
 At one stump I dug out a small, rough-edged chunk of 
 magnetic iron ore, showing by its unworn edges that the 
 solid ledge was most likely near at hand. 
 
 Grub was nearly gone, but I slept two nights at the 
 iron dam. If one had been nervous I think he must 
 have been lulled to sleep by the music of the falling 
 waters, as they broke over the magnetic dyke abruptly, 
 or sang from cascades or parted bubblingly around dor- 
 nicks into vitreous pools. 
 
 I needed no lullaby, and even did not awaken when a 
 moose walked over my protruding limbs in front of our 
 little shed tent. The nights were frosty, and some snow 
 fell from time to time. 
 
 There was enough snow the second morning to exhibit 
 the tracks of a big bull moose that actually strode over 
 us during the night. Nearby the majestic animal 
 horned several twining maples and must have cracked 
 brush and made a lot of noise, but I slept on uncon- 
 scious of it all. 
 
 I had not learned very much more than that an at- 
 tractive and hopeful iron formation existed here and 
 then the low grub supply forced me to fly. All the 
 packs were lighter. The grub was nearly gone so that 
 the men could take a portion of my load. I took the 
 lead. We struck out on a bee line for the C. P. E. 
 Railroad track. 
 
 Anxious about food and feeling the full force of cha- 
 grin on account of my own carelessness, I tried to go 
 as rapidly as possible. Our short rations had begun to 
 tell on us, and I think we were all nervous, which made 
 it worse. We had no firearm or fishing tackle. 
 
 That night we ate the last of our supplies. A greasy 
 
A STARVATION HIKE 195 
 
 soup and thin really seemed to do us more harm than 
 good. 
 
 Next morning I rigged a noose of fine string on a pole 
 about twelve feet long and gave it to Dunk, the younger 
 man, to carry. He was instructed to slyly pass the loop 
 over the head of a spruce hen, if we saw any of those 
 beautiful and toothsome Canadian grouse. Unlike the 
 ruffed grouse, they have dark plumage and dark meat 
 and are stupidly unafraid of man, especially where they 
 have net been hunted. 
 
 About ten o'clock all of us saw one at about the same 
 time. Chuck and I performed in front of it so as to 
 engage its attention. It was perched on the limb of a 
 banksian pine about nine feet from the ground, and sat 
 near the bole. Dunk got the tree trunk between himself 
 and the bird. Projecting the noose end of his pole 
 very, very slowly and carefully up he passed the loop 
 over the bird's head, gave a yank and we had our break- 
 fast. One was not enough to satisfy us but it helped 
 out wonderfully. There were more but all of them 
 perched too high. During the day Dunk gaffled two 
 more so that it looked as though we would not starve. 
 
 Next day we saw a lot of spruce hens. Nearly al- 
 ways they were on the ground, and when they flushed 
 would fly up too high to reach with our snaffle pole. 
 The only way to get them was to throw a missile. 
 
 Chuck killed three in three throws with a club and 
 then he started to boast. He said that when he was a 
 boy he could beat any Indian throwing a tomahawk. 
 Just about as he had satisfied his own ears with self- 
 sung song of prowess, we came upon several spruce hens. 
 
 Before when Chuck had thrown so successfully he 
 had muttered after each victory, " God loves his own." 
 It was not so much reverence as it might have been, for 
 
196 THE IKON HTJNTEE 
 
 now he gave such an exhibition of bad throwing and 
 profanity as would make one's hair curl. The tantaliz- 
 ing grouse just ran and dodged. He never did make it 
 fly. Sometimes Chuck would get up to within four or 
 five feet of it and then he would throw over its head. 
 Finally I killed it with my hand pick as it ran by me 
 within a couple of feet. This gave us four and we lived 
 on them that day. 
 
 The third day after our grub was gone we saw noth- 
 ing to eat and ate nothing. By evening we were a lit- 
 tle weak, but I think if we had not been nervous the ex- 
 perience would not have been disagreeable. I had been 
 caught out once before without food, but in an excusa- 
 ble way. However, I remembered that I was so shaky 
 that I missed a perfectly easy shot at a deer just because 
 I wanted it so badly. Chuck and Dunk were becom- 
 ing disagreeable ; not so much to me as to each other. 
 
 Just after dark I was certain that I heard the sound 
 of an ax. The men could not hear it. I lined it up 
 carefully with my compass. Next morning I started in 
 the direction of the sound of the ax I had heard the eve- 
 ning before. At first Chuck and Dunk would not fol- 
 low me, but as I strode on without stopping a moment 
 to coax or parley, they came along, now angry at my 
 seeming indifference. A little after eight o'clock we 
 came to an old lumber camp and found two men in it. 
 At first they objected to dividing their supplies with us. 
 I told them our story and wound up by the calm but 
 determined statement that we were hungry and des- 
 perate and three to two, and would have food if we had 
 to fight for it. This, with the promise I made to re- 
 place the grub we ate and took, made them assume a 
 different attitude. We ate our fill and rested a day. 
 
 The camp was one of the best I ever saw. It had been 
 
A STARVATION HIKE 197 
 
 used very little and why it was abandoned I did not 
 know, because there was fine standing white pine in the 
 vicinity and very little evidence of cutting. The cruis- 
 ers told us that their principals expected this pine to be 
 placed upon the market at public auction soon, and they 
 were to be prepared to bid on it intelligently. 
 
 There was not a nail or piece of iron in the entire 
 camp. Even the hinges were birchen. Peeled pine 
 logs, clean and beautiful, made. the walls. A scoop-roof 
 made by adzing logs until they are hollow and then 
 laying them like tile, thus, ^^^A^/^ , makes a better 
 covering than the clapboard roof of the South or the 
 cedar shake roof of the North. 
 
 In the center of the camp was an oblong mound of 
 earth ten by sixteen feet in size. The dirt was held in 
 place by side logs staked. Overhead a hole in the roof, 
 fitted with a hanging, inside, shake chimney, carried off 
 the smoke. This arrangement is called a " camboose," 
 but why not a fourneau, by the Canadian French, I do 
 not know. In some parts it is called a " caboose," but 
 in this part of Canada it is a " camboose," and a camp 
 fitted with one is known as a " camboose camp," and is 
 popular because of ventilation and consequent health- 
 fulness. 
 
 Ordinary lumber camps are not much better than 
 black holes of Calcutta, and the Canadian lumberjack 
 was hard to wean away from the camboose. The cook 
 prepared his meals by it as before an open fire, and 
 baked the sweetest and best bread in baking kettles that 
 he buried in the hot coals and ashes. I can taste it as 
 I write. At night the men would sleep in a circle on 
 the hewn log floor, with their feet towards the warm 
 camboose and their heads away, and their torrents of 
 stinking breath passing up the hanging wooden chim- 
 
198 THE IKON HUNTEK 
 
 ney. With such a place to sleep and plenty of beans 
 cooked in the ashes, and fat pork and thick black strap 
 molasses, the Canadian lumberjack of yesterday was a 
 master workman in the woods. 
 
 As soon as I got to Sudbury I engaged two reliable 
 packers and sent with them back to the camp probably 
 ten times as much grub as the cruisers had supplied me, 
 for grub and life are the same in the big woods. Chuck 
 went with them. 
 
 It was a kind of fool experience, the whole thing, but 
 it did serve to establish for me a credit in the woods of 
 that country that stood me in good service several times 
 in the future. 
 
 It was too late to do anything more that fall, so my 
 wife and I went off to the South Seas, Samoa, Tahiti, 
 Fiji, New Zealand, Tasmania, Australia and up through 
 Torres Straits to New Guinea and on to the Dutch Is- 
 lands, the Philippines, China and Japan. This took 
 us until late in the following summer. 
 
 Home again I organized a party and inaugu- 
 rated a thorough surface search and survey of the re- 
 gion north of the Sudbury nickel zone, from Wahna- 
 pitae Lake on the east to, and even beyond, the Ahnap- 
 ing chain of lakes on the west and well over the height 
 of land to the north. This work and the activities flow- 
 ing from it consumed several seasons. 
 
 As soon as I had made enough headway to be certain 
 that it was warranted, I decided to have a careful mag- 
 netic survey made of the region. In order to have this 
 done to the very best advantage, I went to Dr. Charles 
 R. Van Hise, then at the head of the Department of 
 Geology of the University of Wisconsin, and until his 
 recent untimely death president of that great institu- 
 tion .of catholic learning. 
 
A STARVATION HIKE 199 
 
 So far as I knew then and believe now, Dr. Van Hise 
 was in a class by himself as an economic geologist. In 
 fact, he had done much to help to create that branch of 
 geology in America. He advised me to engage Ken- 
 neth Leith, one of his assistants and now Dr. VanHise's 
 successor in the department of geology at Wisconsin. 
 
 Leith at once organized his crews, and I think while 
 employed by me he did the first dial compass surveying 
 and mapping ever carried on in Canada. Not much, if 
 any, had been done in America. So thorough was he 
 and so competent were his young college assistants, that 
 the magnetic iron ore formation was mapped in a com- 
 plete, highly satisfactory and practical manner. Dr. 
 VanHise was the consultant in this work. It did not 
 extend the boundaries of the possible ore zone much 
 differently from my own first rough work, so far as 
 staking claims went, but it proved up and made every- 
 thing more certain. 
 
 During a considerable period my time was entirely 
 taken up in securing title to the ore lands and in financ- 
 ing the enterprise. The most embarrassing condition 
 was caused by the fact that a portion of the region adja- 
 cent to the Vermillion River had been run over by gold 
 prospectors who had staked a lot of claims, some over- 
 lapping others and making for a confusion that de- 
 manded care in unraveling. 
 
 All of these were revived, so far as possible, with the 
 idea that the claimants would get something out of them, 
 and especially as against a Yankee contestant. 
 
 My policy rather took the wind out of their sails. 
 I could find only a few who had performed the require- 
 ments of law and had acquired a title. But whenever 
 anybody claimed anything and was not disputed by 
 other prospectors, I would purchase his alleged right. 
 
200 THE IRON HUNTER 
 
 If I found a claimholder who really had any rights 
 my practice was such as to cause him to doubt my san- 
 ity. Having given the claims up long before because of 
 insufficient gold values, the prospector would be con- 
 scious of no value so far as his knowledge was concerned. 
 Consequently, he would be very apt to feel that if he 
 could get one hundred, five hundred or one thousand 
 dollars for nothing he would be just that much to the 
 good. Imagine then his surprise when I would settle 
 with him for from double to twenty times what he asked. 
 
 My reasons for doing this were twofold: conscience 
 and policy. I was willing to pay for values that I 
 knew of, that the other party was ignorant of, because I 
 thought it was right, and also because I expected that 
 whoever developed the properties would have their way 
 made easier and clearer, than if the local woodspeople 
 were squeezed to the lowest cent that would be likely to 
 cause them to think they had been robbed. 
 
 But I nearly ruined my reputation for sound judg- 
 ment. It was necessary to have a good many of the 
 lands cleared of all possible lispendens at Toronto. My 
 legal work was well done by Hearst & McKay and by 
 Hearst, McKay & Darling, of Sault Ste. Marie, On- 
 tario. Mr. Hearst became premier of Ontario, and Mr. 
 McKay became an able and respected Canadian judge. 
 It was apparently the policy of every Canadian law 
 firm to have one member a conservative and the other a 
 liberal. 
 
 I had heard that nothing could be obtained at the 
 governmental departments at Toronto without paying 
 for it ; that from top to bottom there had to be bribery. 
 I saw nothing of the kind during years of experience 
 and I do not believe a word of it. The fees of Hearst 
 & McKay were reasonable, and they told me that they 
 
A STARVATION HIKE 201 
 
 never thought of paying any " grease " money or per- 
 mitting graft. In legislative circles there was and is the 
 same turpitude that discolored some American public 
 characters and acts, and especially was this true there 
 and here in matters involving land grants and the pub- 
 lic domain. My business relations in Canada, cover- 
 ing a long period and comprehending considerable trans- 
 actions, were always agreeable. 
 
 Where I slept in the little open shed tent, and was 
 unawakened by the moose that nearly stepped on me, 
 there is now a flourishing mining town reached by a 
 branch of a transcontinental railroad. They did not 
 develop there without much hard and enjoyable work. 
 
CHAPTEK XXIII 
 
 FATHEBLY ATTITUDE OF JOHN W. GATES AND 
 JOHN J. MITCHELL 
 
 AT one time I owned the entire Moose Mountain 
 iron range with all of its immense values. Of 
 course I could do nothing with it without finan- 
 cial help. I did not have much trouble arranging for 
 this. 
 
 One of the first men I went to see was the late John 
 W. Gates. My idea was to go to men who had made 
 their wealth in iron, who knew the business and would 
 understand all the risks involved. Mr. Gates knew 
 enough about me readily to grant me an interview. I 
 told him that I had discovered a new iron range in the 
 wilds of Canada. We talked a while in the forenoon 
 and he asked me to return in the afternoon. When I 
 went back he told me that he had decided to become in- 
 terested. 
 
 I learned years afterwards that during the luncheon 
 hour he had wired to the late Joseph Sellwood, of Du- 
 luth, asking if I knew what I was talking about when I 
 talked iron ore. Mr. Sellwood was one of the most suc- 
 cessful of the early practical school of Lake Superior 
 iron men. His reply to Mr. Gates, with whom he had 
 been associated for a long time, was: " You can go 
 sled length on Osborn." 
 
 I did not realize then that I was so favorably regarded 
 by those whose political trails I had not seriously 
 
 202 
 
GATES AND MITCHELL 203 
 
 crossed. I had heard a great deal about John W. Gates, 
 and all of it was not favorable. My opinion is that he 
 was much maligned, as men in big business were wont 
 to be during a certain period of industrial, and conse- 
 quent political unrest. All of rny memories of Mr. 
 Gates possess a kindly tone. The picture I like best to 
 recall is that of one I saw on a day when he arose in his 
 office and started out to lunch. His son, the late 
 Charles G. Gates, noticed that his father's shoe lace was 
 unfastened. 
 
 " Wait a moment, father," requested the young man. 
 
 As the father halted and stood, the son knelt at his 
 feet and tied his shoe. Nothing much could have been 
 wrong with a father and a son between whom there 
 was such a tender tie. And both were fat. 
 
 Another clearly open window to the character of John 
 W. Gates is his action during the iron panic winter of 
 1903-4. The Illinois Steel Company shut down its 
 plants at Chicago and nearly twenty thousand workers 
 were thrown out of employment. Mr. Gates was a di- 
 rector. He opposed closing down. At the same time 
 he controlled the Consolidated Steel & Wire Works at 
 Joliet. He kept these going and carried nearly ten 
 thousand workmen through a critically hungry period. 
 
 All this was creditable to him as an economic human- 
 ist. The way that he secured enough business so that 
 he could pull through was an unusual tribute to his 
 business perspicacity and perhaps nerve. He went to 
 England and saw the late Joseph Chamberlain. 
 
 When Mr. Gates explained that the object of his visit 
 was to sell him steel products of the very kind that Mr. 
 Chamberlain was manufacturing at Birmingham, the 
 great colonial secretary of the empire was at first 
 amused, and then was insulted or pretended to be. Chi- 
 
204 THE IKON HUNTEK 
 
 cago insistence would not be thwarted. Mr. Gates de- 
 clared that he could sell to Mr. Chamberlain better goods 
 at a lower price than the latter's cost. This interested 
 the Birmingham iron master. He went into details, 
 and the result was a big order for the Joliet mills at a 
 critical time. While at Birmingham, Mr. Chamberlain 
 took Mr. Gates through his steel plants. When they 
 finished he asked Mr. Gates what he thought of them. 
 Blunt enough usually and outspoken as an avalanche, 
 Mr. Gates posed cautiously. 
 
 " You really do not wish me to tell you honestly 
 what I think, do you ? " 
 
 " Indeed, it will be a favor to me," replied the big 
 Englishman. 
 
 " Well, I'd junk the whole outfit and wreck the build- 
 ings," was the explosive reply. 
 
 Mr. Chamberlain was visibly shocked, but he smiled 
 and asked, " What then ? " 
 
 " Then I would engage John W. Garrett, of Joliet, 
 Illinois, United States of America, to build you a real 
 works with modern machinery and structural conven- 
 iences." 
 
 Joseph Chamberlain took the advice. Mr. Garrett 
 thoroughly rebuilt the Birmingham plant, and the un- 
 dertaking was speedily justified by the increased earn- 
 ings that resulted from the reduced cost of an increased 
 and improved production. 
 
 We organized the Moose Mountain Mining Company, 
 Limited. Among those who took stock, in addition to the 
 quarter interest that Mr. Gates signed for, was Mr. John 
 J. Mitchell, president of the Illinois Trust and Savings 
 Bank of Chicago ; James C. Hutchins, attorney for Mr. 
 Mitchell's bank; Mr. John Lambert, a business associ- 
 ate of Mr. Gates ; Blair & Co., New York bankers, and 
 
GATES AND MITCHELL 205 
 
 Joseph W. Sellwood. The agreement we had made ob- 
 ligated them to give me one-fourth of the stock of the 
 company free of carrying charges of all kinds. On my 
 part I was to secure to the company at actual cost all of 
 the Moose Mountain iron ore lands. There were con- 
 ditions and requirements relating to financing and de- 
 veloping the properties. 
 
 I was made president and treasurer of the company. 
 Just as soon as I was given my quarter interest, I di- 
 vided it with a Chicago promoter who had agreed to 
 finance me at Moose Mountain, but had failed to live 
 up to his agreement. As I looked at it he had done his 
 best and so I treated him just as if he had been worthy. 
 
 It turned out to be the most unwarranted business act 
 of my life as I view it now, because this man sent word 
 to me to " go to hell " when it was supposed I was dying. 
 
 I had injured my spine by a fall in the woods. A 
 dead tree trunk lying across a rocky ravine gave way 
 as I walked over it. I fell nearly twenty feet and 
 alighted upon the coccyx on a sharp, jagged rock. This 
 endangered my life. When it was supposed and com- 
 monly reported that I would not recover, a good many 
 interesting things occurred that emphasize the folly of 
 jumping on a man, or consigning him to the eternal 
 bow-wows just because he is going to die. At least wait 
 until he is dead. 
 
 A tailor at Sault Ste. Marie told a lawyer that he had 
 informed me about Moose Mountain, and later claimed 
 he had introduced to me a man who had discovered the 
 iron ore and showed it to me. This entitled him to a 
 share or a commission according to his view, and it 
 might have if there had been a vestige of truth in what 
 he said. Eager to earn a fee and perhaps figuring that 
 my family would settle the claim in order to save me 
 
206 THE IKON HUNTER 
 
 from annoyance while ill, and that if I died it surely 
 would be easy to make the false claim stick, a lawyer 
 took the case. 
 
 There is no law against champerty in Michigan. I 
 was told about the case and insisted that it be held up 
 until I was well enough to fight it. That it was a purely 
 fabricated affair for purpose of robbery could easily be 
 proven. Never thinking that the person with whom I 
 had divided my interest without the cost to him of a 
 penny, would feel otherwise than a deep sense of pleas- 
 ure at the opportunity to be of assistance, I directed my 
 secretary to write him fully as to the details and ask 
 him to look after matters until I recovered. This man 
 also thought I was done for undoubtedly, because he 
 sent me word that I could go to hell; that he was not 
 taking on any law suits that he could duck and so on. 
 
 Of course I was not told this until after some months 
 when I had recovered my health sufficiently to resume 
 work. Then the case was speedily taken into court. 
 They sued for fifty thousand dollars ; finally they offered 
 to settle for various sums down to one thousand dollars. 
 
 Judge Joseph H. Steere then presided as circuit 
 judge where the case was brought. He was my intimate 
 personal friend and business associate. Consequently 
 he asked that another judge should hear the case, and it 
 came up before the late Judge Streeter of Houghton 
 County. Evidently the tailor's lawyer had been fooled, 
 for as soon as a portion of the testimony was in he threw 
 up his hands and the case was dismissed. 
 
 Enough of it was heard to prove clearly that the story 
 was a stupid lie. The claimant said that he had intro- 
 duced a woodsman to me and that this woodsman had 
 shown me the Moose Mountain properties. I proved 
 that the woodsman they produced had never been to 
 
GATES AND MITCHELL 207 
 
 Moose Mountain, even at the time of the trial, and that 
 he had been employed by me to do certain work three 
 years before the tailor claimed he had introduced him 
 to me. It was also clearly proven and made of official 
 record that I had made the discovery of the Moose 
 Mountain Iron Range, the greatest iron ore district in 
 Canada. After the case ended so flatly, the tailor 
 moved away from Sault Ste. Marie. 
 
 Later, when I was a candidate for Governor, the pub- 
 lisher of a paper at Escanaba, Michigan, used this case 
 as a basis for printing libelous statements about me. I 
 had him arrested for criminal libel and he was con- 
 victed. When he published the libel I really believe he 
 thought that he was in the right, because I had known 
 him well and was aware of his high character, his cour- 
 age and his desire to serve the public unflinchingly. Of 
 course such things travel far, so that a man's only fun- 
 damental protection is his own knowledge of himself 
 and within himself of what he really is, for " as a man 
 thinketh in his heart so is he." 
 
 I would not have had the publisher arrested and 
 punished if I had not been convinced that it was a pub- 
 lic duty. Public opinion and the libel laws are the 
 only censors of a free press, and their invocation is the 
 only agency of determining the course of the press be- 
 tween freedom and license. 
 
 At various times I was given chances to sell out my 
 interest at Moose Mountain and I was anxious to do so. 
 There was no stock on the market, it has never been 
 listed, and there was no certain way of measuring its 
 value. Pittsburg parties offered me as much money 
 as. I thought I ever wanted, although the sum was not 
 large as rich men compare and understand amounts. I 
 was eager to sell for a good many reasons. Chiefly I 
 
208- THE IRON HUNTER 
 
 did not enjoy being tied down. We were on the eve 
 of active mining and I did not and do not claim to be a 
 practical mining man. It was my duty, as I looked 
 upon it, to inform my associates of the offer, although 
 there was no agreement that required such a proceeding. 
 
 I went to Chicago and told Mr. Gates and Mr. 
 Mitchell. These men were older than I and had the 
 largest interest in Moose Mountain. More than kindly 
 in their manner towards me they assumed a fatherly at- 
 titude that I shall always remember with gratitude. It 
 was in Mr. Gates' office. He and Mr. Mitchell each put 
 a hand on my shoulders and said : 
 
 " Don't sell now. It isn't enough. We will give 
 you more than your offer. But if we did you might not 
 feel kindly toward us in the long future. You would 
 believe that we had taken an advantage of you, arid we 
 now feel ourselves that we would be doing so if we 
 bought your interest, or permitted you to sell it, for the 
 amount of your offer. Also, we need you with us for 
 a time." 
 
 At that very moment Mr. Gates and Mr. Mitchell 
 and our New York partners were negotiating with 
 McKenzie and Mann, of the Canadian Northern, to take 
 an interest in Moose Mountain and build a railroad into 
 it. I did not know of this. They could just as well 
 have made a few hundred thousands out of my interest 
 as not. But that was not the way of John W. Gates, 
 and it is not the way of that prince of business men, 
 John J. Mitchell, one of the first bankers of America. 
 
 I had already seen President Shaughnessy, of the 
 Canadian Pacific Railway, about building in from Sud- 
 bury, and he had ordered a survey made and the branch 
 line was actually printed upon their maps. But their 
 freight rate on the ore was nearly double that of the 
 
GATES AND MITCHELL 209 
 
 Canadian Northern. Also I had had a number of the 
 best mining men of Lake Superior visit Moose Moun- 
 tain with me, including Messrs. Helberg, Sutherland, 
 Walter Fitch, arid also Professor Seaman, of the Michi- 
 gan College of Mines department of geology. All of 
 them were enthusiastic. Doctor Miller, Ontario Pro- 
 vincial geologist and Doctor Coleman, of the department 
 of geology of Toronto University, were among the many 
 distinguished Canadian mining men and geologists who 
 visited my camp. 
 
CHAPTEK XXIV 
 
 AT THE MOOSE MOUNTAIN CAMP 
 
 ALL of us had moose meat throughout the year. 
 The unwritten law of the unsurveyed country 
 did not make a closed season. The only demand 
 upon us was that nothing should be wasted, and that 
 nothing should be killed that was not used for food or 
 fur. Black bears were a nuisance. As camp robbers 
 they became unbelievably bold. So we had traps out 
 for them all the time. A French youth was our most 
 expert bear trapper. He used pens, deadfalls, pits, 
 steel traps, hooks on trees and sharpened spikes so 
 driven into the open end of a pork barrel, that the bear 
 could crawl in and lick the honey or maple sugar or 
 burnt molasses bait on the bottom of the barrel, but 
 could not crawl out. When the bear would start to 
 back out the spikes would run into him and very soon 
 Jacques would have a frantic bear cavorting around 
 with a barrel on the forward two-thirds of his body, 
 that held to him, and muffled his growls and roars. It 
 was not very humane and I ordered them to kill a bear 
 as soon as they caught him in a barrel. I am afraid 
 that always they did not obey this. 
 
 We also had in our crew an American boy named 
 Harold, about the same age as Jacques. They did not 
 get along well together and several times they clashed, 
 only to a draw. Jacques insisted on flying a Canadian 
 
 210 
 
EATING MOOSE MEAT 211 
 
 English beaver flag over the camp, and Harold would 
 haul it down and run up the Stars and Stripes. Then 
 there would be a fight and no flag at all for some time, 
 when Harold would run up Old Glory and Jacques 
 would pull it down, and another drawn scrap would 
 be pulled off. 
 
 Finally one day Jacques turned up missing. There 
 was no one at the camp except the two boys. All hands 
 had gone out to celebrate Dominion Day, July 1, or 
 for some other reason. Harold searched for Jacques 
 just as faithfully as though they were bosom friends. 
 Finally he heard cries for help and discovered Jacques 
 fast in a steel bear trap. The boy's hand was caught 
 and his fingers crushed. He had stoically suffered and 
 had hallooed for help, but now that Harold was there 
 he would not ask any favors. He afterwards said that 
 he thought, as a matter of course, that Harold would 
 release him at once. The Yankee boy had no such idea. 
 He made the French youth promise to be good and allow 
 the American flag to fly over the camp. When he had 
 settled everything he got a birch lever, and pressing 
 down the huge springs that clamp the ponderous jaws of 
 the bear trap together, he released his rival. There was 
 great friendship between them forever afterwards, and 
 the way Harold took care of Jacques 7 maimed hand was 
 good to see. 
 
 The boys at camp, as boys in the woods always do 
 for entertainment and relief, and by boys I mean all 
 hands young and old, played harmless, though some- 
 times disagreeable, tricks upon every visitor that they 
 dared subject to their fun. A prominent Chicago doc- 
 tor was a guest. He shot a young moose. It was late 
 in August and the two-year-old bull was fat and juicy 
 and just the thing for camp. But it was too good a 
 
212 THE IRON HUNTER 
 
 chance for the boys to have some fun for them to over- 
 look. So they sent word to Sudbury and had the 
 doctor arrested by fake constables, not only at Sudbury 
 but at several towns between there and the American 
 border. Even after the August moose-slayer had gotten 
 out of Canada they had a telegram for his arrest sent 
 to the American Sault. By this time it had gotten on 
 his nerves, as he had spent nearly two hundred dollars 
 in fees, tips, bribes, eats and drinks, and had obtained 
 the impression that the Canadians are the biggest lot 
 of crooks in the world. To escape further persecution 
 he hid in a cellar, and left town towards Chicago on a 
 freight train. 
 
 It was a long time before he discovered that he had 
 not seen a bona-fide Canadian constable, which did not 
 prevent him from continuing the story he had been 
 telling of how he had escaped from the Northwest 
 Mounted Police, when he had not been within a thou- 
 sand miles of where that fine body of men operate. 
 Upon an afternoon in early November Donald Mann's 
 private car was sidetracked at Sudbury. He had not 
 then given into the British exchequer enough to have 
 been made a knight, so he was just plain Dan Mann, a 
 big, wholesome, industrious, brave, enjoyable person. 
 I met him at the railroad and took him to Moose 
 Mountain. 
 
 By this time I had gouged a road into the wilderness 
 and had taken in drills, boiler and other machinery. 
 The road was not a Via Appia by any means. It clam- 
 bered over rocky kopjes and ascended a great norite 
 dyke, that may form the northern rim of a huge volcanic 
 crater that, according to the conjecture of some, includes 
 the entire Sudbury nickel formation. 
 
 This wall of rock gave us a wonderful view that 
 
EATING MOOSE MEAT 213 
 
 strained the vision to the sky line. Not a soul lived, 
 or ever was, where the sweep of eye ranged from hill 
 to valley and lake. Pointed conifers looked like so 
 many green serpent tongues or earth spearmen march- 
 ing up to attack the hosts of Jove. Winding over 
 plains and across muskeg marshes, where the corduroy 
 floated like pontoons and the horses should have been 
 shod with driving calks, the blind worm trail drew us 
 on. My companion speculated upon the agricultural 
 and timber value of the region, and has had his roseate 
 prophecies already justified. We crossed several creeks 
 arid rivers and came to a long, flat stretch of gold-bear- 
 ing sands carried down by the old ice, and by the west 
 branch of the Verraillion. 
 
 Upon this peneplain grew banksian pine arid blue 
 berries and trailing arbutus. At early springtime the 
 air is laden with the smell of heavy sugars of blos- 
 soms. I never pass a sandy stretch similar to this 
 one that I do not especially marvel at the chemistry of 
 nature, and ask where does the floweret growing in the 
 white sand obtain its sensuous breath of sweetest garden 
 love, rare enough to make the wild rose marry the wood 
 violet if God's nature police would permit. 
 
 I told Mr. Mann about a close call I had one early 
 morning in this garden of cpigaea. I had left camp 
 long before daylight. Just when the sun made the iri- 
 descent dew drops clinging to the arbutus sepals look 
 like little fairy soap bubbles, I entered this dry a die 
 stretch. I drank the morning fragrance in all its moist 
 freshness. It seemed to me that I could taste it and I 
 believe I did. 
 
 All at once my senses refused to function, or else 
 everything took on such a dead average of delight that 
 I could neither distinguish nor record it. Greedy for 
 
214 THE IKON HUNTEK 
 
 more of the nectar I got down upon my hands and knees, 
 and crawled among the lush flowers, sniffing and sniffing 
 deep rhinal drafts from the acres of pink and white 
 emarginate clusters that carpeted the earth. Pine 
 needles bore up the hairy vines and waxen leaves, and 
 I did riot make a sound. 
 
 What is it tells us of the presence of the unseen ? A 
 subtle something registers mysteriously and is vaguely 
 communicated to our senses, whereupon we uncon- 
 sciously look up and around. This happened to me 
 while, like Nebuchadnezzar, I was on all fours. 
 
 Horror! an Indian stood with leveled rifle pointing 
 at me. 
 
 I gave a whoop and he gave one too. 
 
 Then he started to run away. I ordered him to 
 stop and he obeyed. He managed to make me under- 
 stand that he had taken me for a bear, and that he 
 would have shot before only I kept on moving, and he 
 waited for a standing shot to make it sure. When he 
 saw me as a man he was greatly frightened because of 
 the Indian superstition that a bear, and also some other 
 animals, may turn into a man. 
 
 The bear is nearly always an Indian avatar. Nor 
 was the Indian aware of the presence of a white man 
 in that country. It was a close call indeed. I was 
 glad. The Indian was glad. I gave him all of the 
 tobacco I had and we parted good friends. Some time 
 later I saw him on the Abitibi. 
 
CHAPTER XXV 
 
 SIB DONALD MANN PROPOSES TO USE DOUBLE-BITTED AXES 
 AS WEAPONS IN A DUEL WITH A RUSSIAN COUNT 
 
 I ENJOYED Dan Mann all the time. He was as 
 open as a full moon and looked as honest. Our 
 first night together in the big woods was spent 
 like boys who had not seen each other for a long time. 
 That was the way it was with us, for we had never seen 
 each other before except that all real men are always 
 boys and very much alike; it is only when there is 
 something the matter with men that they are queer and 
 different. We talked nearly all night. He told me 
 quite fully the remarkable story of his life his inter- 
 esting association with McKenzie, their very modern 
 financiering and much of the business minutiae, the 
 mastery of which is by some standards of judging 
 supposed to make men great. 
 
 Both McKenzie and Mann had started as poor boys 
 in Canada. Mann did not go to school. He had to 
 work or starve. In the winter he went to the woods as 
 a lumberjack. One winter he spent in Cheboygan 
 County, Michigan, making ties. He became a fine ax- 
 man and expert in swinging a broad ax. 
 
 From the woods and the ranks of a common section 
 laborer he developed in early middle life to be a wizard 
 of industry, and a transcontinental railroad builder. 
 The McKenzie and Mann policy, bv which they con- 
 
 215 
 
216 THE IRON HUNTER 
 
 structed disconnected portions of railroads across the 
 country, and obtained many small land grants and bo- 
 nuses without attracting the opposition of the powerful 
 Canadian Pacific and Grand Trunk giants, is a story 
 unexcelled of clever business and political strategy. 
 When they got ready they just connected a lot of blind 
 termini and lo! a transcontinental fabric. When it 
 was too late the enemy awakened. There is room for 
 all of them. 
 
 I think it was our second night together in the woods 
 when I asked him about a duel he had in China, ac- 
 cording to a story told me in Tien Tsin by Captain 
 Rich, then American railroad engineer for the Chinese 
 government. 
 
 " It was such a fool thing," he said, " and I was 
 scared to death and could not see any humor in it then. 
 A lot of us had gone to China to obtain railroad fran- 
 chises. The railroad building world was represented: 
 Americans, British, Germans, Belgians, French, Rus- 
 sians and so forth, in Shanghai. We were the only Ca- 
 nadians and the foreigners never knew whether to class 
 us with the British or the Americans. The Chinese 
 government had decided to build railroads. They were 
 determined thus to connect Pekin with Canton, via 
 Hankow on the Yangtse. Captain Rich of Minneapolis 
 had charge of things for Li Hung Chang, who was then 
 at his zenith of power, the old rascal. There was much 
 delay. We were making our headquarters at Shanghai. 
 
 " Some of us combined our interests and finally there 
 were several pools working, one against the other. In 
 the evening we would gather at a place on Bubbling 
 Well Road, which as you know runs back from the bund 
 to the country near the International Institute. 
 
 " Here we would play a stiff game of poker, drink 
 
DUEL WITH A RUSSIAN COUNT 217 
 
 Scotch whiskey and josh each other. I had it in my 
 head all the time that a Russian, with a title, who was 
 always eager to sit in, was crooked. I watched him. 
 One night, near twelve o'clock, when several were 
 woozy with booze, and several were not who pretended 
 to be, I caught Mr. Russian holding out cards. Ho 
 wasn't as big as the Slav average, and when I slapped 
 him for calling me a liar he nearly went down. There 
 was some commotion, which soon passed over, and I 
 went to my room in the Astor House. Hotels all over 
 the world were named in those days for the old lower 
 Broadway Astor House of the forties. 
 
 " Next day I received a challenge to fight. It made 
 me nervous enough. Not being what is called a natural 
 born gentleman, I was all the more anxious to conduct 
 myself becomingly. I had never had a pistol or a 
 sword in my hands, and I felt squeamish in my abdo- 
 men whenever I thought about it. Nothing to do but 
 to go to a Shanghai friend. He asked me what weapons 
 I knew how to use and told me it was my privilege to 
 choose. I told him I had never had any practice with 
 anything except a pick, shovel and ax. 
 
 " My friend advised me to select double-bitted axes 
 as weapons. 
 
 " I knew I could easily cut the Russian's head off 
 with an ax and I fancy he thought so too, because his 
 agent said they would not even consider a fight with such 
 weapons ; that they were vulgar and did not come within 
 the code duello. 
 
 " My friend told him that in Canada the ax was a 
 weapon of chivalry; that it was classical to speak of 
 burying or digging up the hatchet, meaning a small 
 ax, and that it was the sword that was vulgar, citing 
 that they used it to cut corn with and butcher hogs. 
 
218 THE IRON HUNTER 
 
 " There was much parleying. We stuck for the ay 
 and the duel was off. As the Russian backed off I got 
 very blood-thirsty, and pictured myself constantly as 
 swinging at his neck just at the collar button with a 
 five-pound, double-edged ax. Perhaps he had a wart 
 on his neck. If so I would split it clean through the 
 center." 
 
 Going over Moose Mountain lands seemed to be a 
 more or less perfunctory work for Mr. Mann. He was 
 large and heavy, and had been riding in a private car 
 too much for the good of his wind. I showed him the 
 biggest outcrop, a veritable mountain of ore it looked, 
 and took him to several exposures I had stripped, and 
 also showed him many diamond drill cores. 
 
 " What's the use ? " he puffed. " That first big show- 
 ing is enough and to spare if we can agree on a pricei, 
 and all the rest is velvet. 77 
 
 I did not know that a visitor from Paris that I had 
 entertained at Moose Mountain for some days, and 
 who seemed deeply interested, was really an expert for 
 McKenzie and Mann. 
 
 They wanted the property for financing purposes. 
 With it they could make a strong showing of the wealth 
 surely existent in the unknown domain. Cobalt was 
 just beginning to make known its fabulous riches in 
 silver. It would be easy to make an exhibit that would 
 enable them to obtain all the money they desired. 
 
 In this way I sold my Moose Mountain interests for 
 enough to insure a modest independence, and to per- 
 mit me to live such life of study and readiness for 
 public service as I might choose. 
 
 McKenzie and Mann built many miles of railroad by 
 way of connecting their transcontinental links, and in 
 doing so they opened this great mining region. A 
 
DUEL WITH A RUSSIAN COUNT 219 
 
 branch to Key Inlet, on Georgian Bay, gave them a 
 harbor and place for ore docks and water shipment. 
 
 Mr. Mann volunteered to name for me the town that 
 would grow at Moose Mountain. Mr. Sell wood de- 
 sired the honor. I did not know this. To me it was a 
 small matter indeed. When Mr. Sell wood broached it 
 to Mr. Mann, the latter remembered his promise to 
 me. 
 
 "That's nothing," said the former, "let's play a 
 game of seven-up. You represent Osborn. If I win 
 the town will be given my name; if you win, call it 
 Osborn." 
 
 Sellwood won and I am glad of it. He has a good 
 many monuments and deserves them all. 
 
 My first thought when I received the money from 
 Moose Mountain, was of my wife. She had stood by 
 valiantly from twelve dollars a week and wolves, until 
 now we had quite enough to enjoy life with; not that 
 life had not been enjoyable all the time, because it had 
 been. 
 
 I made and carried out plans to help all our relatives 
 who needed help. This included the happy privilege 
 of insuring the comfort of my mother for the remainder 
 of her wonderful life of suffering and service. I also 
 made provision for continuing the care of two brothers, 
 who were entirely dependent upon me because of com- 
 plete invalidism. 
 
 There was neither disinclination to do these things, 
 nor self-praise for the performance. It seemed to me 
 to be a clear and pleasing duty. I had been blessed 
 with means and health and they had not. Perhaps 
 God had given me some for them and made me a 
 trustee. I thought He had, and that I owed it to them. 
 Then, too, I could not tell why I was not in their place 
 
220 THE IRON HUNTER 
 
 and they in mine, so I was determined to treat them as 
 I would have wished to have been treated if our condi- 
 tions had been reversed. 
 
 My youngest brother William, possessing an alert and 
 acute intellect, has been completely bedridden for years 
 and has suffered severe pain. Throughout all of it, and 
 the prospects no better for as long as he lives, he has 
 been a cheerful Christian with the best personal phi- 
 losophy I have ever known about. 
 
 From time to time I have given things to my home 
 town, Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, which has always 
 shown me a sympathy and friendship and support that 
 would be a sufficient reward for any man, no matter if 
 his deserts were easily much greater than mine; and 
 an inspiration as well. In return for its attitude I 
 loved the town and all its people, and nurtured always 
 in my heart a desire to do things for it. I could not 
 give it much, but I could do what lay within my power 
 to show my appreciation. Early in my travels I began 
 to select curios for the fine Melville museum in the 
 high school. Once in Japan I procured the first stone 
 torii ever sent to America and also several Shinto me- 
 morial lanterns. These artistic things are in the gov- 
 ernment park at the Sault. 
 
 In Bucharest I saw a bronze lupa di Roma, the she 
 wolf that gave mothering care to Romulus and Remus. 
 It was given by the city of Rome to the city of Bucharest 
 to commemorate the conquest of the Dacians by Trojan. 
 I had a duplicate cast at Naples, which now occupies a 
 place in the city hall grounds. It symbolizes the tender 
 relation between animals and mankind, and their inter- 
 dependence. Italians at Sault Ste. Marie at once par- 
 ticularly sensed its classical bearing. A miniature rep- 
 
DUEL WITH A RUSSIAN COUNT 221 
 
 lica of this wolf in gold was recently given to Mrs. 
 Woodrow Wilson by the city of Rome. 
 
 When Etienne Brule came to Sault Ste. Marie in 
 1618, he found the majestic river bank flanked by great 
 elms, indigenous here. Long ago almost all of these 
 paid tribute to the axmen, who might easily have spared 
 these noble trees, but did not. To restore them, and 
 also cure a treeless city, I gave a thousand young elms. 
 Several hundred are growing finely and in a few years 
 will change and improve the appearance of the town. 
 
 As a tired boy in Milwaukee I often slept on Sunday 
 morning, in a room near St. James Episcopal Church, 
 until the chimes of St. James would awaken me. Then 
 I would lie and listen, and half awake I would dream 
 things. My room was in a cheap tenement, back on 
 Clybourne Street. St. James is on stately Grand 
 Avenue. 
 
 It was then the church of Alexander Mitchell and 
 other millionaires. Across from it was the Mitchell 
 mansion, and near to it on the east was the rich home 
 of James Kneeland, with well-kept grounds and swans, 
 and ducks with red mandibles, floating in a miniature 
 mirror lake. It was then all another world, and I felt 
 awed by it. This did not curb my dreams. Some day 
 I would give chimes to some town, and they would be 
 heard by other poor boys whose hearts would be made 
 glad and light by the songs of the bells. 
 
 Better chimes than those and better played, and more 
 and larger bells eleven in all hang in St. James, 
 of Sault Ste. Marie. That is how I, a Presbyterian, 
 came to give the bells to an Episcopal church. Not 
 more grand would they peal forth for any name or 
 creed. 
 
222 THE IRON HUNTER 
 
 How are we moved about like checkers on the board 
 of life. My dear friend, the rector of St. James of 
 Sault Ste. Marie when the bells were hung, is now, as 
 I write, the rector of St. James of Milwaukee. But 
 the pride and power of yesterday are gone for St. James 
 of Milwaukee, and it is a better and more useful church. 
 I love it for those chimes of long ago. 
 
CHAPTEK XXVI 
 
 WORLD WORKERS IN IRON IN ALL AGES 
 
 THERE is no way of telling much about the be- 
 ginning of the age of iron. Kitchen middens 
 and heaps of flint chips tell the story of the 
 service of bones and stones all over the world where 
 primitive man has left his wild kindergarten marks. 
 Copper implements were used at a very early time, and 
 there were copper shops at many places about Lake Su- 
 perior where the native metal was beaten into knives, 
 spoons, pans, pots and other utensils. One of the 
 largest single discoveries of prehistoric copper imple- 
 ments was made at Sault Ste. Marie, at a place once an 
 island in St. Mary's River, but now an esker-like ridge 
 of stream-washed gravel and boulders that marks the 
 topography of the town from west to east. I have my 
 modest home on this old ridge. Such finds as this one 
 of well-made articles that seemed to be harder than the 
 native metal have given rise to the common but er- 
 roneous belief that the ancients knew how to temper 
 copper, an art lost to this age. The outer surface of the 
 beaten copper is somewhat harder from pounding and 
 water and air hardening. 
 
 But almost never is anything of iron found with the 
 stones or the bones or the copper. This is not because 
 iron was not wrought, but because it is more perishable 
 
 when exposed to oxygen, either in the air or water, even 
 
 223 
 
224 THE IKON HUNTEK 
 
 than wood under some conditions. There is reason to 
 believe that iron-making was the first work in metals 
 done by mankind, because the art is advanced beyond 
 any other among the wholly uncivilized tribes of Africa 
 and in other parts of the world where primitive man ex- 
 ists to-day. 
 
 From Somaliland to Zululand in Africa I found iron 
 hoes and iron assegai points common among the wild 
 natives. The making of these gave employment to con- 
 siderable numbers of persons. There was a distinct 
 class of iron workers in every tribe of any size, except 
 among such lowly ones as the pigmy Dokos or others 
 of their undeveloped kind. The art was handed down 
 from father to son, and while methods were similar, 
 there was variety in them and also a difference in skill. 
 They smelted ores, and do so yet, except where scraps 
 of iron can be procured. Some workers used stones for 
 hammers and bark-tied, hardened wood for tongs; 
 others had iron hammers and tongs quite well fashioned. 
 Stone anvils are used, and the smith usually sits at his 
 work. Sometimes hollowed sticks of wood were used 
 to hold the cold end of the piece of iron that was being 
 wrought. Bellows are most often made of the hide of 
 an ox or some other animal, often of goat skins. In one 
 corner of the bag thus formed is a wooden pipe about a 
 yard long and bound in air tight with rawhide thongs. 
 The other end of the skin bag is fastened to pieces of 
 flattened wood forming a mouth that shuts quite tight 
 when the bellows is being operated. This was done by 
 hand, the smith's assistant holding on to rawhide 
 handles above and below on the wooden jaws. A stone 
 weight on the wooden pipe holds the bellows down quite 
 firmly. Two bellows are used. By working them al- 
 ternately a steady blast of air of considerable force is 
 
WOULD WOEKEKS IN IRON 225 
 
 secured. A clay tunnel connects the wooden pipe outlet 
 of the bellows with a charcoal fire built in a rude forge 
 in the ground. 
 
 For smelting iron ore a larger number of bellows were 
 employed. Very often I found abandoned ant houses 
 utilized for a furnace and the natives even drive out 
 the ants and use their formidable formicaries not only 
 for furnaces, but also for grain bins and even for human 
 dwellings. 
 
 Their native hoes contained good enough iron so that 
 a gun maker at Birmingham made an Enfield rifle out 
 of some that Livingstone sent to England. 
 
 Abbe Rochon, of France, member of the Academies 
 of Sciences of Paris and Peter sburgh, Astronomer of 
 the Marine, Keeper of the King's Philosophical Cabinet, 
 Inspector of Machines, Money, etc., was in Madagascar 
 in 1768. Referring to iron ore he says : " Iron mines 
 of an excellent quality are dispersed in great profusion 
 all over the island, and very near to the surface of the 
 earth. The Malegaches break and pound the ore and 
 place it between four stones lined with potter's clay; 
 they then employ a double wooden pump, instead of a 
 pair of bellows, to give the fire more strength (blast) ; 
 and in the space of an hour the mineral is in a state of 
 fusion. The iron produced by this operation is soft 
 and malleable : no better is known in the world." 
 
 Abbe Rochon was a wide traveler as an official and 
 scientific observer. In his opinion the ancient Malag- 
 asy iron furnace was peculiar to that people. Inci- 
 dentally he also tells an interesting story about an ad- 
 venturer in Madagascar who buncoed Benjamin Frank- 
 lin. Poor Richard gave Benjowski letters of recom- 
 mendation which he used in America to organize an ill- 
 fated expedition for the seizure of Madagascar. Ben- 
 
226 THE IKON HUNTER 
 
 jowski was killed by French marines. I was interested 
 in seeing the spot where he came to grief. 
 
 All African travelers report seeing iron ore and iron 
 workers, so it is certain that it is distributed all over 
 that continent. I found big outcroppings of iron ore 
 near to both coal and limestone. Blue hematite speci- 
 mens that I brought out and had analyzed turned out 
 to be of fine Bessemer quality. There is no iron manu- 
 facturing in Africa except the rude native operations, 
 but it is entirely possible and even probable that Africa 
 will supply the world with steel, as it surely can do. 
 Even now there is a considerable shipment to America 
 and Europe of chrome iron ore from the mines near 
 Selukwe in Southern Rhodesia. The only other large 
 production of chrome iron ore is from the French mines 
 in New Caledonia. 
 
 In every one of the eighteen provinces of China as 
 well as in Manchuria there are deposits of iron ore. 
 I have visited many of these. Some of them have 
 been worked for centuries in a small and clumsy man- 
 ner, not much better than the Africans did. Lack of 
 pumping facilities kept them on the surface, but even 
 if pumps had been available they would not have been 
 used on account of feng shui: their fear of offending 
 the earth demons. Both men and women work as 
 miners. The men are paid an equivalent of four to 
 five cents in our money and the women two to six cents 
 for a day of eight hours. In addition some rice and a 
 vegetable called miso are served. 
 
 A little while before he died Li Hung Chang estab- 
 lished a steel plant near Hankow, the first one in China. 
 It was a kind of junk affair at first, but has been im- 
 proved. 
 
 Iron working in China is an ancient art and at some 
 
WORLD WORKERS IN IRON 227 
 
 periods reached a high state of perfection. In Chinese 
 collections I saw fine coats of mail for man and horse 
 made of delicate woven wire, so as to be light, elastic 
 and effective; also lances, shields, chains, traps and 
 other things made before guns came into use. 
 
 There are great iron ore deposits and coal measures 
 in Shansi, Chi-li, Shantung and Yunnan. In fact, 
 there is more or less iron ore in all of the Chinese 
 provinces. The iron district in Shansi and extending 
 beyond is one of the largest in the world and will some 
 day be a source of world's supply. At the present time 
 very little is being done. I visited a number of surface 
 workings in Shansi, where the methods are crude in- 
 deed, although they do produce an engraving steel of 
 unexampled hardness. A great many persons were 
 employed in iron ore mining and in iron making. 
 Their condition of life is very miserable and their pay 
 is less than two cents a day in our values. Ignorance 
 and superstition seem to be instruments of conservation 
 in China, just as avarice is the cause of feverish destruc- 
 tion in our country. Some day the world will turn to 
 China for iron and coal and the vast untouched quan- 
 tities there of these twin necessities will be appreciated. 
 During 1916, 1917 and 1918 Japan has made large 
 loans to the Northern Chinese government, taking as 
 security vast mineral concessions comprehending all of 
 China's known iron ore fields. It is even charged that 
 Japan took advantage of the world's engrossment in 
 war to exploit China. If the Northern forces are vic- 
 torious in the civil war in China, a final title may be 
 obtained by Japan. But if the Southern armies win, 
 Japan will get nothing; nor is she likely to profit by 
 a compromise that seems probable between Canton and 
 Pekin. Japan's attempt is a gamble in iron ore. 
 
228 THE IKON HUNTEE 
 
 I spent several months following the tracks of Abbe 
 Hue in China, and the trails of Marco Polo not only in 
 China, but in other countries of Asia. Polo began his 
 travels in 1260. In that age his tours were a source of 
 world wonder. He brought back to Europe informa- 
 tion of incalculable value about the work of mankind 
 in the Orient where in every channel of activity there 
 was higher development. Men in the Orient were 
 thinking better and working with their hands better 
 than the people of the West. Europe was just begin- 
 ning to see the dawn of a new day after centuries of 
 decadence and obliteration. A great many pronounced 
 Polo an impostor and discredited his reports. Others 
 believed in him and through these Europe was to have 
 the benefit of Polo's travels and learning. It is aston- 
 ishing how many of the modern arts in their develop- 
 ment in the western world can be traced to a period 
 coeval with the post-Polo era. Before that the use of 
 coal was scarcely known, if at all, in Europe. Iron 
 making was nearly as primitive as it is in the wilds of 
 Africa to-day. In China, Persia, Arabia, Turkey and 
 India Polo learned by hearsay or actual contact and ob- 
 servation of vast deposits of iron ore and of most won- 
 derful handicraft in steel of the finest texture. Con- 
 cerning these things in the kingdom of Kerman, then 
 recently conquered by the Tartars, Polo reported 
 " plenty of veins of steel and ondanique ; the people are 
 skillful in making steel harness of war, swords, bows, 
 quivers, arms of every kind, bridle bits, spurs, needles, 
 etc." The " steel " mines referred to are probably the 
 Parpa iron mines on the road from Kerman to Shiraz, 
 called even to-day M'aden-i-fulad (steel mine) ; they are 
 idle now. I saw old Kerman weapons, daggers, knives, 
 stirrups and other things made from steel, of exquisite 
 
WORLD WORKERS IN IRON 229 
 
 workmanship and more than justifying all of Polo's 
 praise. 
 
 It is not quite certain what is meant by Polo's " ondan- 
 ique." Ramusio, of Venice, often asked Persian mer- 
 chants who visited him about it. They agreed in stat- 
 ing that it was a kind of steel of such surpassing 
 excellence and value that in the ancient days a man 
 who possessed a mirror or a sword of andanic or ondan- 
 ique regarded it as he would a precious jewel. 
 
 The sword blades of India had a great fame all over 
 the East and I heard them referred to as having been 
 made by workmen now extinct, with whose passing also 
 was lost an irrecoverable art. At Teheran I learned 
 that Indian blades and considerable fine Indian steel 
 had been imported until quite recent times. 
 
 Ctesias mentions two woncferful Indian swords that 
 he got from the King of Persia and his mother. It is 
 not unlikely that this fine Indian steel is the ferrum 
 candidum of which the Malli and Oxydracae sent one 
 hundred talents weight as a present to Alexander the 
 Great. Indian iron and steel are mentioned in the 
 Periplus as imports into the Abyssinian ports and to 
 this day may be seen fine steel spear heads and imple- 
 ments at Dire Doua and Addis Abeba, perhaps relics 
 of those ancient imports. 
 
 Ferrum Indicum appears among the Oriental prod- 
 ucts subject to duty in the Roman tariffs of Marcus 
 Aurelius and Commodus. Salmasius notes that among 
 the rare Greek chemical writings there is a metallur- 
 gical paper " On the Tempering of Indian Steel." 
 
 Edrisi mentions that excellent iron was produced in 
 the " cold mountains " northwest of Jiruft. In the 
 Jihan Numa, or Great Turkish Geography, is the state- 
 ment that the "steel" mines of Miriz, on the borders 
 
230 THE IKON HUNTEK 
 
 of Kerman, were famous. Teixeira substantiates this, 
 Says Edrisi : " The Hindus excel in the manufacture 
 of iron and in the preparation of those ingredients 
 along with which it is fused to obtain that kind of soft 
 iron which is usually styled Indian steel. They also 
 have workshops wherein are forged the most famous 
 sabers in the world. It is impossible to find anything to 
 surpass the edge you get from Indian steel." 
 
 Arabic literature contains many references to the 
 fame of the sword blades of India. Even the ancient 
 poets sang of them as may be read about in Freytag's 
 translation of Hamasa's collection of old Arab verse. 
 Timur used Indian blades, and had for his own use 
 a Hindu sword of matchless fineness. In the accounts 
 of the Mohammedan conquest of India and on down 
 through the reigns of Akbar, Shah Jahan and other 
 Mughals, the Hindu disbelievers' execution is referred 
 to as being sent to Jihannam with the well- watered 
 blade of the Hindu sword. The sword is consequently 
 personified as a " Hindu of Good Family," according 
 to the idea that a dead Hindu recalcitrant was the only 
 good Hindu, the origin no doubt of the American phrase 
 as applied to the American aborigine, " A good Indian 
 is a dead Indian." 
 
 Throughout the Malay Archipelago I found primitive 
 iron furnaces such as were used thousands of years ago 
 in Arabia and India, suggesting that they were per- 
 haps inducted by Arab traders. In Madagascar I saw 
 a different type of furnace that seemed to have been 
 originated by the Malagasy. Indeed work in iron has 
 been a dignified art and distinctive industry all over 
 the world for multiplied centuries. 
 
 Chardin says of the steel of Persia : " They combine 
 it with Indian steel which is more tractable and held in 
 
WOELD WORKEKS IN IRON 231 
 
 greater estimation." Dupre, a hundred years ago, 
 writes that he had thought that the famous Persian 
 sabers were made from ore from certain mines in Khor- 
 asan, but that he had discovered himself in error in that 
 there are " no mines of steel " in that province, and 
 that he had learned of the use of steel disks imported 
 from Lahore. 
 
 Kenrick suggests that the " bright iron " mentioned 
 by Ezekiel in chapter xxvn as among the wares of 
 Tyre, must have been Indian steel, because mentioned 
 in connection with calamus and cassia and other exports 
 from India. 
 
 Pottinger enumerates steel among the imports from 
 India into Kerman. Elphinstone the Accurate, in his 
 Caubul, tells how much Indian steel is prized in Af- 
 ghanistan, but that the best swords are made in Persia 
 and in Syria. In his " History of India " he calls at- 
 tention to the fact that the ancients sought steel in India 
 and that the oldest known Persian poem contains praise 
 of it; that it continues to be the material used in the 
 scintillating scimitars of Damascus and Khorasan. 
 
 An old Indian officer in the British service found no 
 common knowledge of steel-making among the people. 
 He tried to tell a native, who claimed that steel ore 
 and iron ore were separate and distinct materials, how 
 steel was manufactured. The Indian was disgusted 
 and displayed his feelings plainly by exclaiming: 
 " You would have me believe that if I put an ass in the 
 furnace it will come forth a horse." 
 
 Paulus Jovius in the sixteenth century speaks of 
 the high repute of Kerman scimitars and lance points. 
 The blades were eagerly sought by the Turks. Such 
 was their unusual reputation for quality that it was a 
 common boast that with one blow a Kerman sword 
 
232 THE IRON HUNTEE 
 
 would cleave a European metal helmet without turning 
 the edge. 
 
 Undoubtedly the art of fabricating fine steel and of 
 generally utilizing iron ore was known at the very dawn 
 of history and is even prehistoric. The world has 
 shifted its skill to the Occident. Volumes are required 
 to tell the story of iron ore and its manufacture in 
 Europe, where the Germans, Swedes and English have 
 rivaled each other in methods and production. Now 
 the great industry has crossed the Atlantic to find its 
 highest development in both quality and volume. The 
 United States leads the world in iron ore production 
 and in its manufacture. It is an enviable position, 
 with many interclashing responsibilities. The largest 
 business organization in the world is devoted to the 
 iron industry. As one stands illumined by the furnace 
 incandescence in some vast modern forge of Vulcan, 
 with its wearing human machinery and its ponderous 
 but delicately adjusted cranes, dippers, cars and rolls, 
 all moving as perfectly as watch wheels at the magic 
 touch of subtle electric currents, he cannot escape the 
 wish that man's relation to man might be as perfectly 
 and happily arranged. 
 
CHAPTER XXVII 
 
 CONCENTRATION OF LEAN ORES IN THE UNITED STATES 
 
 SIDERITE MAGNETITE HEMATITE 
 
 AT some of the great open pit mines in the Mesaba 
 district of Minnesota, sixty per cent, iron ore 
 has been mined and loaded on the cars for less 
 than five cents a ton, even charging to cost account the 
 outlay for removing forty to sixty feet of overburden 
 that covered the ore lense. When this is taken into 
 consideration and also the added fact that there are 
 adequate high grade ore reserves developed and unde- 
 veloped to supply the world for a hundred years and 
 longer, it is almost amazing that lean ores can be profit- 
 ably used in America. And yet they are. The high 
 grade iron ores known outside of the United States are 
 of uncertain volume, and those in the Scandinavian 
 arctics and in Brazil and China are not advantageously 
 located. Consequently what are regarded in this coun- 
 try as lean ores are esteemed of great value in other iron- 
 making countries. 
 
 I visited the magnetic concentrating plants in Lulea 
 and Dunderland and found them producing a high- 
 grade ore by concentrating processes that are successful. 
 Far more unusual and interesting is the successful use 
 of lean ores in America, where the high-grade ores are 
 not only plenteous but are located perfectly for both 
 economic mining and transportation. On the Meno- 
 minee Range at Iron Mountain, near my old home at 
 
 233 
 
234 THE IRON HUNTER 
 
 Florence, an ore running about thirty per cent, in 
 metallic iron has been profitably produced at the Pewa- 
 bic mine. This ore is low in phosphorus and high in 
 silica and is an ideal mixing material with Mesaba 
 ores. On a Minnesota range thirty-five per cent, ores 
 are raised to fifty-eight per cent, by washing. The 
 clumsy " grizzlies " used in this process are most ef- 
 fective. At Duluth, Hay den, Stone & Company and 
 their associates have a large experimental plant where 
 magnetic ores containing thirty per cent, of metal are 
 enriched to sixty-two and one-half per cent, by an in- 
 genious electrical treatment perfected by a Hoosier. 
 They treat one hundred tons of rocklike material a day, 
 which is finally transformed into a rich sinter that is in 
 demand. This method alone will make it possible to 
 utilize millions upon millions of tons of lean magnetite 
 that belts Lake Superior like a containing encasement. 
 The only place in North America that siderite is con- 
 centrated is at the Magpie Mine on the Lake Superior 
 north shore in Canada, above Sault Ste. Marie. The 
 siderite deposits there are very extensive. They are 
 located in a wilderness abounding in caribou, moose, 
 bear and wolves and other wildest animals, where I ex- 
 plored for several years. A formidable plant has been 
 erected for the treatment of these ores by a method 
 adopted from Austria, where siderite was largely and 
 successfully refined before the war. The operations 
 have been of especial interest to American miners of 
 iron ore and metallurgists. Although new and most 
 unusual in this country, the Magpie siderite operation 
 presents no complications and is in fact simple. The 
 roasting is done in regular cement kilns eight feet in di- 
 ameter, one hundred twenty-five feet long, inclined one- 
 half inch per foot and rotated once in two minutes. 
 
CONCEISTTKATION OF LEAN OKES 235 
 
 The ore is crushed to about three inches and fed into the 
 upper end of this kiln. The lower end of the kiln is 
 fired with powdered coal, pulverized so that ninety per 
 cent, will pass a two hundred mesh screen. A single 
 piece of ore remains in the kiln about three hours ; that 
 is, that is the length of time it takes for the ore to 
 work its way from the intake to the discharge end. 
 
 Ordinary siderite, without any sulphur present in 
 the form of pyrites, requires very little heat for driving 
 off the CO 2 gas and changing the ore into hematite. 
 This is an index of Nature's method. Magpie ore how- 
 ever contains about one per cent, sulphur and eight per 
 cent. lime. As the lime has a strong affinity for the 
 sulphur, it requires a finishing temperature of about 
 1100 degrees Centigrade to dead roast the ore, that is 
 to eliminate all the sulphur. At the Helen Mine in the 
 same district there is a siderite which runs somewhat 
 higher in sulphur than above. They experimented 
 with this at the Magpie and found that a rotary kiln 
 will not satisfactorily handle the ore containing over 
 two per cent, in sulphur. The roasting drives off the 
 volatile and at the same time reduces the sulphur to a 
 point suitable for the blast furnace. 
 
 The siderite, together with the other carbonates, oc- 
 curs as a band standing nearly vertical and striking 
 northeast and southwest. This band is broken by fold- 
 ing and faults at several points. The width of the 
 siderite being mined varies from twenty-eight feet to 
 sixty-two feet, the average width being about forty-two 
 feet. The carbonate deposit, as a whole, is a sedi- 
 mentary bed lying between a series of acid and basic 
 flaws and tuffs of volcanic origin. The wall rock on the 
 south is talcose schist with well defined schistosity, while 
 on the north it is an ellipsoidal basalt showing very 
 
236 THE IKON HUNTER 
 
 little schistosity. The contacts are not well defined 
 and are not clean, so that much care is necessary in 
 mining to make sure that no ore is left on the wall and 
 that no rock is broken into the stopes. Underground 
 the schist on the south wall has very much the appear- 
 ance of the ore, but the drill cuttings from the holes 
 give a good indication of when the wall is reached. 
 The body being mined has an approximate length of 
 1350 feet. The carbonate band is very much longer 
 than this but narrows down on either end so that it is 
 not found profitable to mine the ore except in this area. 
 
 In roasting the siderite at the Magpie there is a loss 
 in volatile of about thirty per cent, by weight, so that 
 nearly three tons of ore have to be mined to produce two 
 tons of finished material. Taking this into considera- 
 tion, together with the fact that the actual roasting op- 
 eration costs are considerable, it was necessary to devise 
 a very cheap mining system in order to make the opera- 
 tion as a whole commercially successful. Several min- 
 ing methods were studied and approximate costs 
 worked out, but before any method was definitely chosen, 
 it was decided to sink the shaft and open up drifts 
 on two main haulage levels to definitely determine 
 the nature of the ground and the material to be 
 mined. 
 
 The shaft was therefore started on the north side of 
 the ore body about sixty feet from the north contact 
 of the ore. The shaft is twenty-four feet by eight feet 
 in the rough, and is timbered with twelve inch by 
 twelve inch sets, so that the inside dimensions are 
 twenty-two feet by six feet. It is divided into four 
 compartments, two skip compartments for balanced 
 Kimberly skips, one cage compartment and one ladder 
 and pipe way. The shaft was sunk two hundred and 
 
CONCENTRATION OF LEAN ORES 237 
 
 five feet to the second level. It was decided to use 
 eighty-foot levels and to leave a forty-five foot floor 
 pillar to surface. A crosscut was run on each level 
 from the shaft to the south contact of the ore, and drifts 
 started from here in either direction, these drifts follow- 
 ing the south contact as nearly as possible. The nature 
 of the ore passed through in these drifts was closely ob- 
 served and samples taken and analyses made for each 
 ten-foot section of the drifts. No timber was necessary 
 in any of the drifts, but it was noted that the ore showed 
 a great number of slips or cleavage planes. These 
 slips have no general direction but intersect each other 
 at all angles and are extremely smooth. In scaling a 
 new drift, large wedge-shape pieces will fall out from 
 the first blow of the scaling bar, but when a drift is once 
 thoroughly scaled, very little material loosens from later 
 blasting. On account of this feature of the ore, it was 
 necessary to determine on a method of mining which 
 would always keep the miners close to the back and 
 under cover. It was therefore decided to use the sub- 
 level stoping system in mining this deposit. 
 
 The ore body was blocked off into three stopes longi- 
 tudinally, divided opposite the shaft by a fifty-foot 
 shaft pillar, and four hundred feet west of the shaft by 
 a diabase dyke, one hundred feet wide, which cuts the 
 body at right angles. This gives three stopes on each 
 level, approximately four hundred feet long. To de- 
 velop these stopes, a raise is put up at each end of the 
 block and a sublevel run to connect the raises. The first 
 sub is eighteen feet above the level. The other sublevels 
 are twenty-three feet from floor to floor. On the upper 
 levels, three subs are used between levels, but below the 
 second level four subs are used, making the distance 
 between levels one hundred and three feet. After the 
 
238 THE IRON HUNTER 
 
 stopes have been developed in this manner, the raise at 
 the end of the block nearest the shaft is made into a 
 permanent ladder and pipe way. Air lines are run 
 along the floor of the subs to the far end, and mining 
 commenced. Machines are set to work breaking down 
 around the raise at the far end of the block and this 
 opening is enlarged until the stope is completely cut 
 off. The first sub is then drawn back about fifty to 
 sixty feet. By keeping the first sub back this distance, 
 the muck does not run into the face. This also gives 
 the men working on this sub a chance to hand blast a 
 proportion of the larger pieces which break from the 
 upper benches. Most of these drop so that they can be 
 reached from the first sub. Those dropping in the open 
 stope have to be blasted as they come down into the 
 chutes. 
 
 After the stope has been cut off from wall to wall, 
 section cutting is done on each sub. At first it was the 
 intention to carry the subs step fashion with the upper 
 subs overhanging the lower ones, but the ground was 
 found to be so full of cleavage planes that these over- 
 hanging benches fell when blasting out the section cut, 
 so that now all the subs, except the bottom ones, are 
 carried back together, the face of the stope being ver- 
 tical. In section cutting the stope, the machine is set 
 up in the sub and an eight-foot bench blasted off. This 
 requires five holes, two in front and three behind. 
 These holes are about seven feet deep and break to the 
 bottom. Very little mucking is necessary for the next 
 set-up and little scaling as the back is only eight feet 
 high. This section cut is carried from wall to wall 
 and the stope holes are drilled in the bench below from 
 the same set-ups. The back holes are drilled with 
 stopers after the section cut has been completed. The 
 
CONCENTRATION OF LEAN ORES 239 
 
 whole face of the stope is then blasted off with a battery 
 shot. Very little powder is required, either in the sec- 
 tion cut or in the stope blast, as there is always an open 
 face to break to. When a stope on one level has been 
 drawn back to the starting raise, the chutes are taken 
 out, rails and pipe lines removed and the main level 
 used as a sub. In this way all mucking is avoided. 
 The ore remaining in the bottom of one level, which 
 will not run out of the chutes, is dropped to the level 
 below. On the bottom sub no back holes are used, ex- 
 cept in the corners of the stope, as this sub is carried 
 higher than the rest, thus leaving a thinner space be- 
 tween it and the second sub. The rail and pipe lines, 
 removed from the level which is drawn back, are used 
 on the lower level in the development work, so that very- 
 few new pipes or rails are required. 
 
 On the main haulage level, crosscuts are run off the 
 main drift at twenty-five feet intervals. Raises are put 
 up from these crosscuts so that the raises are space'd 
 about twenty-five feet center to center each way. These 
 raises extend only to the first sub. Ordinary round 
 timber chutes are used in these raises, with three inch 
 round birch stoppers. A large amount of blasting is 
 necessary in the chutes at times on account of the 
 benches coming down in large pieces, but otherwise no 
 trouble is experienced in loading cars. All tramming 
 is done by hand, two-ton cars being used on a grade 
 of one per cent, in favor of the loads. They have done 
 away with cross switches for spotting cars at the shaft. 
 In place of them they use a truck running on rails in a 
 shallow pit transversely across the station arid about 
 twelve feet back from it. Cars can be run onto this track 
 from any track and spotted for either skip track or the 
 cage track as may be required. All out-bound loaded 
 
240 THE IKON HUNTER 
 
 cars come up the main crosscut on the one track. The 
 lead for No. 1 skip lies with this main line. Cars to 
 dump in No. 1 skip come up the main, cross the mack- 
 inaw onto this lead and dump directly in the skip. 
 Returning they are backed onto the mackinaw, which is 
 then spotted for the return track, through a spring 
 switch out onto the main line and back in again for 
 loading. This spring switch is the only real switch on 
 the level. 
 
 Under ordinary conditions, trammers dump their 
 own cars, but when for any reason it is necessary to 
 speed up the hoisting, a gang of dumpers (two men), 
 are put on at the shaft. Trammers coming out leave 
 their cars on the main line and go back with an 
 empty from the return track. The gang at the shaft 
 handles cars on the mackinaw, dumps them and shoves 
 them down the return track. Working in this way, 
 four hundred to four hundred and fifty skips can easily 
 be sent up in a shaft. 
 
 The siderite, as a whole, in the Magpie ore body is 
 the usual light colored ore with a slightly pink tinge 
 due to the manganese carbonate rhodochrosite, but on 
 either side of the diabase dyke, cutting the body, the 
 siderite is changed to a dense black ore much re- 
 sembling fine grained magnetite. In the white siderite, 
 the volatile runs about thirty-two per cent., but this 
 volatile gradually decreases near the dyke until it is as 
 low as twelve per cent. The carbonate here contains 
 considerable magnetite and the iron content of the ore is 
 higher than in the light colored ore. The black ore is 
 exceptionally hard, so hard in fact that a three and one- 
 fourth-inch piston drill will drill only from five to six 
 feet of hole per shift. The character of the ore changes 
 gradually as the distance from the dyke increases, so 
 
CONCENTRATION OF LEAN ORES 241 
 
 that at about one hundred feet from the dyke the siderite 
 is all white. 
 
 The ore is hoisted with two balanced Kimberly skips, 
 which have a capacity of two tons each, and dump 
 directly into the crusher. The hoist consists of a six 
 foot drum, coned at each end and geared to 150 H.P. 
 wound motor, three phase, induction motor. This 
 motor is remotely controlled and automatically protected 
 against overloading. It is only, of course, when hoist- 
 ing from the bottom level that the cone on the drum is 
 of any use, but the motor has no difficulty in starting a 
 loaded skip from any of the intermediate levels, even 
 though no chair is used and the full load is hanging 
 on the rope at the start. The full load speed of the 
 motor gives a rope speed of seven hundred fifty feet per 
 minute. 
 
 The signal to hoist the skip is given to the hoistman 
 by a bell which can be rung from one level namely 
 the one from which the most tramming is being done at 
 that time. A skip-tender is stationed there and the 
 other levels ring to him when they want the skip, or 
 when they have finished dumping their car, and he re- 
 lays the signal to the hoist man. 
 
 The crusherman feeding the No. 8 crusher also has 
 a switch by which he can ring the hoistman in case 
 trouble with the crusher occurs and he wants to stop the 
 skip before it dumps. This switch also gives the same 
 signal to the skip tender, so that he knows that the skip 
 has been stopped at the crusher. This stopping for a 
 minute or two is fairly frequent, as a big chunk of ore 
 often has to be broken with a hammer before it will go 
 into the crusher. 
 
 The skips dump into a No. 8 gyratory crusher, which 
 breaks the ore to about six-inch rinse. The black ore 
 
242 THE IKON HUNTER 
 
 from near the diabase dyke is exceptionally hard, so 
 hard that in fact the cast iron spider, which is prac- 
 tically always supplied with these machines, was not 
 strong enough to withstand the strain and had to be re- 
 placed by a cast steel one. Below the No. 8 crusher, 
 the ore passes over a set of grizzly bars and then to two 
 No. 5 gyratory crushers. These are set to about three 
 inch, and from these the ore is carried on a twenty-four 
 inch conveyor belt to the storage bins in the roast plant. 
 
 The roasting kilns are eight feet by one hundred 
 twenty-five feet long and lined with nine-inch hard fire 
 brick. The fuel used is powdered slack coal which 
 gives a temperature of about 1100 degrees Centigrade 
 for about twenty feet in the kiln. This is not hot 
 enough to make the ore sticky and is sufficient to drive 
 off the C0 2 and nearly eliminate the sulphur. 
 
 After passing through the roasting kilns, both the 
 light and dark colored ores have the same appearance 
 and are not distinguishable in any way. The finished 
 ore is nearly black in color, and comes out of the kilns 
 in a very porous condition, in rounded lumps about two 
 inches in diameter, the large pieces breaking up when 
 passing through the kiln. This finished product has 
 the following composition and is admirably suited for 
 the blast furnace both on account of its physical condi- 
 tion and its chemical composition: 
 
 Fe 50.00 
 
 Phos 013 
 
 Silica 9.60 
 
 Manganese 2.75 
 
 Alumina 1-24 
 
 Lime 7.69 
 
 Magnesia 7.75 
 
 Sulphur 196 
 
 Loss on Ign 000 
 
CONCENTRATION OF LEAN ORES 243 
 
 So here an elaborate and relatively costly mining and 
 roasting system enriches from thirty to fifty per cent, 
 an ore never before used in America, and it is done 
 profitably. I have gone into rather technical details 
 because the entire operation is a unique innovation in 
 America. It will be at once concluded that American 
 ore reserves will be sufficient for many centuries. In- 
 asmuch as the late James J. Hill predicted exhaustion 
 in a couple of decades, this furnishes a satisfying con- 
 trast. America manufactures nearly three quarters of 
 the steel and iron used by the world. That this will 
 continue almost without limit as to time and always 
 disproportionately increasing in favor of this country 
 does not admit of reasonable doubt. 
 
CHAPTEE XXVIII 
 
 ACCIDENTAL FORTUNES FROM IRON ORE 
 
 THE tale of how fortunes were made by many men 
 in the Lake Superior iron ore ranges is a story 
 of fortuitous happenings. An iron ore forma- 
 tion surrounds Lake Superior north and south. The 
 first discoveries were made in Michigan. Later the 
 Mesaba and other ranges opened in Minnesota placed 
 that State in the leading place in iron ore production 
 in the world. Almost without exception the iron dis- 
 tricts were in regions covered by great forests of virgin 
 white pine pinus strobus. These trees in instances 
 grew to great proportions. Some of them measured 
 more than six feet in diameter at the base. So light 
 and perfect in texture were these big trees that they 
 were called cork pine. Driving streams threaded the 
 pineries on their way to the Great Lakes. These sup- 
 plied transportation to navigable waters for the logs. 
 Naturally these forests early attracted the attention of 
 lumbermen. When the pineries in Maine began to be 
 exhausted, hardy Yankees of character and courage 
 from the Androscoggin came to Michigan after their 
 idea of a golden fleece. They " took up " vast tracts 
 of land from the Government along the Saginaw, the 
 Tittabawassee, the Shiawassee and other Lower Penin- 
 sula rivers. Most always these lands were " entered " 
 at a dollar and a quarter an acre. Bolder spirits forged 
 to the northward into the valleys of the Tahquamenon 
 
 244 
 
ACCIDENTAL FORTUNES 245 
 
 and the Menominee, and on westward to the Wisconsin 
 River country and then into Minnesota. When the tim- 
 ber came into the market it was logged, floated down 
 stream to sawmills and cut into lumber. Only the very 
 choicest, and that nearest streams making a short haul, 
 was cut at first. Piles of skidded logs were left in the 
 woods amidst the resinous tops and limbs. Fire would 
 get into the waste jungles and cause direful loss of life 
 as well as of property. Hundreds of lumber towns 
 have been wiped out and thousands of lives sacrificed 
 on the pyres of carelessness. Even to this day death- 
 breeding forest fires occur in Michigan, Wisconsin and 
 Minnesota. Just as soon as the pine was cut off, the 
 lumbermen would let the scarfed lands " go back " for 
 taxes, recognizing no other values. Some of these lands 
 are now most fertile farms. On others iron ore was 
 found. When the land was originally purchased the 
 buyer had nothing in view but the timber. If iron ore 
 was known to exist in a certain region, some wiser land 
 owners would hold on to their possessions and pay the 
 low taxes. Others would not. Almost never did they 
 do anything to develop the lands. Prospectors would 
 come along and ask for an option to explore on a lease 
 and royalty basis. They would develop a mine and the 
 land owner would have a fortune he had not turned his 
 hand over to earn. In many cases before or after the 
 timber was cut the owners of land when making trans- 
 fers would " reserve " the mineral rights on a gamble. 
 These reservations have never been taxed and are still 
 permitted to be made according to law. Not infre- 
 quently the original owners would have died and their 
 heirs would be surprised to have a request come to them 
 for an option to explore on lands now owned by others 
 and to which they had no idea they had any claim. The 
 
246 THE IRON HUNTER 
 
 lap gods just dug into the earth for them and filled their 
 pockets with dollars. A great many rich iron mines 
 in Michigan and Minnesota are on lands once purchased 
 from the Government for pine timber. Perhaps the 
 Wellington Burt fortune, of Saginaw, is a typical in- 
 stance of how the economic symplegides opened to 
 people who were blind so far as iron ore was concerned. 
 There are dozens of other cases just like the Burt one, 
 and some of them have an annual income amounting to 
 upwards of a million dollars from accidental royalties. 
 Government land grants, honest and dishonest, 
 earned and unearned, conveyed billions of dollars worth 
 of iron ore from the public to private owners. Notable 
 examples are the Lake Superior Ship Canal Railway 
 and Iron Company, the Great Northern Grant, and 
 there were many more. Perhaps the accumulation of 
 the pyramidal Longyear fortune is as legitimate a case 
 as any. John M. Longyear was a bright, rather physi- 
 cally weak young man of alert vision and fine character. 
 He was sent to Marquette, on Lake Superior, as the 
 agent of the Lake Superior Ship Canal Railway and 
 Iron Company. This company in selecting the lands 
 allotted in its grant engaged the services of the three 
 Brotherton " boys " of Escanaba. They were the very 
 best land lookers and iron hunters in all the Lake Su- 
 perior region. Upon their reports all the Canal Com- 
 pany's lands were chosen. These had to be alternate 
 sections. Mr. Longyear had all the information sup- 
 plied by the data gathered by the Brothertons. He se- 
 cured financial backers and bought the lands lying be- 
 tween the Canal Company's property. It just so hap- 
 pened that most of the mines found turned out to be 
 on the Longyear lands. The fortune that was won in 
 this way runs into the multiplied millions. 
 
ACCIDENTAL FORTUNES 247 
 
 The story of the big Chapin mine on the Menominee 
 Range presents facets of exquisite humor and at the 
 same time illustrates how little significance was at- 
 tached by owners to early land holdings. The Chapins 
 lived at Niles, Michigan. They entered the Chapin 
 Mine forty at a dollar and a quarter an acre, equaling 
 fifty dollars. A wedding occurred in the family. To 
 the officiating preacher was given a deed for the forty 
 acres in question. The guileless dominie did not even 
 record the deed and paid no attention to it whatever. 
 A few years later the big mine was found. It has pro- 
 duced ore worth more than twenty million dollars and 
 still has rich reserves. A wide-awake young lawyer 
 heard of the preacher and investigated the story. He 
 had a hard time finding the minister, but finally trailed 
 him to the Pacific Coast in an obscure little town. 
 Suit against the Chapins was begun. After hanging 
 fire in the courts for a more or less tedious time, a 
 compromise was made with the preacher for a cash con- 
 sideration of two hundred thousand dollars. This was 
 divided evenly with the lawyer and the Chapin mine 
 lawsuit was heard of no more. 
 
 Just a little time ago a title to a valuable mine was 
 traced to a Russian servant maid who had returned to 
 Warsaw. The able young lawyer who ferreted it out 
 was sent to Europe by a big mining company. He 
 found the girl, with the assistance of a kindly priest, 
 paid her well, got her relinquishment and came home. 
 The company gave the lawyer a check for twenty-five 
 thousand dollars, paid all of his expenses and gave him 
 a high place in their law department. This recital re- 
 fers to Raymond Empson, attorney, of Gladstone, Michi- 
 gan, and to the Cleveland-Cliffs Iron Company, of which 
 William G. Mather, of Cleveland, Ohio, is president. 
 
248 THE IKON HUNTEK 
 
 In all of the dealings there was only one desire upper- 
 most in the mind of Mr. Mather and his managing 
 vice-president, M. M. Duncan, and that was to give the 
 poor girl her just consideration and to treat the young 
 lawyer fairly. This is coming to be the policy of 
 modern business and it will go a long way to retard 
 bolshevism. I could go on almost endlessly writing of 
 the romances of iron ore. Stewart Edward White 
 charmingly tells the story of white pine in his popular 
 " Blazed Trail." There are a thousand blazed trails 
 in the adventures of the iron ore hunters. 
 
CHAPTEK XXIX 
 
 DISTRICT THE WORLD HAS EVER KNOWN 
 
 VERY early in its development I visited the 
 Mesaba range many times. 
 At the commencement of every epoch of great 
 importance, or rather while the parts are being mar- 
 shalled for the making of history, many of the more 
 minute things are lost sight of, and thus the era starts 
 blunted and its history is incomplete. So it is with the 
 discovery of iron ore in Minnesota, and more particu- 
 larly that portion known as the Mesaba range, the most 
 productive iron ore region ever known in the world. 
 
 The original discoverers of iron ore in Minnesota are 
 unknown. The Sioux Indians knew about the ore ma- 
 terial and associated rocks but did not know what they 
 were or how to use the raw material. In this they were 
 more backward than African aborigines. In the writ- 
 ten relations of .the Jesuit Fathers, who were the first 
 missionaries to these red men, allusion is made as early 
 as 1660 to the existence of economic minerals in the 
 Lake Superior country. Writings by LaGard in 1636, 
 by Pierre Boucher in 1640, Fathers Raymbault and 
 Jogues in 1641 and Claude Allouez in 1666, tell of the 
 finding of considerable quantities of iron ore in the 
 several localities that are now defined as the mineral 
 ranges of the Lake Superior basin. In 1668 Father 
 Jacques Marquette traversed the northern wilderness 
 
 249 
 
250 THE IRON HUNTER 
 
 and paid particular attention to its economic geology. 
 To the unremitting interest of this venerable priest, the 
 Lake Superior country owes the deht due for its primal 
 and practical discovery. 
 
 The first references to the Mesaba district found in 
 literature concern the parts of the district immediately 
 adjacent to the canoe routes offered by the rivers Mis- 
 sissippi, Prairie, Swan, St. Louis, Pike and smaller 
 streams. The first official description was given by 
 Major Z. M. Pike in 1810, and the veteran explorer, 
 Henry E. Schoolcraft was there in 1832. In 1841 J. 
 ~N. JSTicollet published a map of the hydrographic basin 
 of the upper Mississippi, on which the Mesaba range, 
 called " Missabay Heights," was for the first time de- 
 lineated, by hachures, although very imperfectly. In 
 1866 Colonel Charles Whittlesey reported on explora- 
 tions made in northern Minnesota during the years 
 1848, 1849 and 1864, mentioning Pokegama Falls, near 
 Grand Rapids. Mesaba, which is spelled in half a 
 dozen different ways, to suit the fancy of the speller, is 
 the Chippewa word for giant, and the name was given 
 the granite range of hills to the north of Hibbing. The 
 early explorers used the word Mesaba to cover the ter- 
 ritory now embraced in the regions known as the Mesaba 
 and Vermillion ranges. In 1868, Henry H. Eames, the 
 first state geologist of Minnesota, reported the finding 
 of iron ore at Embarrass Lake near Biwabik. In a sec- 
 ond report, published in the same year, Mr. Eames was 
 more explicit, and referring to the general elevated area 
 of the northern part of the State including the Mesaba 
 Range, said: 
 
 " In this region are found also immense bodies of the 
 ores of iron, both magnetic and hematite." From this 
 time on desultory exploratory work was done along 
 
MESABA RANGE IN MINNESOTA 251 
 
 nearly the entire length of the range from Kanges 12 to 
 LaPrairie River. There is considerable doubt as to 
 who was the first actual explorer to penetrate the wilds 
 of the Mesaba Range, but from all that can be gathered 
 it would seem that the honor belongs to Peter Mitchell. 
 The first examination of this range by a mining expert 
 with particular reference to the occurrence of iron ore 
 in merchantable deposits was made in 1875 by Pro- 
 fessor A. H. Chester, of Hamilton College, New York. 
 In this report, published in 1884, may be found this ref- 
 erence to an earlier occupation of the land : 
 
 " In the northwest quarter of section 20, in township 60, 
 north of range 12, west, the most important of the work- 
 ings of Mr. Peter Mitchell, the first explorer of the range, 
 was found. This was a pit six feet in depth, and from it 
 was said to have been obtained the best ore he brought back. 
 This old pit was cleaned and sunk to a depth of eleven and 
 two-tenths feet." 
 
 Professor Chester is generally given the credit of hav- 
 ing been the first explorer on the range, but we have his 
 own words that Mr. Mitchell was ahead of him, possi- 
 bly two or three years. Between the time of Professor 
 Chester's examination of the range and the publication 
 of his report nine years later, Professor M. H. Win- 
 chell, state geologist, noted the range in two of his re- 
 ports, mentioning the existence of iron ore on the east 
 end. Up to that time, while it was readily conceded 
 that iron ore existed there, it was not generally believed 
 that the ore was of a merchantable grade or in sufficient 
 quantity to warrant development. In fact, well up to 
 1890 the range had been looked over by numerous min- 
 ing experts sent in there by the larger interests, and 
 the reports were not favorable. The portion of the 
 
252 THE IEON HUNTEE 
 
 range examined particularly by them was the extreme 
 eastern end, where exposures of magnetic iron are nu- 
 merous, but even up to the present time no body of ore 
 of workable dimensions has been located at that point. 
 The fact that the range had been turned down by the 
 several mining experts did not deter the hardy pioneer 
 explorers, to whose faith and purpose are due the de- 
 velopment of the Mesaba. They believed that rich iron 
 ore in paying quantities was to be found in the district 
 and they continued working diligently, breasting the 
 untold hardships that meet the pioneer in a wild coun- 
 try. The more persistent of the early explorers were 
 the Merritts Lon Merritt, Alfred Merritt, L. J. Mer- 
 ritt, C. C. Merritt, T. N. Merritt, A. E. Merritt, J. E. 
 Merritt, and W. J. Merritt of Duluth, and their faith 
 in the range was the first to be rewarded. On Novem- 
 ber 16, 1890, a crew working for them, under charge of 
 Captain J. A. Nichols, struck iron ore in a homestead 
 claim embracing the northwest quarter of section 3, 58- 
 18, just north of what is now known as the Mountain 
 Iron mine. The Merritts. were not discouraged by the 
 adverse reports made by the experts and the numerous 
 failures of other explorers. The Mesaba was an at- 
 tractive and promising field, and their faith in it was 
 never shaken, even though their money was spent and 
 two years of the hardest kind of labor remained unre- 
 warded. All who applaud the pioneer are glad to know 
 that these pioneers who were so unresting in their search 
 for iron ore have been richly repaid and that those who 
 remain of the family are enjoying lives of ease due to 
 the early toil that tried their fiber. 
 
 The next discovery of importance on the range was 
 the Biwabik property, by John McCaskill, an explorer, 
 who found iron ore clinging to the roots of an upturned 
 
MESABA RANGE IN MINNESOTA 253 
 
 tree. The Merritts explored the tract. It is interest- 
 ing to note that the first two iron mines discovered have 
 proven the largest shippers from the range. The output 
 of the Biwabik mine up to the close of navigation in 
 1917 was 4,05 3', 731 tons, while the Mountain Iron mine 
 had made in the same period the stupendous production 
 of 7,254,201 tons. With the discovery of these mines 
 it may be said that the range was fairly recognized as a 
 mining district of commercial importance, and there 
 followed a rush of explorers to the scene of action. 
 Finds of large bodies of ore followed, and mining towns 
 sprung up all along to give attention to the needs of the 
 throngs of people that flocked in. 
 
 It is generally believed that Frank Hibbing, of 
 Duluth, was the first explorer to shoulder his packsack 
 and push his way through the trackless wilderness to 
 the point where now stands the modern city of Hib- 
 bing called the "Gem of the Mesaba," but E. J. 
 Longyear preceded Hibbing to the territory by at least 
 a year. Mr. Longyear cut a road into what is now the 
 Hibbing district and it was he who broke the seal that 
 bound the hidden wealth that has been brought to light 
 since that time. Frank Hibbing was really more of a 
 prospector than Longyear. He located a number of 
 promising prospects and acquired interests in lands 
 along the range. Mr. Hibbing was a man without 
 means, but so encouraging were his reports that he soon 
 interested A. J. Trimble, then fresh from many suc- 
 cessful ventures on the Gogebic range, in Michigan, 
 with him, and the Lake Superior Iron Company was 
 formed. John M. Longyear, of Marquette, and R. M. 
 Bennett, of Minneapolis, secured options to explore 
 Mesaba Range lands and sent E. J. Longyear with an 
 exploration outfit to give the lands a test. Mr. Long- 
 
254 THE IRON HUNTER 
 
 year was then fresh from the Michigan College of Mines, 
 and was one of the first class that graduated from that 
 splendid institution. In the summer of 1891 Mr. Long- 
 year arrived at Swan River, on the line of the old Du- 
 luth and Winnipeg Railroad, now the Great Northern, 
 which was the nearest railroad point to the land he in- 
 tended to explore. He followed the old Wright and 
 Davis tote road to a point about a mile and one quarter 
 west of what is now Nashwauk, and from there began 
 cutting a road through to what is now Hibbing. Having 
 made a passable road, Mr. Longyear established an ex- 
 ploring camp one-half a mile north of the present Ma- 
 honing mine, and the old camps are still there, a mute 
 reminder of the earliest work on that end of the range. 
 Mr. Longyear prosecuted exploratory work with a dia- 
 mond drill without finding ore in paying quantities until 
 February, 1892, when he found a large body of ore in the 
 northeast quarter of section 22, 58-20. The body of 
 ore, said to measure eight million tons, remains unde- 
 veloped. A few years ago it became the property of the 
 old Lake Superior Consolidated Iron Mines Company 
 and was taken into the holdings of the United States 
 Steel Corporation upon its organization. Mr. Long- 
 year's next find was the Pillsbury mine. This was the 
 first iron mine opened in the Hibbing district, though it 
 did not make a shipment until 1898. The first mine to 
 ship ore from the district was the Sellers, in the spring 
 of 1894. The next mine to be opened in the district 
 was the Burt, followed closely by the Hull, Rust, Sellers 
 and Day mines, in which Hibbing and Trimble were in- 
 terested, and then the great Mahoning. 
 
 The finding of the great Mesaba beds of iron ore 
 opened the eyes of the eastern furnace men, and they 
 met and formed an organization to locate iron proper- 
 
MESABA KANGE IN MINNESOTA 255 
 
 ties on this range. W. C. Agnew was chosen as the 
 most suitable man to conduct the work. Mr. Agnew 
 accepted the proposition and arrived with a working 
 crew in the summer of 1893. He started exploratory 
 work on lands where the Mahoning mine was found, one 
 mile west of Hibbing. Mr. Agnew discovered this mine 
 and superintended its development. The Mahoning 
 presents the largest single body of iron ore ever discov- 
 ered in the world. Imagine an elliptical opening in the 
 earth half a mile long, a quarter of a mile wide and 
 nearly two hundred feet deep, and you will have some 
 idea of what the great Mahoning open pit presents to- 
 day more than forty acres of solid iron ore exposed to 
 view. There yet remains eighty acres of ore uncovered. 
 The first shipment from the Mahoning was made in 
 1895, and up to the close of navigation, 1917, the total 
 output was 4,791,651. The possible year's shipment 
 out of this mine is to be limited only by the capacity 
 of the railroads for carrying away the product. 
 
 After the first excitement of mine discovering sub- 
 sided somewhat, a financial depression occurred and ex- 
 ploratory work nearly ceased until better times re- 
 curred. But at no time was the range and its immense 
 possibilities lost sight of by the financial interests of 
 the country. In 1900 there was a revival of exploratory 
 work, and from that time on there has been a steady 
 increase in ore development and the end is not in sight. 
 After the organization of the United States Steel Cor- 
 poration, there was a rush of independent mining men 
 to the Mesaba to secure holdings before everything fell 
 under the control of the big organization. The result is 
 that while the Minnesota Iron Company, a subsidiary 
 branch of the Steel Trust, owns heavily of the iron prop- 
 erties, the tonnage of independent concerns holding in- 
 
256 THE IKON HUNTEK 
 
 terests in that district is probably greater than that of 
 the trust. The independent mines include among others 
 the Stevenson and Jordan, owned and operated by Cor- 
 rigan, McKinney & Company ; the Laura and the Wini- 
 fred, by the Winifred Iron Mining Company; the 
 Albany, Utica and Elizabeth, by the Crete Mining 
 Company; the Longyear, Columbia, Leetonia, Pearce, 
 Morrow and Croxton, by the Sellwood-Drake-Bartow in- 
 terests; and the Agnew, Shenango, Kinney, Sharon, 
 Grant, Leonard and Susquehanna mines, all in opera- 
 tion. So it will be seen that the Steel Trust has very 
 healthy competition. 
 
 Up to the close of navigation 1918, to which period 
 production is usually tabulated, because almost all of 
 the ore is shipped by way of Lake Superior, the Mesaba 
 Kange had sent forward a total of 486,319,826 tons. 
 
 The production of all the Lake Superior districts in 
 1918 was 63,164,341 tons, of which 43,359,107 tons 
 came from the Mesaba and other Minnesota ranges. 
 
 It is estimated that by the end of the season of 1920 
 the first billion tons of iron ore will have been produced 
 by the Lake Superior district. 
 
CHAPTER XXX 
 
 CONSIDERATION OF CHARLES EVANS HUGHES, WOODBOW 
 WILSON AND OTHERS IN SEARCHING FOB A SUC- 
 CESSOR TO JAMES B. ANGELL AT THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF MICHIGAN 
 
 PUBLIC work came unexpectedly for me to do, 
 just as it will come to all who will try to fit 
 themselves and be willing. In 1908 I was 
 tendered by Governor Warner an appointment upon the 
 Board of Regents of the University of Michigan, to suc- 
 ceed the late Peter White, of Marquette. Really to de- 
 serve to be a regent of the university and to do the work 
 measurably well is, to my way of thinking, the greatest 
 honor to be had in Michigan. 
 
 Any old dub may be a governor or a United States 
 senator, and several have been, but generally the regents 
 have been high grade, well-equipped men. Almost al- 
 ways they have been chosen from the alumni of the 
 university. 
 
 Consequently I assumed my new duties with proper 
 humility and not without misgivings. Where I lived 
 as a boy in Indiana, such is the prestige of the Uni- 
 versity of Michigan, that a house where dwelt a man 
 who had graduated at Ann Arbor was pointed out to all 
 as a famous landmark. With such a man for president 
 as the late James Burrill Angell, there was not much 
 for a board to do but back him up. But he was grow- 
 
 257 
 
258 THE IKON HUNTEK 
 
 ing old and wished to retire and was entitled to consid- 
 eration. 
 
 To find a successor to this wonderful man was to be a 
 task that devolved upon the regents. Dr. Angell was 
 the most constructively aggressive man in his inimitable 
 way that I have* ever known, and yet to all he was one, 
 of the sweetest and most peaceful of human beings. 
 He had a way of having others do the fighting. A wiz- 
 ard could not have measured men better. This one was 
 selected for the very thing he could do best and that one 
 for the same reason. When he had made his assign- 
 ments, he would look on with the face of a calm god and 
 rarely did his man fail him. Best of all, the person 
 selected for an especial work seldom realized it ; almost 
 always he would think that he had originated the matter 
 in hand. Dr. Angell never took off for a moment his 
 armor of benignity, but behind it always there was the 
 force of a big man. It was because of his remarkable 
 method of using men and delegating work, that he was 
 able to remain efficient to an age much greater than most 
 men are permitted to retain their faculties, or even life 
 itself. 
 
 During the winter after he was eighty-seven years old 
 he had a severe sickness, largely caused by his insistence 
 upon acknowledging in long hand hundreds of loving 
 letters received upon his birthday. His relatives were 
 summoned and all concerned expected the long call. 
 On the nights of February 29 and March 1 it was 
 thought that he would not see the morning. 
 
 I was in the office of University Secretary Shirley 
 Smith at about half past ten o'clock the forenoon of 
 March 2. A telephone call came from Dr. Angell's 
 brother. Secretary Smith's face was long and mourn- 
 ful, then it lighted up with both gladness and humor. 
 
SUCCESSOK TO JAMES B. ANGELL 259 
 
 Instead of the dreaded news, the brother asked the 
 secretary if Dr. Peterson, of -the medical college hospi- 
 tal, would not loan a wheeled chair for the use of Dr. 
 Angell. It transpired that just when they thought he 
 was nearest death he rallied, raised himself in bed, and 
 complained of being hungry. He was given a break- 
 fast of coffee, toast, a cereal and an egg, which he actu- 
 ally enjoyed. Then he insisted upon getting up into a 
 wheeled chair. A few weeks later he peacefully crossed 
 the threshold of eternity. 
 
 He had nourished his vital forces all of his life upon 
 kindliness of heart, tranquillity of spirit and life in an 
 atmosphere of youth. Once he told me that to live 
 long one must be temperate and keep his heart youthful 
 and alert. No wonder he was so much of a factor in 
 causing the University of Michigan to become one of the 
 greatest of the higher educational institutions of the 
 world. He was loved by everybody and most so by the 
 students. 
 
 It was this great man that a worthy successor had to 
 be secured for. There were many applicants. Of 
 course, not one of them applied directly, like a hungry 
 man in search of a job. Some of them were just as 
 eager, no doubt, but all went through the form of being 
 proposed by their friends. Many of those who were 
 urged in greatest volume were the most unlikely and 
 unfit. 
 
 Serious consideration was given to the name of the 
 then Governor of New York, Charles Evans Hughes. 
 Mr. Hughes had been a member of the Cornell faculty 
 and was looked upon, not only as a big man, but as one 
 who was also an educator. The two qualifications do 
 not necessarily dove-tail. 
 
 The place of president of the University of Michigan 
 
260 THE IKON HUNTEK 
 
 was tentatively offered to him by a committee of regents 
 appointed for the purpose. Governor Hughes com- 
 posed the usual gracious, and often meaningless, phrases 
 of regret, and gave as his reason that he had a life's 
 work of reform in the political arena of New York 
 State. Otherwise he would have been made happy by 
 taking up the direction of the parent of all popular uni- 
 versities. 
 
 Within a few weeks he permitted himself to be side- 
 tracked, even shelved, so far as political reform activi- 
 ties were concerned, by an appointment to the United 
 States Supreme Court. In the light of what he had 
 uttered in such a Parsifallian spirit, I was shocked, and 
 in my eyes Mr. Hughes has worn a broken halo ever 
 since. 
 
 Some one proposed the name of David Jayne Hill, 
 United States Ambassador to Germany. He looked like 
 ideal timber. I went to Berlin to look him over. It is 
 proper, I think, to state that I paid my own expenses. 
 Accuracy, at the expense of elegance, requires me to 
 record that I reported to the board of regents that Mr. 
 Hill had taken on too much weight of all kinds. 
 
 One of the most interesting candidates, for we were 
 caused to think, at least I was, that he solicited the posi- 
 tion, was Woodrow Wilson. At the very first most of 
 the regents jumped at the shining lure of surface bril- 
 liance. I do not mean to state that Mr. Wilson is not 
 a profound scholar; only that more than most men of 
 erudition he possesses an exterior luminescence that is 
 distinctive. More sober consideration threw another 
 light upon the retiring president of Princeton. There 
 was a consensus of opinion that he had done good work 
 at Princeton, but that whether he had done more good 
 
SUCCESSOE TO JAMES B. ANGELL 261 
 
 than harm was a question that could not be so easily 
 answered. 
 
 He had gone to Princeton with the unanimous support 
 of the managers of that college, and left it with scarcely 
 a friend among them. Practically, it seems, he was 
 dismissed. His gratuitous quarrel with Grover Cleve- 
 land was analyzed, and a decision was come to that Dr. 
 Wilson was tactless. 
 
 The University of Michigan depends for its financial 
 life upon the people, and the Legislature of a Kepublican 
 state. It has always had the respect, affection and gen- 
 erous consideration of its State. How long would it 
 take a southern Democrat of Mr. Wilson's peculiar type 
 to destroy the delicate relations that subsist between 
 them ? That was the danger that lurked in him. Good 
 enough, the people have said, to be a two-term President 
 of the United States, but the regents did not decide that 
 he was good enough to be president of the University of 
 Michigan. 
 
 It was a happy solution of the problem to select Dr. 
 Harry B. Hutchins, dean of the University of Michigan 
 Law College, to be president. I opposed his appoint- 
 ment for an unlimited term. In fact, I was not very 
 enthusiastic about Dr. Hutchins, and I proposed that 
 the place be given him for three years, in order that the 
 board might have time to look around without the dis- 
 agreeable and hurtful consequences of not having a 
 president. 
 
 Some of the regents, who knew him better than I did, 
 proposed that I be appointed a committee of one to in- 
 terview Dr. Hutchins and come to terms with him. 
 This they did, with the suspicious twinkle in their eyes 
 of a ruminating rhinoceros* They expected fire- 
 
262 THE IKON HUNTER 
 
 works. If they could have been within hearing of the 
 session between Dr. Hutchins and myself they would 
 have considered themselves enjoyably justified. I 
 found the Dean a much bigger and stronger man than 
 I had supposed him to be. In fact, he rapidly devel- 
 oped presidential size, in my estimation, as we sat vis-a- 
 vis and fought back and forth. We shouted at each 
 other and pounded the desk that was between us. Fi- 
 nally I said to him : 
 
 " For goodness' sake, don't act like you are behaving ; 
 you remind me too much of myself ! " 
 
 This, he has said since, uncovered his humorous 
 senses, and we soon had a rational discussion. At first 
 he felt it as a reflection upon him to be offered a limited 
 term. I told him just why we had insisted upon a 
 definite period and I placed the good of the university 
 above everything. The people of the nation only gave 
 their President a limited term, and why should he, in 
 the face of such an exalted example, object to being 
 placed upon the same footing? That was not what 
 appealed to him. It was the good of the university 
 that won his willingness to do anything that would con- 
 tribute to such an object. I suggested increasing the 
 term to five years, and we agreed, whereupon the board 
 of regents ratified the decision, and Dr. Harry B. 
 Hutchins became president of the University of Michi- 
 gan. 
 
 It is only due him to state that his work as the head 
 of the university has more than justified the expecta- 
 tions of his chiefest admirers. 
 
 While I was a regent, a kind of thing came up that 
 must arise continually in the life of every university. 
 Professor R. M. Wenley's philosophical lectures had 
 taken such a wide and free and bold scope, as to attract a 
 
SUCCESSOR TO JAMES B. ANGELL 263 
 
 great deal of attention which was not confined to 
 university circles, but pervaded the State and farther. 
 He was admired as a man of profound thought 
 and high courage by those who were big enough and 
 sufficiently fair to see him as he is and measure his 
 work. 
 
 Those who did not like his methods, and some of the 
 faculty who were unquestionably jealous of him, formed 
 a potential opposition to him that took form in a deter- 
 mination to drive him out of the university. One day 
 Wenley delivered a lecture so Christless and so heart- 
 less and so platonic in their estimation as to stir his 
 enemies to extreme action. They interviewed a regent 
 who came to me with the matter. This regent was one 
 of the oldest and best men on the board and an alumnus. 
 He was all wrought up and managed to communicate 
 his feelings to me. 
 
 I agreed to support a resolution dismissing Professor 
 Wenley from the faculty. We had votes enough 
 pledged to pass it. But before it was voted upon all 
 of us came to our senses. The truth seemed to stalk 
 before me unguided, as the truth needs no guide. It 
 seemed to say : " What right have you to do this 
 thing? Is this a university or a penal institution? 
 Will you strive to give wings to thought and then kill it 
 when it tries to fly? How are you going to combat 
 error if it is not exposed ? Do you not know that the 
 fearless teacher presents every facet of the intellect in 
 action ? Next time you oppress an intellectual process 
 it may be the death of a great truth. Where are you 
 going to draw the line inside the demarcation of com- 
 plete freedom of thought and speech ? If the truth can- 
 not withstand the competition of error it becomes error, 
 and error becomes truth." 
 
264 THE IKON HUNTEE 
 
 Then the disgraceful resolution that I had helped to 
 father I helped to kill. 
 
 Wenley still shakes things up, and I have come to 
 have a large respect for his work without yielding an 
 iota of my Presbyterianism. 
 
CHAPTER XXXI 
 
 TOM MAY'S KERRY PHILOSOPHY A SOCIAL THERMOMETER 
 
 I DO not know when I began to learn that the only 
 warrant for a public career is a desire born of 
 a willingness to serve ; to give back to society some 
 of self in payment for the great benefits social order 
 grants to the individual ; or when I had my first realiza- 
 tion that a republic cannot endure, and civil and reli- 
 gious liberty will not have a collective instrument of 
 protection unless men and women offer themselves 
 freely. 
 
 In my early forenoon of life I saw only the selfish 
 side and purpose of both private and public activity. 
 To win was the thing; to take; no thought of paying 
 back. 
 
 One night I was guiding Tom May, my cartoonist 
 friend, through a Lake Superior jungle to our hunting 
 camp. It was more than a quarter of a century ago. 
 He had learned something that I had not even thought 
 of, although we were born the same year 1860. 
 
 " Hold on there, old man," he called from behind. 
 " This isn't a Marathon, is it ? " 
 
 I replied that it was already so dark I could see the 
 compass needle with difficulty and that we must strike 
 the trail a mile farther on if we were to have com- 
 fortable going after the night cover all settled down. 
 
 Swish ! Tom gave a yell. 
 
 " I suppose that brush would have cut off my head 
 265 
 
266 THE IKON HUNTEK 
 
 if you hadn't held it back ; as it was it only snipped off 
 my nose and one ear and took a chunk out of my game 
 eye, blast it ! " 
 
 " But, Tom, I have told you a thousand times, which 
 should be nearly enough for an Irishman, to walk far 
 enough behind so that the switches won't hit you." 
 
 " That's all right and whan I do, you get out of sight 
 and a wolf bites me trousers. Gimme the switch ivery 
 time." 
 
 Tom always dropped into the soft, sweet, Irish 
 brogue that his soul loved whenever he was not at a 
 city-tension. 
 
 On the trail we took our time and visited. Tom said 
 he wondered why rich men did not remember while 
 going through life that there are no pockets in shrouds. 
 
 " And they just take and take and grab and scoop and 
 grub to get it, only to hope to square things when they 
 are on their death beds by giving it away. They can't 
 do it. Tickets to heaven are not on sale at a box office, 
 and there are no special reservations for millionaires. 
 And most people are learning that God's books are kept 
 day by day just like the street car companies'. Five- 
 cent fares make big totals. Little daily deeds count up 
 big in life's long run. The fellow who gives most is 
 going to get most in the end, not the fellow who takes 
 the most from others without any thought of paying 
 back, or dividing until the fine old gent with the scythe 
 and long whiskers gets his big spectacles focused on 
 him." 
 
 Thus we strolled to camp as Tom preached in big- 
 hearted, Kerry style. It made a deep impression upon 
 me. At another time some years later, obedient to the 
 woods' muse, he said : 
 
 " Notice our friends Carnaygie and Kockefeller are 
 
TOM MAY'S KEKKY PHILOSOPHY 267 
 
 having a goose race giving away money. Andy is a 
 shade the more anxious and has a wild Scotch glare 
 under the brush that grows over his eyes. Ye see he 
 has a Homestead riot and dead children and women 
 and frinzied men trampin' on his soul. Kocky hasn't 
 anything like that. Maybe he will be able to make a 
 long drive through the pearly gates, but I'll bet Andy 
 will slice or top the pill." 
 
 All of this indicated the coming of a new era in pub- 
 lic thought. There was a hunger for heart and soul 
 growth. We had only stomach growth up to then or 
 not much more, and we, as a nation and as a people, it 
 would seem, were hunchbacked in front. 
 
 Demagogues were vying with honest men in their 
 eagerness to make hay. There was a grasshopper 
 plague of fake reformers in every State and some of 
 them drew the eye of the nation. It was difficult always 
 to pick out the spurious. In fact, I doubt if a 
 good many of the political disciples of the new era 
 could tell just how much they were for self and how 
 much for what they advocated. Men were reformers, 
 insurgents and progressive until they got into office, and 
 were active enough to attract the attention of the fat 
 boys. Only then they dried up like a desert spring or 
 became conservative. 
 
CHAPTEE XXXII 
 
 I AM ELECTED GOVERNOR OF MICHIGAN 
 
 THERE was much dissatisfaction with the state 
 of public affairs in Michigan. Higher ideals of 
 government began to he asserted in many places. 
 A man, perhaps worthy enough, but who was regarded 
 as being very ordinary, had been elected Governor for a 
 third term. The State was bankrupt. 
 
 At least one of the state institutions, Jackson prison, 
 was notorious for its mismanagement and worse. The 
 state treasurer, Glazier, was discovered short several 
 hundred thousand dollars in his accounts. He had been 
 closely identified with Warner, personally and polit- 
 ically, and had carried large deposits in the bank in 
 which Warner was a stockholder and officer. The 
 warden of Jackson prison, Armstrong, had been con- 
 victed of crookedness in prison affairs and sentenced to 
 a term of confinement. The air was filled with dis- 
 trust. Charges and rumors pursued each other in the 
 public mind. Consequently when the Warner admin- 
 istration proposed to perpetuate itself by the nomina- 
 tion and election of Patrick H. Kelley, who was Lieu- 
 tenant-Governor, there was an upheaval of opposition. 
 This took form in several counter movements. 
 
 A number of my friends urged me to become a can- 
 didate for Governor. They called attention to the con- 
 dition of affairs only too apparent in the State. Fur- 
 thermore they stated that the Upper Peninsula had 
 
 268 
 
ELECTED GOVERNOR OF MICHIGAN 269 
 
 never been given a governor. Naturally, they reminded 
 me of my experience in state affairs. I was not per- 
 mitted to forget what they had often heard me say, 
 that I thought every citizen was obligated to serve his 
 country at any time he was needed, in peace or war, 
 and should hold himself in readiness to do so, and 
 should freely and frequently offer. I had not thought 
 of being a candidate but it was not difficult to persuade 
 me to be. Perhaps the one thing that had most to do 
 with my decision, after the duty that I held to be 
 involved, was the possession of an independent tempera- 
 ment, that did not seem to permit a consideration of the 
 countless cautions that come so frequently to all per- 
 sons in public place. 
 
 It really seemed that a person so constituted might 
 render valuable service at this very time. I had in 
 mind a number of things that I thought ought to be 
 given state attention. One of these was a workmen's 
 compensation law. I was heartily in favor of woman 
 suffrage, and though I could not be called a prohibition- 
 ist as the term was defined then, and was not at that 
 time a total abstainer, I was opposed to the saloon and 
 to commercialized booze. I knew that it had the larg- 
 est control of state and local politics, not only where its 
 interests were involved, but extended its dictation far 
 beyond in a meddlesome way just because it had the 
 power. I proposed to take a shot at this social hyena 
 if I got a chance, and in order to get a shot I decided 
 to stalk it. Moreover, I was in a position of economic 
 independence, with sufficient means so that I did not 
 have to depend upon a public income, nor upon persons 
 who might subscribe to a campaign with the hope and 
 purpose of controlling me, and yet I did not possess 
 so much that my interests ramified in directions where I 
 
270 THE IRON HUNTER 
 
 might suffer injury from those who control the money 
 affairs of the country and destroy the credit of any who 
 oppose them, which is a way they have if one falls into 
 their power. 
 
 I became a candidate for Governor. There were 
 three other candidates : Patrick H. Kelley, of Lansing ; 
 Amos Musselman, of Grand Rapids, and Justice Robert 
 M. Montgomery, of the Supreme Court of Michigan. 
 At the start it looked as though Mr. Kelley would win 
 easily if the Warner opposition, general as it was, was 
 divided among three. The best-equipped candidate of 
 all, in some respects, was Justice Montgomery. He was 
 a distinguished member of Michigan's highest court 
 and had friends in every part of the State. He had 
 the backing of the Supreme Court, which at that time 
 did not hesitate to sit into the game of politics, and it 
 knew how with the best of them. 
 
 There is a constitutional provision in Michigan pro- 
 hibiting a circuit judge from being a candidate for a 
 political office while on the bench and for one year after 
 retiring from such service. I did not believe that Mr. 
 Montgomery had considered whether it was right for 
 him, as a member of a court whose duty it was to en- 
 force this law, to do that which was a violation of the 
 very principle he was obligated to compel others to ob- 
 serve (nor did Mr. Hughes search his soul deeply in 
 this regard). I was certain he had no moral right to 
 be a candidate and I even questioned his legal right. 
 Against the counsel of all my close advisers, I addressed 
 an open letter to him setting forth the claim that legiti- 
 mately and ethically he had no right to be a candidate 
 and ending by demanding his withdrawal. I was de- 
 termined at the outset to be open and aboveboard in all 
 of my actions and utterances as a candidate, wherever 
 
ELECTED GOVEKNOK OF MICHIGAN 271 
 
 the welfare of the State was concerned. My state- 
 ment caused a sensation in political circles. It made 
 the friends of Justice Montgomery very angry, and they 
 were swift to call attention to the act as proof of my 
 backwoods' crudeness and my unfitness to be Governor 
 of a great state. Also for a time, Justice Montgomery 
 was as angry as his friends. Finally, his high sense of 
 honor, his keen, intellectual appreciation of the justness 
 of my position, and his ethical standards caused him to 
 view the situation differently. He was big enough 
 finally to achieve self-mastery. He sent me word, in 
 fact told me personally, that if I would let up on the 
 matter he would retire from the field if a graceful way 
 was presented. At once, I took the matter up with the 
 real friends of the Justice. The result was that he re- 
 tired from the gubernatorial contest and accepted a place 
 on the newly erected intermediary court at Washington. 
 
 This left three candidates. The nomination of Mr. 
 Kelley was freely predicted. He was a cheery, genial, 
 lovable person, who carried the serious things of life 
 lightly and radiated good-fellowship. As a political 
 campaigner he was supposed to be invincible. His 
 friends said hopefully and warningly : " Just wait un- 
 til he gets that man Osborn on the platform and watch 
 Kelley clean up on him." 
 
 I quite agreed with them that Mr. Kelley might do 
 things to me, but even in secret I was not afraid. I 
 had gone into the fight hammer and tongs, and had made 
 up my mind to give as hard thrusts as I could and take 
 smilingly all the enemy gave to me. While yet a boy 
 I had been taught that in life a man must be just as 
 good as an anvil as he is as a hammer ; take blows as well 
 as give them. 
 
 There were the usual Lincoln Club, Chandler Club, 
 
272 THE IRON HUNTER 
 
 McKinley Club and Washington Birthday political ban- 
 quets that are quite peculiar to Michigan where they 
 have been developed to the nth potency. Musselman did 
 not seem to be much in evidence at these feasts. Kelley 
 and I were invited to all of them. At first the attrac- 
 tion was what Kelley might do to me. Afterwards 
 the curiosity centered about what I might say about the 
 Warner-Kelley machine. I had to hook Kelley up to 
 the Warner odium, which was not hard to do, because 
 his generous disposition had influenced him good- 
 naturedly to tag along after Warner. 
 
 There was a great deal of distrust felt between the 
 two peninsulas of Michigan. The people of the Lower 
 Peninsula thought of the Upper Peninsula as being 
 controlled by a coterie of mining autocrats who were 
 political despots, possessed of a determination to dodge 
 their taxes and duties and milk the State of its rich re- 
 sources with no return, or as little as possible. The 
 Upper Peninsula, and especially the people of the min- 
 ing regions, regarded their Lower Peninsula fellow- 
 citizens as being a lot of hayseeds and rubes, who were 
 not fit for free government and impossible of compre- 
 hending the merits of the northern portion of the State. 
 My opponents used this prejudice and fanned it per- 
 sistently. The population of the State was about two 
 and a half million people in the Lower Peninsula, two- 
 thirds of the area, and about three hundred thousand in 
 ike Upper Peninsula. The northern section was over- 
 whelmingly Republican, and had been known, espe- 
 cially when General Alger was beaten in the lower sec- 
 tion, to reverse the Democratic decision below the 
 straits. Such fealty had its reward from the Repub- 
 lican managers just to the extent that was thought 
 
ELECTED GOVEBNOK OF MICHIGAN 273 
 
 essary to keep it in line. It had never been accorded a 
 Governor and many wise ones predicted that it never 
 would. I do not think there was a time during the 
 campaign when my best friends in the Upper Peninsula 
 thought I could win. I did not worry about that, nor 
 was I deeply concerned about the issue of the contest. 
 
 I decided that the battle ground was the Lower Penin- 
 sula and there I went, going from county to county, 
 most of the time by automobile. I did not make a 
 speech in the Upper Peninsula. I enjoyed the cam- 
 paign. It was hard, but it gave me a chance to see and 
 talk to the people which I did with earnest bluntness 
 and direct conviction. I visited every county in the 
 Lower Peninsula and made speeches in all of them, 
 often ten or fifteen in a day, many of course being only 
 a few minutes in length, and many of greater length. 
 When the campaign was at its height as many as thirty 
 automobiles would follow me through the county, as 
 upon a triumphal tour. Bands, banners and enthusi- 
 asm made an atmosphere, and the audiences were certain 
 to be good. For the most part I did not talk politics. 
 It was safe to assume that the voters understood. They 
 did. I promised to clean out the Warner gang that had 
 wrecked and disgraced Michigan. That seemed to be 
 what they wanted. 
 
 Just before election day Amos Musselman encouraged 
 the editor of the Escanaba Journal to make an attack 
 upon my honesty. Thousands of copies of the paper 
 were circulated over the State. The enemy saw that 
 the libel was reprinted wherever possible. They hoped 
 that it was too late for me to defend myself. I had the 
 editor arrested at once and started suit against Mussel- 
 man and others. I felt within myself that if the peo- 
 
274 THE IKON HUNTER 
 
 pie could be fooled by an eleventh-hour move of this 
 kind, there was no way to prevent it. Knowing my in- 
 nocence I trusted to the good sense of the voters. At 
 the primaries, I was successful by the following vote: 
 Osborn, 88,270; Kelley, 52,337; Musselman, 50,721. 
 My vote in the Lower Peninsula was the big surprise 
 to the dopesters. Below the straits it was 69,479 and 
 18,791 above. 
 
 As soon as the matters could be forced to an issue, the 
 editor who had libeled me was convicted, and Mussel- 
 man, in humiliation, made public admission that he had 
 done wrong, and the case against him was dropped. As 
 showing his fairness and good citizenship and his real- 
 ization of his responsibilities as a publisher, I may say 
 here that in 1918 when I was a candidate for the nomi- 
 nation of United States Senator, this editor was one of 
 my strongest supporters. 
 
 The state campaign that followed was not as much 
 of a contest as the primary had been, but it was a fight. 
 The late Lawton T. Hemans, of Ingham County, was 
 nominated by the Democrats. Hemans was a strong 
 man. He had been a candidate for Governor before 
 and was well known and respected. As a lawyer and 
 local historian, he had covered much of Michigan cred- 
 itably. It was a mid-year campaign, between the presi- 
 dential contests. There was nothing to prevent inter- 
 est from centering upon a state campaign. 
 
 Republican dissatisfaction and insurgency were in the 
 air. The Taft administration program of blunders was 
 just becoming known. Only seven States in the Union 
 were carried by the Republicans. I received one of the 
 largest majorities given a Republican Governor that 
 year, 1910. The vote on election day was Osborn 
 
ELECTED GOVEKSTOK OF MICHIGAN 275 
 
 202,803; Hemans, 159,770, or a plurality for me of 
 43,033. 
 
 During the campaign the Democrats had combed my 
 record with particular care, but found nothing they 
 could use. 
 
CHAPTER XXXIII 
 
 I STABT A FIGHT AGAINST THE SALOON THAT KEEPS 
 UP TO THE END 
 
 AFTER election in the autumn of 1910 I retired to 
 Deerfoot Lodge where Justice Steere, the Hon- 
 orable Roys J. Cram and I have kept open house 
 during the deer season for nearly a quarter of a century. 
 It is a beautiful spot in a primeval forest of maple, 
 birch and beech. Pine plains furnish a change in one 
 direction, and deep swamps flank the hardwood and give 
 lair for bear and wolf and lynx. Shadowy hemlocks, 
 with limbs bedecked with old man's beard, like Spanish 
 moss, and red-berried yew shintangle as carpet make a 
 wild garden where the fawns hide in spring, and bucks 
 snort, paw and horn trees in autumn. 
 
 Here I wrote my inaugural message on some rough 
 scraps of paper; no library but my thoughts, and no 
 reference book but my heart. Deerfoot was then only 
 a modest log shack of one room, where friends came and 
 rolled in on the floor, and roughed it in a way to take 
 the city stiffness out of body and spirit. Here I wrote 
 down briefly my views upon the liquor question for my 
 message as follows : 
 
 Temperance is a matter of personal discipline and is 
 more of a moral and social problem than political. The 
 regulation of the liquor traffic is largely a political func- 
 tion. The upheaval and interest in Michigan and over the 
 country along these lines are, in my opinion, aimed more 
 
 276 
 
A FIGHT AGAINST THE SALOON 277 
 
 at the liquor traffic than at the temperate use of alcoholic 
 beverages. It appears that temperance is handicapped un- 
 less those who believe even in rationalism become excited 
 and militant. The saloon of to-day is a social saprophyte. 
 Always it has been a breeding place of lawlessness and a 
 culture ground of vice. So arrogant had it become that 
 government by saloon and rule by brewery was the practical 
 condition. The candidate who did not bow to the joint 
 keeper and the local official who did not recognize the po- 
 litical power of alcohol, as manifested through low grog- 
 geries, were in for a fight all of the time to save their 
 political lives. Breweries were not contented with a dis- 
 tribution to such saloons as might naturally exist. So they 
 entered upon an artificial policy of starting saloons at all 
 convenient places where the consumption of their product 
 would be increased. There is intense competition between 
 brewers for the installation and control of saloons. Con- 
 ditions became intolerable. The people broke out in con- 
 tagious rebellion, all invoked by the exaggerated commer- 
 cializing of alcohol. 
 
 A desire for better conditions exists in the heart of every 
 good citizen. The average man does not wish to be fanat- 
 ical or intolerant. He does not wish to apply sumptuary 
 laws that abridge personal liberty beyond the point of pub- 
 lic good. But government by saloon and brewery must go 
 and artificial stimulation of the traffic in beer and whiskey 
 must be discontinued. In a degree it is true that the sa- 
 loon is the poor man's club. But the rich man's club af- 
 fects only the more or less useless few, while the poor man's 
 club, if low in character and degenerating in influence, in- 
 jures the useful many. Society can stand crumbling at 
 the top, for that is the natural spot of decay, but it cannot 
 survive necrosis of its foundation masses. The local option 
 policy is good and out of it can come improving condi- 
 tions. In communities where saloons exist there should not 
 be more than one to a thousand population, and breweries 
 should be divorced from their ownership. The license should 
 be higher but more attention should be paid to the character 
 of the saloonkeeper and the conduct of the saloon than to 
 the amount of the license. I would' suggest a law prorid- 
 
278 THE IKON HUNTEK 
 
 ing for fuller state supervision of saloons. The State dis- 
 pensary system is ideal, but proved a failure in South 
 Carolina. In Kussia, where alcohol is a government mo- 
 nopoly, the dispensary system is fairly commendable. In 
 Pennsylvania the courts regulate the liquor traffic, give and 
 revoke licenses. In Canada the hotel system prevails. 
 
 I would like to see the question studied for Michigan by 
 an honorary commission to be composed of some of the most 
 noble, courageous and unselfish citizens of the State. 
 
 This is an age of stimulation. The physical tensity of 
 our civilization makes for it The quantities consumed in 
 this country alone of alcohol in various forms, opium, co- 
 caine, tea, coffee and tobacco are startling and transfix 
 with horror when contemplated, commanding the interest of 
 every person concerned in the welfare of society. Over 
 stimulation is the source of disease, pauperism and crime. 
 In the long run these conditions can be corrected only by 
 going to the foundation of things. Man must not drive 
 man so hard. Conditions of life for the masses must be bet- 
 ter. Rest for the weary, food for the underfed, entertain- 
 ment and respite for those whose monotony of life is caused 
 by over-work must be provided and finer human fellowship 
 must come to prevail. 
 
 While these ideals are working out, proclaiming the com- 
 ing some day, of the superman, the State must see that 
 selfish and careless individuals do not over capitalize the 
 appetites of man. Wholesome regulation cannot grow out 
 of fanatical intolerance or exaggerated extremity. Op- 
 pressive rule by majority is only another form of the appli- 
 cation of might. The greatest good to the greatest number 
 should be succeeded by the aim to accomplish the greatest 
 average good for all. This will, I believe, be your inspira- 
 tion for suggested corrective legislation. 
 
 I had stalked within range of the most deadly thing 
 I knew of and was to take this shot at it. No recent 
 Michigan governor had referred to it. The subject was 
 politically taboo. I knew that it would bring to me 
 3,11,, the trouble -the whiskey makers .and whiskey sellers 
 
A FIGHT AGAINST THE SALOON 279 
 
 could oppose me with. There was no halfway realiza- 
 tion of it upon my part. 
 
 The effect of this and other things I proposed to at- 
 tempt to do was to arrive at the decision that I would 
 not be a candidate for a second term. All of my ad- 
 visers endeavored to dissuade me from making such an 
 announcement, and especially at the outset. But I 
 could not be deterred by their convincing arguments 
 that it was not good politics. I was not playing poli- 
 tics, had not been and did not intend to start. That 
 was the trouble with everything in public Michigan. 
 Everybody had been playing politics every minute until 
 things had reached an impossible mess. The one thing 
 I hoped to convey to the public was that I had no per- 
 sonal political object in view as a result of any act; 
 nothing but the public good. It seemed to me that the 
 only way to start fair was to make an honest one-term 
 decision, announce it and stick to it. Down deep within 
 my being I knew the danger to my plans that lurked in 
 a desire for a second term. 
 
 So insidious are the operations of desire that it may 
 almost be said of it when it exists that no act of a man's 
 life is independent of it. He may be as honest as is hu- 
 manly possible and as unconscious, but his acts will be 
 influenced. So I burned all bridges behind me and felt 
 better when I had done so. There was very much to 
 do, and I did not wish the handicap of trimming or 
 playing politics for a second term. 
 
CHAPTEK XXXIV 
 
 FIGHTING FOE THE LIFE OF MICHIGAN AGAINST THE 
 
 HUMAN BLOODSUCKERS THAT SUBSIST ON 
 
 SOCIETY EVERYWHERE 
 
 THE first of January, 1911, I was inaugurated as 
 Governor of Michigan. In order to devote every 
 energy to the program of accomplishment I had 
 outlined, I had determined that I would leave the office 
 at the close of my two-year term and would not be a 
 candidate for reelection. There was much to do and 
 I realized that I would have strong opposition to the 
 passage of the measures I advocated. The political or- 
 ganizations of Detroit were powerful at the state capi- 
 tal. Detroit control had passed long before into the 
 hands of a local Tammany that would stop at nothing. 
 The organization, unwritten, but understood, included 
 men in both the Republican and Democratic parties, 
 grading up from convicts to semi-respectables and con- 
 nected with men on both sides occupying positions of 
 trust and prominence, but ready at all times to profit 
 by their political relationship to this tong, and just as 
 ready to be parties to questionable political practices 
 that they might not think of resorting to if proposed in 
 their professions. This gang was " The Vote Swap- 
 pers' League," named such by E. G. Pipp, manager at 
 that time of the Detroit News. Most of the men had 
 double standards of practice; one for politics and an- 
 other for business. Most of those who aided the crooked 
 
 280 
 
FOR THE LIFE OF MICHIGAN 281 
 
 league in the work were well known. The Republicans 
 were even worse than their Democrat partners, because 
 they presumed to hold their heads a little higher, cloak 
 themselves in a bespotted mantle of respectability and 
 patronize the town clubs and the golf links, and even go 
 so far as to identify themselves with a church if it 
 served a purpose. These fine bucktails divided the of- 
 fices among their faithful, controlled the Council, 
 boasted of their standing in the several judicial strata 
 and most thoroughly removed the political viscera from 
 any reformer or citizens' movement that started any 
 Taiping revolution. I had to decide whether I would 
 serve Michigan or the Vote Swappers' League. I chose 
 the flag of Michigan. The word was passed to the De- 
 troit gang that I could not be controlled. This started 
 a war upon me that has gone the length of bitterness. 
 
 The fight was staged first in the Legislature. I found 
 myself as Governor at first unable to secure a majority 
 for anything for which any credit or responsibility at- 
 tached to the Governor's office. Gradually the legisla- 
 tive opposition wore down. Finally I had a certain 
 majority in the House and soon after in the Senate. 
 The failures in legislation were few and only of meas- 
 ures that required a two-thirds majority. 
 
 A multitude of things came up in the executive office. 
 I had succeeded an administration unfriendly to me, 
 and things were not made easy for me, which did not 
 alarm or dissuade me. I had been accustomed to long 
 hours and there was keen delight in putting them in 
 now. 
 
 The very day I was inaugurated a plot was discov- 
 ered to blow up Jackson prison with dynamite. The 
 warden was new and there was much nervousness. De- 
 pendable guards were not known from the ones in league 
 
282 THE IKON HUNTER 
 
 with the convicts. I counseled with Warden Russell, 
 of Marquette prison, and Warden Fuller, of the Ionia 
 Reformatory, both officials of long experience and high 
 ability. I succeeded in getting a line on the bad men 
 in Jackson. I had them brought to the executive office 
 one at a time and between two and four o'clock in the 
 morning, so that absolute secrecy might be secured. I 
 succeeded in obtaining enough information to locate 
 and remove quantities of high explosives, and to break 
 up the convict gang, distributing the members among 
 other prisons. While at this task I learned many other 
 incidental facts. My greatest surprise was caused and 
 my indignation was particularly aroused by the indis- 
 putable knowledge that a traffic in pardons and paroles 
 was going on. I forced at once the resignation of the 
 Board of Pardons and a new Board was appointed. I 
 appointed a complete, new bi-partisan Prison Board of 
 big men. 
 
 I learned that one of the Tax Commissioners of the 
 State was also the retained attorney of a big manufac- 
 turer of automobiles. Of course the lawyer could not 
 serve two masters for conflicting interests. I asked him 
 to resign and he did so. Another Tax Commissioner 
 gave very little time to the work and his performance 
 was very unsatisfactory. In fact, the Commission was 
 in a rut. I asked this man to resign. The epidemic 
 phrase was " Go to hell." This fellow applied it and I 
 removed him. This removal made completely new 
 three important boards. I cleaned out every vestige of 
 the old administration that seemed to be necessary to 
 wholesome state administration. In doing so I only 
 kept faith with the people. It was what I had prom- 
 ised them I would do. 
 
 When I became Governor a deficit existed in the 
 
FOK THE LIFE OF MICHIGAN 283 
 
 state treasury of about a million dollars. I was deter- 
 mined to wipe this out. Many economies were inau- 
 gurated in the management of state institutions. In 
 this work I was aided by every institutional superin- 
 tendent in Michigan and by all the appointive heads of 
 departments. It was easy to save the State's money if 
 one managed with anything like the same care with 
 which private business is conducted. 
 
 The new constitution of Michigan gives the Governor 
 unusual fiscal authority. In fact, it imposes in him the 
 power and responsibility practically of financial man- 
 ager. The Governor can veto all or any part of an ap- 
 propriation bill. I carefully went over every bill with 
 those interested in it. As a result I cut out nearly 
 enough to pay the state indebtedness. This financial 
 use of the veto constitutes a precedent. 
 
 But it was in saving through economies introduced 
 everywhere that the big results were obtained. At the 
 conclusion of my administration the State was out of 
 debt and the treasury contained a surplus of more than 
 two million dollars. This was achieved and at the same 
 time more money was appropriated for good roads than 
 the estimate and more for the state university than ever 
 before. The tax rate was also reduced. Also this sav- 
 ing improved the conditions at all state institutions, be- 
 cause the very care that made economy possible nat- 
 urally conduced to improvements in every detail of serv- 
 ice. 
 
 The regular session of the Legislature adjourned. 
 
 Early in 1912 I called a special session and followed 
 it immediately with a second special session. Under 
 the Michigan constitution the Governor is empowered 
 to summon the Legislature in extraordinary session. 
 At such only those measures submitted in message by 
 
284 THE IEO1ST HUNTER 
 
 the Governor may be considered. The effect is to com- 
 pel legislative concentration and to focus the eyes of the 
 public upon important measures. At a regular session 
 there is pulling and hauling and trading and confusion, 
 until the public is lost in a muddle of vexatious circum- 
 stances and the legislators are nearly as badly off. 
 
 Very near to my heart I had the matter of a work- 
 men's compensation law. I had given the subject con- 
 siderable study in Germany and England and had talked 
 it over often with my intimate associates and many 
 others. The Legislature in regular session had em- 
 powered the Governor to appoint a commission to study 
 the question and draft a form of a bill embodying a suit- 
 able law. The commission appointed, serving without 
 pay, had given earnest attention to the important sub- 
 ject and had submitted a report of indubitable value. 
 To obtain action upon this was my chief first purpose 
 for a special session. Also I wished to utilize this meri- 
 torious measure to further define and stiffen partisan 
 lines in the Legislature, so that I might feed in good 
 measures that otherwise would not carry. The work- 
 ingmen's compensation act passed. The Legislature 
 empowered the Governor to appoint an Industrial Acci- 
 dent Board to administer the law. The success of the 
 new law might largely depend upon the practical foun- 
 dation laid for it in its earliest application and inter- 
 pretation. I secured for the board the only two mem- 
 bers of the commission that framed the law who could be 
 secured for state service. By virtue of the understand- 
 ing and administration of this law by the first board, it 
 came to be recognized as one of the best compensation 
 enactments in America. It has been copied by many 
 other States. Gradually it will undoubtedly be brought 
 nearer to perfection. 
 
A press cartoon. 1910 
 
FOE THE LIFE OF MICHIGAN 285 
 
 Police Commissioner Croul, of Detroit, an official of 
 rare courage and capacity, had told me that of some sev- 
 enteen hundred saloons in Detroit quite twelve hundred 
 were owned by brewers and distillers. It was their 
 practice to start a booze joint on every likely corner 
 they could obtain and especially near factory doors. 
 Brewery-owned saloons were the worst of all. I saw to 
 it that a bill was introduced making it illegal for brew- 
 ers and distillers to own or encourage saloons. Forth- 
 with fell upon me the liquor people. The Royal Ark, 
 an association of saloon keepers in Detroit, endeavored 
 to intimidate members of the Legislature. Conditions 
 of much bitterness arose. But the bill became a law. 
 
 I found the Michigan Bonding Company to be the 
 most hurtful and the boldest source of evil in the State. 
 It was organized under a law that gave it the practical 
 control of all the saloons in the State. If a saloon 
 keeper did not obey its behests, his bonds were refused. 
 It charged big fees and was strong financially. It had 
 one or more agents in every county and cleverly selected 
 them from among the best-equipped attorneys. By 
 means of a retainer it secured the services of lawyers 
 who would not naturally line up with it. Thus 
 equipped, the Michigan Bonding Company became a 
 dangerous entity. Of it men were afraid. It was the 
 core organization around which was built the opposition 
 to woman suffrage, prohibition and all related reforms. 
 I asked the Legislature to repeal the law giving it exist- 
 ence and I made a fight against it that was nearly suc- 
 cessful. 
 
 The fight at Lansing while these bills were pending 
 became a vicious one, with enough bad feeling and per- 
 sonal passion almost to obscure reason for a time. I 
 received as many as ten letters in one day threatening 
 
286 THE IKON HUNTER 
 
 my life. To these cowardly messages I paid no atten- 
 tion. They only indicated the feeling that existed 
 among the whiskeyites. Dynamite was placed under 
 my house but it did not explode. My residence was on 
 fire twice mysteriously. One of these fires occurred at 
 two o'clock in the morning. I was attacked on all sides. 
 Throughout all the conflict I did not worry nor lose 
 sleep. My wife stood it bravely but confesses now she 
 was deeply worried and wearied. But only words of 
 cheer and courage came from her then. As for myself, 
 I thought I was right and I think so now when the em- 
 bers of thought are colorless from fire. Perhaps I took 
 on some of the spirit of the crusader. At least I placed 
 my trust in God and calmly asked divine approval and 
 direction. 
 
 Those who were advocating woman suffrage were not 
 united. Some of them, including most of the women 
 propagandists who came to Lansing, were fearful that a 
 measure submitting the question to the people could not 
 pass the Legislature and that its failure would prove a 
 setback. After discussing the matter with Representa- 
 tive Charles Flowers, a veteran partisan of the cause, 
 and with several others, I decided to present the ques- 
 tion. It carried nicely. Later, when it was submitted 
 for popular consideration, it undoubtedly carried in the 
 State. However, the liquor interests succeeded in ob- 
 scuring and invalidating the result. Its next submis- 
 sion was in the spring, when the country vote is light as 
 compared with that of the cities, and suffrage was then 
 unquestionably defeated. 
 
 When the returns of the vote began to indicate that 
 the measure had passed at the first plebiscite, those op- 
 posed held back the reports from polling precincts that 
 they controlled, giving the impression that whatever to- 
 
FOR THE LIFE OF MICHIGAN 287 
 
 tals were necessary to accomplish the defeat of the 
 women would be supplied. There were signs of a 
 sharp practice that was used by the vicious elements to 
 obtain a momentary end. Apparently the only ade- 
 quate redress for such is an aroused public that will 
 finally act so decisively as to brook no resistance or 
 trickery. 
 
 I do not say that all of those who oppose votes for 
 women are vicious, but I do say that wherever I have 
 been familiar with conditions, the management of the 
 campaign against suffrage has been controlled either 
 above the surface or below it by those who are inclined 
 to lawlessness and who make it their instinctive busi- 
 ness to fight anything that tends to improve the public 
 tone or widen the zone of influence of those who would 
 be most likely, in the nature of things, to endeavor to 
 cure those evils that are eating cancerously at the foun- 
 dations of the human family. 
 
 Women are the matrix of the race. They occupy a 
 sphere that man, a mere fertilizing agent, never enters. 
 Consequently woman knows instinctively when her own 
 is imperiled. Fundamentally this is the raison d'etre 
 of the woman movement. All talk of liberty and equal 
 ity is incidental. Nature, always operating to make 
 life dominant over death, and in ways often most ob- 
 scure and indirect so far as man's vision and compre- 
 hension are concerned, is the author of the activity that 
 has for its purpose the bringing to bear of the powers 
 of woman directly against the jeopardy of her children. 
 The tendency may be delayed or misdirected but it 
 cannot be defeated, any more than the precession of the 
 equinoxes can be controlled by human agencies. 
 1 ' 'My in'es'sfcges ; to -thfe Legislature, in special sessions, 
 are a true guide to my state of mind, my thought proe- 
 
288 THE IRON HUNTER 
 
 esses and convictions at that time. I had not yet con- 
 vinced myself that there could not be some compromise 
 with alcohol. I hoped that if there was any good in it 
 that it might be separated from the much that was bad, 
 and the desirable retained and the objectionable re- 
 jected. I had visions of state control that would be 
 more successful than the dispensary experience by the 
 State of South Carolina. It was my nebulous hope that 
 the whiskey traffic might be completely taken out of 
 trade whereby man's degeneracy was made a source of 
 profit. It was a passing dream in which I saw pure 
 whiskey, beers and wines served at cost in temperate 
 quantities in clean environment to those who might be 
 cheered but not poisoned. 
 
 But I was nearing the time when I became convinced 
 that life and alcohol cannot exist together any more 
 rationally than life and death. I saw the constant 
 struggle of nature against death and all of the agencies 
 of decay ; the finely maintained equilibrium of wild ani- 
 mal and vegetable life; the self-pruning processes of 
 primeval forests and many of the visible efforts of the 
 war of life against death. Because of the limited visual 
 powers of man, there are more invisible activities than 
 those that we can see. But there are also many that we 
 are slow to see because we do not wish to see. So I saw 
 in the world's growing social array against alcohol sim- 
 ply a great movement of life against death. As such it 
 will succeed in spite of man's blindness and opposition, 
 just because of the world-old truth that man is ever the 
 weak proponent and God is forever the mighty dispo^ 
 nent. 
 
 Michigan voted in favor of state-wide prohibition at 
 the election of November, 1916, and in favor of woman 
 suffrage in 1918. 
 
CHAPTEK XXXV 
 
 MY PART IN THE PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN OF 1912 
 
 THE second year of my service as Governor was a 
 year of presidential campaign. A successor to 
 Mr. Taft was to be selected. Early it became ap- 
 parent that there was great dissatisfaction with Presi- 
 dent Taft. No matter what merit he might have, and 
 forgetful of his great public services in the past, it was 
 plain that a majority of his party would not and did not 
 approve or trust him politically. They could no longer 
 see good in him or in anything he proposed. Because 
 it was a Taft proposition, the proposed Treaty of Cana- 
 dian Reciprocity, a measure of great merit, was bitterly 
 opposed. I was, I think, the only governor in the 
 United States who supported that treaty, at home and at 
 Washington. It was passed with difficulty, after long 
 hearings and delays that aided in perverting the Cana- 
 dian view and supplying fuel for its subsequent repudia- 
 tion across the border. 
 
 Always in public life and in politics I have clung to 
 certain ideals of citizenship and its responsibilities. 
 Like millions of others I have looked upon Theodore 
 Roosevelt as personifying most nearly these mind and 
 heart types. He was human and made errors, but he 
 was heartful and earnest, courageous and honest. He 
 worked at the job of being a citizen when with another 
 temperament he might have been a loafer, because he 
 never had to work for bread, that great industrial 
 
 289 
 
290 THE IKON HUNTER 
 
 incentive. Always active and giving of himself, spend- 
 ing and being spent, he has the highest batting average 
 of public service in the modern history of the nation. 
 And as such things are usually interpreted his work has 
 been unselfish. In a higher way of thought his labors 
 have been the essence of worthy selfishness for social and 
 individual welfare including himself. 
 
 First with all good citizens comes the good of the 
 nation ; then the good of those agencies that contribute to 
 the nation ; then the man : Country, party, individual. 
 
 I cared only in this way. It seemed to me that the 
 Republican party had attracted to itself the greater vol- 
 ume of genius for government. As is always true in a 
 successful party the bad entered with the good. Virtue 
 in party should be and always will be at friction with 
 vice in party. Those who, as participants in or agents 
 for intrenched privilege, believe in government by the 
 few will be naturally opposed by those who believe in 
 government by all for all. 
 
 Mr. Taft might be nominated by force, but he would 
 be defeated. The midyear's elections foreshadowed 
 that certain result. What was the party to do if it 
 would achieve the success within itself that would pre- 
 serve in control its best element, and continue it in 
 governmental power and direction ? A candidate other 
 than Mr. Taft must be found. This thought was 
 one common to many earnest minds. The field to select 
 from was not large. But there were some good, earnest, 
 courageous public men, and more were being created 
 out of an atmosphere growing from an aroused public 
 conscience. Of these the first and greatest and clearest 
 and most consistent and courageous was Theodore Roose- 
 velt. His own idea, as he had told me and all who 
 talked with him, was to be ready to serve in peace or 
 
PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN OF 1912 291 
 
 war at any time his country, that had so honored and 
 trusted him, demanded. But he would not be a can- 
 didate. He must be drafted and the call must be un- 
 mistakable. 
 
 Now it is one thing for a king to call and another 
 thing for a people. There may be ever so much ma- 
 terial for a chorus, but it is always scattered, untrained 
 and undirected. A big Roosevelt movement began all 
 over the land. He was unmoved by it. In fact it was 
 so intangible as to be difficult of measurement. No one 
 man or men started it. But it was still in no form to 
 carry convictions of duty and sacrifice to Oyster Bay. 
 
 Alexander Revell headed the Roosevelt movement in 
 Chicago. Edwin W. Sims was associated with him. 
 Mr. Sims was from Michigan. Perhaps that is why he 
 came to me. 
 
 " There is only one way that I can think of that will 
 formulate this Roosevelt movement so that it will com- 
 pel him to be a candidate; that is to call a conference 
 of Republican governors and pass resolutions urging 
 Colonel Roosevelt to come out and do his duty." 
 
 It was the idea of Mr. Sims. It appealed to me. I 
 signed a call for a meeting of the governors. There 
 were not many Republican governors, only nine or ten. 
 The States had fallen like bean-poles before the anti- 
 Taft hurricane. There were eight governors at the 
 meeting. Seven of them signed the call eagerly. The 
 message was carried to Oyster Bay. Colonel Roosevelt 
 became a candidate. The steam-roller national con- 
 vention in Chicago nominated Taft. Then came the 
 revolt. The followers of Roosevelt entered upon the 
 formation of a new party. This I opposed. At the 
 first meeting in Michigan I succeeded in preventing 
 the formation of a progressive party. There was no 
 
292 THE IKON HUNTER 
 
 progressive principle that I did not and do not believe 
 in and advocate. The thing was to decide what instru- 
 mentality would most quickly secure the adoption and 
 application of progressive reforms in government. I 
 am firmly convinced that the great majority of the Re- 
 publican party was progressive and is so to-day. The 
 only thing to do as I saw it, was to remain in the party 
 and wrest control from the leaders who were abusing it. 
 This had already been done in Michigan and other 
 States, and it seemed particularly unwise to desert and 
 leave behind all the good work that had been done up to 
 date. Suffering from a broken foot, I had managed 
 to attend the Lansing meeting, though on crutches. An 
 inflammation in the injured member prevented me from 
 attending the convention at Jackson where Senator 
 Dixon, of Montana, swept men off their feet who had 
 promised me not to secede, and the Progressives in 
 Michigan were organized. 
 
 Roosevelt, Taft and Wilson ran. I made it plain 
 that I would remain in the Republican party and would 
 vote for Roosevelt as a Republican, and I advised other 
 Republicans to do the same. I was at Deerfoot Lodge 
 when I got the news that Colonel Roosevelt was shot. 
 In a flash I reviewed the early part I had played in 
 getting him into the fight, A decision to go and help 
 him now that he was hors du combat was acted upon at 
 once. I tendered my services and asked to be sent 
 wherever the committee had difficulty in getting or keep- 
 ing speakers. After several speeches in Chicago, St. 
 Louis and other places in Missouri, I was sent to Okla- 
 homa. My progress in Oklahoma was such that Wil- 
 liam Jennings Bryan was sent to follow me. I closed 
 the campaign in Indiana, too far away to enable me to 
 reach Sault Ste. Marie in time to vote. 
 
CHAPTEE XXXVI 
 
 OFF FOE MADAGASCAR, ASIA AND AFRICA FOR A LONG TOTTR 
 IN THE UNUSUAL PARTS OF THE EARTH 
 
 MY term of office as Governor was nearing a 
 close. There had been a fight for some good 
 cause every day and I had enjoyed every mo- 
 ment of it. It was touching to me to witness the evi- 
 dence of regard so plainly shown by good men of all 
 parties. It made me forget there had been any such 
 thing as opposition or bitterness. I felt that I was 
 over-appreciated and too well paid. The University of 
 Michigan and Olivet College and also Alma College, had 
 conferred upon me the honorary degree of Doctor of 
 Laws. I was the first governor of Michigan to be thus 
 honored ; not the first to deserve but the first to receive. 
 Olivet and Alma are splendid denominational colleges. 
 Their recognition of me could not be interpreted as po- 
 litical by my most bitter enemy. 
 
 At the end I was given a dinner at Hotel Downey, 
 Lansing. Republicans, Progressives, Socialists and 
 Democrats came to do me honor. It was a thank God 
 thing and I was overcome. The Democratic Governor 
 incoming was present and said he would model his ad- 
 ministration after mine. I had inducted him into of- 
 fice with all kindness, respect and assistance. The 
 speeches at the dinner were of such graciousness as few 
 men live to hear. Reviewing my work as Governor, 
 one of the great dailies of Michigan said editorially : 
 
 " Throughout its course, the Osborn administration 
 
 293 
 
294 THE IKON HUNTER 
 
 lias been free from the touch of scandal. To be sure it 
 has not been untroubled, but those troubles have been 
 of the clean sort, in which men could oppose each other 
 with honest differences of opinion and without shame. 
 They have been storms rather than embarrassments. 
 But the fact is the troubles of his administration have 
 been brief in duration and inconsequential in effect 
 and may be easily forgotten. 
 
 " Some of the things Governor Osborn set out to do 
 two years ago have been accomplished. In other things 
 disappointment has been his portion. But in success 
 or disappointment, he displayed in all his official acts 
 and life a spirit which made the fortune of the hour 
 seem a matter of small moment. He met his every de- 
 feat with an attitude that commanded the admiration 
 which usually is the tribute to success alone. In 
 friendly or in hostile sympathy with his administration 
 as one may be, yet the name of Osborn cannot be de- 
 nied place beside that of Blair, the war Governor, and 
 of Pingree, the first insurgent, in the roll of Michigan 
 Governors. 
 
 " Reflect now on the two years of Osborn's governor- 
 ship, and consider not only the immediate results of 
 it, but the impulse it has given to a finer, stronger con- 
 ception of government by the people of this State of 
 ours. The injury that Osborn has done is solely to 
 Chase S. Osborn's political aspirations if any he has. 
 The good that Chase S. Osborn has wrought is the in- 
 alienable possession of the State." 
 
 The House of Representatives passed resolutions offi- 
 cially commending my work. 
 
 My brief exaugural address was well received by the 
 Legislature and by the public. I was deeply content. 
 
A LONG TOUK OF THE WOULD 295 
 
 There was much I wished to do. I had not finished 
 the earth in travel and study. There remained por- 
 tions of Africa and all of Madagascar. My wife and 
 I left at once for the East and across the seas. We 
 stopped en route in Washington, where I addressed the 
 Michigan Society, upon the invitation of Judge Mont- 
 gomery, with whom I had sometime clashed, but who is 
 so big that he has forgotten it and forgiven me. At 
 the State Department I could get almost no information 
 about Madagascar. This made me decide to proceed 
 to France. Madagascar is a French Colony. France 
 took possession of it one year before the United States 
 acquired the Philippines. It furnishes a splendid op- 
 portunity of comparing the methods and colonial poten- 
 tiality of the two nations. 
 
 We took passage on the French liner La Touraine, 
 with the same captain who had sent the Titanic a wire- 
 less warning of the iceberg, that was unheeded. 
 
 Either at the wharf at Havre, or on the train between 
 there and Paris, our trunks and bags were broken into 
 and robbed. I mention this because we have only suf- 
 fered from such depredations while traveling in France, 
 Italy and Spain. 
 
 One gets the idea that the average of honesty is low 
 among the European Latins. I say European Latins 
 because we have found the South American Latin peo- 
 ples as honest as any others in the world. We have 
 been warned in every South American country to be- 
 ware of thieves while traveling, just as the American 
 traveling public encounters " beware " signs in depots 
 and hotels, at home and on ocean steamers. In thou- 
 sands of miles of travel in South America I have never 
 lost an article, and I grew to be less watchful there 
 than in most countries. Friends liviiiff in South Amer- 
 
296 THE IKON HUNTER 
 
 ica uniformly tell me that petty larceny and sneak thiev- 
 ing are uncommon there, which accords with my ex- 
 perience. 
 
 Ambassador Herrick was very kind to us in Paris. 
 He saw that I had access to all official sources of in- 
 formation. I was also permitted a more intimate 
 knowledge of Dr. Alfred Grandidier, the famous biolo- 
 gist, and his work. Grandidier is an authority upon 
 nearly every branch of scientific knowledge pertaining 
 to Madagascar. When he completes the volumes he is 
 writing they will form an exhaustive treatise upon that 
 big and interesting island. 
 
 We sailed from Marseilles on a stormy day. The 
 Mediterranean was the roughest I had ever seen it and 
 it grew worse. Off Crete we nearly foundered. The 
 storm continued for four days. For two days it was a 
 hurricane and during thirty-six hours our ship just 
 headed into it, and the log did not record a single knot 
 of progress. Mrs. Osborn remained in our stateroom 
 because it was too rough to dress. She was compelled 
 to live in the upper berth on account of the depth of 
 water in the room. Other women were hysterical, and 
 men were down on their knees in prayer, just as they 
 always rush to God in danger and helplessness and so 
 often forget Him at other times. No one was permitted 
 on deck. Even the captain wrung his hands. He had 
 ordered me below a number of times. Finally learning 
 that I was working with the deck hands helping to rig 
 the auxiliary steering gear and doing other things, he 
 made me a member of the crew. During all of it my 
 brave wife was as calm as could be, and only asked me 
 to tell her and give her enough time to put on a life 
 preserver, if it became necessary. Many passengers, 
 both women and men, wore life belts for two days. 
 
A LONG TOUK OF THE WOULD 297 
 
 We had seen trying storms in the Cape Horn region, 
 in the China Sea, in the North Atlantic and North Pa- 
 cific and in Biscay and the Indian Ocean, but nothing 
 worse than this. The fearful thing on the Mediter- 
 ranean in a bad gale is lack of sea room, which is the 
 great menace also on Lake Superior and the other great 
 lakes of the world. I have seen Lake Titicaca so storm- 
 swept that hundreds of balsas were destroyed. Fancy a 
 storm on the roof of the world in a lake more than two 
 miles up in the clouds. One really feels as if he might 
 be washed into illimitable space. 
 
 It was our fourth trip to Egypt, but neither my wife 
 nor myself had seen the Sahara as it must be seen to 
 be comprehended. In order to do so I organized a cara- 
 van for the purpose of journeying over the sands that 
 are finer than when they reposed, unmoved, on the vast 
 floor of the ancient ocean that once existed over the 
 Bedouin domain. We planned to go some hundreds 
 miles and also visit the Fayoum Oasis, either outward 
 bound or upon our return. 
 
 We have the slides to contend with at the Panama 
 Canal. At the Suez, dredges are kept at work con- 
 stantly by the boiling, slipping, flowing ooze that comes 
 in at the bottom and sides. Compared with the Panama 
 Canal the Suez is not much of an engineering product ; 
 nor when compared with the St. Mary's Falls locks, at 
 Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, where the lock problem 
 was solved for Panama and for the world. 
 
CHAPTER XXXVII 
 
 SOME REFERENCES TO BURMA, CEYLON, COCHIN-CHINA, 
 TURKESTAN, PERSIA 
 
 IN" Madagascar I was made an honorary member of 
 the Academic Malgache. There are only half a 
 dozen honorary members, including the President 
 of France. 
 
 The French authorities jealously guard the rare fos- 
 sils that have been found in Madagascar, where so much 
 of the flora and fauna, ancient and modern, belongs 
 alone to Madagascar. 
 
 They were very courteous to me. I was lucky 
 enough to discover a perfect specimen of the egg of the 
 ^Epyornis Titans, the greatest of the extinct prodigious 
 birds, and was permitted to remove it from the country 
 in order that I might present it to the University of 
 Michigan. Also I obtained bones of the ^Epyornis, 
 flying and amphibious lemurs, and a complete skeleton 
 of the pigmy hippopotamus, a rare fossil. I shot a 
 large modern hippo in Africa to contrast the lilliputian 
 with. They now form a striking contrast in the mu- 
 seum of the University of Michigan. 
 
 The Colonial geologist and mineralogist aided me in 
 obtaining a complete collection of the minerals and 
 rocks of Madagascar for the Michigan College of Mines. 
 
 English missionaries have done a praiseworthy work 
 in Madagascar. They went there nearly a hundred 
 
 years ago. Now out of a population of between three 
 
 298 
 
BUKMA, CEYLON, COCHINCHINA 299 
 
 and four millions, there are more than five hundred 
 thousand enrolled Christians. 
 
 At Fort Dauphin we found an American Swedish 
 Lutheran mission establishment of cheerful, wholesome, 
 self-sacrificing missionaries doing fine work. No one 
 could have been extended more consideration and kind- 
 ness than we were given by all the missionaries. The 
 most unusual Consul Porter, British official representa- 
 tive, stationed at Antananarivo, could not have done 
 more for his King than he and his charming family 
 did for us. 
 
 The United States Consul to Madagascar, a high- 
 grade Negro, Mr. James G. Carter, at Tamatave, was 
 thoughtful, polite and efficient. The color line is not 
 drawn officially or socially and Yankee Consul Carter 
 was having the time of his life. 
 
 Madagascar is apart from routes of common travel. 
 It is never visited by the tourist class and has not been 
 spoiled. I am referring to Madagascar very briefly 
 here because I am at work upon a more elaborate manu- 
 script concerning it, which I hope to complete for pub- 
 lication. 
 
 In Ceylon we visited the Anuradhpura district where 
 extensive ruins dating from the golden days of 
 Buddhism are being uncovered and preserved. It is a 
 fever stricken region. Not unlikely this caused the 
 decay of the strong peoples that competed successfully 
 in their time in all the activities of the known world. 
 They were at their best about 300 B. c. One has only 
 to go to Ceylon and read the Ramayana to have both 
 regard and respect for the ancient Cingalese. 
 
 We reached Burma in time to participate in the hun- 
 dredth anniversary of the arrival of the American Bap- 
 tist missionary Adoniram Judson. He really opened 
 
300 THE IRON HUNTER 
 
 Burma. The British followed, as they have been often 
 guided by the blazed trails made in remote portions of 
 the world by American missionaries. 
 
 No river trip in the world surpasses in interest that 
 of the Irawaddy. When we were at Bhamo the Tibe- 
 tans, Chinese and English were guarding their frontier 
 and frequent clashes came. 
 
 The most productive ruby mines in the world are 
 along the Irawaddy. American drillers have developed 
 rich oil fields just as they have done at Baku. Man- 
 dalay had the plague and three hundred a day were 
 dying from it when we were there. 
 
 Fascinating indeed is Old Pagan, once the mightiest 
 seat of Buddhism and still showing eight thousand pa- 
 godas and dagobas. When Genghiz Khan appeared be- 
 fore it in the thirteenth century, there were standing 
 thirteen thousand temples of Buddha. The King tore 
 down five thousand to obtain material for use in 
 strengthening his fortifications. The Great Khan cap- 
 tured and sacked the city despite all this and a brave 
 defense. 
 
 Our English word " pagan " comes from here just 
 as our word " meander " is from the tortuous river that 
 laves the ruined foundation of Diana's ancient Ephesus. 
 
 In Siam we found an American, Jens Westengaard, 
 of Chicago, living in a palace as adviser to the King, 
 and ranking only next below the sacred white elephant. 
 The story of Westengaard and his splendid work in 
 Siam, and his potential life throughout is dramatic and 
 exhausts the imagination. He is indeed a creditable 
 American. 
 
 Cochin-China, French China, is well administered. 
 Saigon is a miniature Paris. The French manage their 
 colonies with sympathy, understanding, real interest and 
 
BURMA, CEYLON, COCHINCHINA 301 
 
 strive for unalloyed justice. The colonial work of the 
 highest and most unselfish character in the world is that 
 done by our country in the Philippines. Next comes 
 France. 
 
 In Persia we encountered the failure of Morgan 
 Shuster. If he had been permitted to carry out his 
 plans, Shuster might have done wonders for Persia. 
 But it was not in the cards. England and Russia were 
 as determined upon the ravishment of Persia as the 
 latter has been of Turkestan, and the former of India. 
 Mr. Shuster's absolute tactlessness, and complete failure 
 to grasp the situation, only hastened the clenching of 
 the iron bands. 
 
 All of the countries engaged in the great European 
 holocaust have at one time or another despoiled and op- 
 pressed weaker peoples of the world. One of the most 
 guilty is Belgium. Her Congo brutalities curdled the 
 blood of all who knew them. Do nations reap as they 
 sow ? Like individuals ? I think so. 
 
 In Turkestan and throughout the " sealed dominions 
 of the Czar " we found, as all must find who go or read, 
 much to engross one and arouse conjecture and imagina- 
 tive thought. Old Maracanda and Merv, and the val- 
 ley of the Granicus, where Clitus saved Alexander's 
 life, only to be stabbed to death by him in a drunken 
 fit a short time afterwards. Alexander did not die of 
 a broken heart because of no more worlds to conquer. 
 There were plenty. He died of remorse, at thirty-three, 
 because he had, while drunk, murdered his favorite 
 general and best beloved friend Clitus, to whom he owed 
 his life. There is much evidence that in a fit of sorrow 
 over his crime he committed suicide. No, Alexander 
 did not die for want of worlds to master. He died be- 
 cause he failed to conquer himself. 
 
302 THE IKON HUNTER 
 
 The country is bleak along the Perso-Turkestan 
 frontier and much of it a desert. At oases there were 
 nomadic peoples, with home-woven, camel's-hair tents 
 and garments, and many camels, sheep, goats and asses. 
 
 Most of the shore line of the Aral and Caspian Sea 
 is forbidding, gray and ashen as death. Baku is a 
 busy, but not an attractive city. Krasnovodsk, Enzeli 
 and Resht are as nearly impossible as human hives can 
 be. Resht is a disease-breeding mudhole, considerably 
 below the level of the Caspian. Kiva and Bokhara are 
 just as they were in Biblical times. 
 
 Once in Transcaucasia all is different. The val- 
 leys contain a people that have spirit. Russia is build- 
 ing throughout with unusual activity, and the work is 
 done to last. Just as much life as in the most exciting 
 boom days of Oklahoma, and in addition everything is 
 done with a view to permanency. 
 
 Tashkent, in Turkestan, is quite a modern city. Ti- 
 flis in Transcaucasia, is much more so. Between them 
 the space is unfinished. At Geok Tepee, where Sko- 
 beleif captured the beards of the prophet, horsetail battle 
 flags mark the final conquest. 
 
 In Siberia there is a great development going on. In 
 many ways Siberia is the hope of Russia. Men and 
 women of independent thought and courage were exiled 
 there. Often when their term of exile had finished they 
 remained in their new abode. George Kennan's picture 
 of Siberia is unjust, unkind and untrue. I have been 
 three times across the remarkable domain that the robber 
 Yermak gave to his Czar, and have tried to know Si- 
 beria fairly. It is not as cold as Saskatchewan either 
 in summer or winter, and always they raise more wheat 
 than the railroad can haul. Irkutsk is really the lit- 
 erary and modern art center of Russia, because toler- 
 
BUEMA, CEYLON, COCHINCHINA 303 
 
 ance in Kussia for the humanities first began there- 
 abouts. 
 
 Siberian and Russian towns generally are not over- 
 churched. They are classified practically as one church, 
 two church and three church towns and so on. If a 
 community can support one church that is all it is 
 permitted, until it grows to a point where, without great 
 difficulty, it can support two. I am inclined to think 
 that religion in Russia is less an economic burden than 
 in any other country in the world. There seems to be a 
 gradual rapprochement of the Greek and Episcopal 
 churches. Their amalgamation would be a good thing 
 for them and for the world no doubt. 
 
 It was the early part of the year 1914. Everywhere 
 we saw Russian soldiers moving towards the Austrian 
 and German borders. There is an old Bengali saying 
 that when soldiers are on the move watch for trouble. 
 We had been away from newspapers for many weeks. 
 Nevertheless I concluded that war was going on or 
 about to start. In a few weeks it burst on Europe like 
 an elemental demon, leading hosts of vampires and 
 furies. 
 
 Rabindranath Tagore, of whom we saw mu,ch and 
 delightfully while in Calcutta, had in conversation pre- 
 dicted, like a prophet of old, that the world would 
 quake with wholesale murder and India would be 
 avenged. He could not have dreamed it would be so 
 soon. 
 
 I was in his home when the money of the Nobel 
 prize for literature was handed to him. He cared 
 deeply for the generous recognition of the East by the 
 West, but there is no East or West in the world of love 
 and art. But he cared most because he could further 
 endow his boys' school at Bolpur, where he is training 
 
304 THE IKON HUNTER 
 
 young men who will carry on the dream of his life. 
 That is the restoration of the pure ancient Brahmanism, 
 the first monotheistic religion the world knows anything 
 about. It has degenerated into a depraved animistic 
 Hinduism. 
 
 To call Tagore a Hindu, as is commonly done, is to 
 call Bergson a disciple of Nietzsche. 
 
 Through home missionary organizations called 
 Brahmo Samaj, they are endeavoring to convert the bull 
 kissing Hindus. 
 
 I told Tagore what he was teaching is really Christian- 
 ity. He agreed with me, but added that it was better 
 policy to name it Neo-Brahmanism. 
 
 It is the spiritual hope of India. 
 
CHAPTEE XXXVIII 
 
 I DISCOVER ANOTHER GREAT IRON ORE RANGE THAT WILL 
 SOME DAY HELP TO SUPPLY THE WORLD 
 
 WHILE following a Sakalava native trail in 
 Madagascar, just like a Kaffir path in Africa, 
 I came to a stretch where the dust of the path 
 was red. Searching on either side I found bowlders of 
 hematite iron ore. These I traced to a ridge of which 
 they were the talus. I traced this hogback for forty 
 miles and came to neither end. In many places along 
 it I found rich iron ore. 
 
 Specimens I procured showed a metallic iron con- 
 tent of sixty-four per cent, and nine-thousandths of one 
 per cent, of phosphorus. The analyses were made by 
 a chemist in the laboratory of one of the great iron mines 
 of Lake Superior. 
 
 It is a new range of iron ore that has never been seen 
 to be recognized by any other than myself. There it 
 lies to supply mankind when busier and nearer deposits 
 are exhausted. It is located almost as conveniently to 
 the markets of the world as the Chilian deposits, back 
 of Coquimbo, that Mr. Schwab is developing, and per- 
 haps more so than the Minas Geraes district of Brazil, 
 where American capital is interested. 
 
 This new range is in a country where the government 
 is stable and just, and taxation is low. There is an 
 unlimited supply of native, low-cost labor. At present 
 
 the lands are wild; that is they are owned by the gov- 
 
 305 
 
306 THE IRON HUNTER 
 
 eminent and may be bought for a few cents an acre. 
 
 I feel that I am quite within the limits of reason when 
 I state that this new iron range is likely to produce 
 as much high grade Bessemer ore as some of the world's 
 greatest iron regions. I am making further investiga- 
 tions. After completing this work I shall inform the 
 world of the location of this discovery. 
 
 It goes to prove further the statement of Professor C. 
 K. Leith, of the University of Wisconsin, made in his 
 paper on the " Conservation of Iron Ore," at the New 
 York meeting, February, 1916, of the American Insti- 
 tute of Mining Engineers, to the effect that there is no 
 danger of immediate exhaustion of the iron ore reserves 
 of the world. 
 
 When the late James J. Hill was trading on his Min- 
 nesota iron lands, he was quoted as making a statement 
 that the iron ore of the world would be exhausted in 
 twenty years. It caused much comment. Mr. Hill de- 
 nied making the statement. It bulled the iron ore land 
 market for a time, and increased the standard of meas- 
 urement of values of iron ore in the ground which had 
 been entirely too low. It was during the period of low 
 values and restricted demand that Mr. Carnegie and Mr. 
 Rockefeller secured their great Lake Superior holdings. 
 
CHAPTER XXXIX 
 
 MANY PEOPLE OF MICHIGAN AGAIN URGE ME TO TAKE UP 
 THE GONFALON FOR BETTER THINGS IN THE STATE 
 
 WE had been in the almost unknown world for 
 upwards of two years. Much of the time we 
 were beyond reach of civilized communica- 
 tion. Some of the time I was where no white man had 
 trodden before. Now in the spring of 1914 we were 
 entering the alive world again. At Baku on the Cas- 
 pian Sea I received cablegrams from several citizens 
 of Michigan asking me to be again a candidate for Gov- 
 ernor of Michigan. When I arrived at Paris on the 
 way home I found a mass of cablegrams and letters 
 asking me to make the race. It was all much opposed 
 to my inclination. Nothing except a sense of duty 
 could influence me to consent. I was poisoned with 
 malaria and had been bitten by the tsetse flies and was 
 not in good health. That I should make the matter 
 one demanding full and very earnest consideration was 
 the advice given to me by Ambassador Herrick. He 
 was the first American I had seen in more than a 
 year. He said I owed it to my State and to the party 
 to enter the contest. 
 
 In Paris at the time were several prominent Michigan 
 men for whose character and judgment I had great re- 
 spect. They repeatedly urged me to be a candidate 
 as a matter of duty. On the way across the Atlantic 
 on the Imperator, I discussed the details of the situa- 
 
 307 
 
308 THE IRON HUNTER 
 
 tion several times with J. Sloat Fassett. He was a 
 conservative and I a progressive Republican; Fassett 
 a " standpatter " and I an " insurgent." But I found 
 him always very big and generous and gracious in his 
 personal views and statements. Looking to the welfare 
 of the party in the nation he urged it as my duty to 
 become a candidate. 
 
 Very clearly in my mind was the wish that I would 
 not find conditions such as to force me to enter the 
 contest. This was my state of feeling when I landed 
 at New York. Equally plain was the determination on 
 my part to do my duty if I could come to see it clearly, 
 and to come to know the way was my daily prayer. 
 
 At New York a Michigan delegation met me and 
 urged me to become a candidate. I had said that I 
 could imagine no conditions that would make it neces- 
 sary for me to do so. And I deferred a decision. On 
 my way home to Sault Ste. Marie I was asked to stop at 
 Lansing where a reception and banquet had been ar- 
 ranged in my honor. At Lansing the situation was 
 made very plain. There seemed to be a real demand 
 for my services as a candidate. My physician told me 
 it would kill me to go into a campaign in the then con- 
 dition of my health. I told him kill or no kill, I would 
 run. It was late. Other candidates had been at work 
 for months. I went from county to county speaking 
 from ten to twenty times a day. Great crowds came to 
 hear me and to welcome me home. I told them the 
 heart's truth about everything. Every day and often 
 at night I suffered intense pain, but the pain seemed to 
 be a pleasure when borne for a good cause. I enjoyed 
 the campaign and once in it I tried to justify the work 
 of my friends by putting every pound of strength I had 
 into the fight. It was fine. 
 
FOE BETTEK THINGS IN THE STATE 309 
 
 I won the nomination for Governor, but was defeated 
 for election. 
 
 I was very happy. To me the interpretation was that 
 I had strength enough to make the fight, defeat certain 
 agencies and sow seed for public ripening and whole- 
 some harvest by and by, but not enough to go on with 
 life's battles until I had rested, recuperated and driven 
 out the jungle poisons that gripped me. Now I was 
 freed so as to be allowed to do this. 
 
 Wars are not always won by single battles, any more 
 than life's work is done by lone achievements. One 
 very often wins when he appears at the time to lose. In 
 the essences the thing is to offer to serve. There is a 
 heavy load to carry; perhaps a public burden. You 
 offer eagerly, willingly to take it up and bear it. The 
 task is given to another. Therein is the responsibility ; 
 the exaction. The only thing you, who have been re- 
 jected at the time, must do, is to be ready to offer 
 freely and unselfishly again to serve. 
 
 That the public was slow to believe what was charged 
 against my opponent is to the credit of the people; to 
 their fairness and sense of justice. They really thought, 
 or a great many did, that the stories were libels and 
 pure campaign fiction. Now they know better. I have 
 ever found the public ready to be more than generous 
 and just. Like the wholesome individual, all it wishes 
 is to see the right way and it will take it. 
 
 Soon after this election occurred, in the fall of 1914, 
 I was invited to speak at many important places in 
 Michigan and elsewhere. Everywhere, including Lans- 
 ing, I was greeted by larger and kindlier audiences than 
 I ever had spoken to before. It was as if it had begun 
 to dawn upon the public that I had tried to render a 
 service and they sought to give me belated appreciation. 
 
310 THE IKON HUNTER 
 
 That was unnecessary, because Michigan has given 
 me many honors and always has recognized me beyond 
 my deserts. 
 
 Shortly after I went into Johns Hopkins Hospital 
 at Baltimore, interluding treatment there with quail 
 hunting and pruning pecan trees in southern Georgia 
 where I belong to a little club of close, fine friends and 
 where also we have a bungalow. Much benefit came to 
 me in a physical sense. Then Mrs. Osborn and I 
 started for the Panama-Pacific Exposition, via the Pan- 
 ama Canal. On the steamer, in California and every- 
 where I appeared, I was treated with that generous con- 
 sideration and kindliness that only the truly inde- 
 pendent and spirited American citizenry knows how to 
 show. I was especially pleased with my reception when 
 I spoke at the University of Missouri; the University 
 Club of Chicago; The National Geographic Society at 
 Washington; and the Chicago Geographic Society. 
 
 When the dissolving ice and snow permitted I again 
 buried myself in the wilds. At Duck Island, in the St. 
 Mary's River, I discovered what all those to whom the 
 matter has been presented, agree is the solution of the 
 mystery of luminosity in fireflies and other animal life. 
 It is produced by enzymes, is one hundred per cent, 
 in efficiency as compared with fifteen per cent, for 
 electricity. It is entirely possible that enzymic light 
 may be developed to be of practical service to mankind 
 and commercially valuable. 
 
 I am studying the aurora borealis and the aurora 
 Australis. To several scientists I have submitted my 
 discoveries and theories concerning the auroras and 
 they have been interested and encouraging. 
 
CHAPTER XL 
 
 IN CONCLUSION 
 
 I HAD been widely mentioned for the presidency. 
 The Chicago Evening Post and other prominent 
 high-grade newspapers presented my name for 
 consideration. There was more evidence of comforting 
 confidence and encouraging belief in me given by a 
 public wider than my charming circle of personal 
 friends. In the autumn of 1918 I became a candidate 
 in the primaries for the Republican nomination for 
 United States Senator from Michigan. My war work 
 had taken every moment of my time. I had held over 
 four hundred war meetings, without other compensation 
 than the deep satisfaction one has in actively manifest- 
 ing a desire to serve. I received nearly fifty thousand 
 votes, but was defeated. The younger men to whom I 
 most appealed were off to the war : almost two hundred 
 thousand of them. I felt my defeat not at all, because 
 I had only offered to try to carry a big, spinous load for 
 Michigan. They gave it to another. 
 
 The reaction of America to the conditions created by 
 the world's war followed quickly a first dim sensing and 
 then a clear perception that the permanence of the social 
 structure builded here by the people for themselves 
 was seriously imperiled. No matter what designation 
 of word or phrase was used to etch this in the composite 
 mind there was a feeling, all of a sudden, that safety 
 
 and insurance of independent government demanded 
 
 311 
 
312 THE IKON HUNTER 
 
 our participation in the war. To oost people making 
 the world " safe for democracy " meant next to nothing 
 tangible. They instinctively felt that the success of the 
 attempt to impose the German system upon us meant the 
 death of cherished ideals and fragrant hopes. It did 
 not matter to them whether our government is more or 
 less efficient than an autocracy: it is their government, 
 is what they wish and make of it good or had, and there 
 is deep confidence that in time it will be perfect enough 
 for mundane purposes if the people are not molested in 
 progress by the iron hand of a selfishness so singularly 
 personified as to be impossible of coming under their 
 control. Many even realized that in the German Em- 
 pire was an efficiency that permitted a scientific exploi- 
 tation of the people to the last degree; even compre- 
 hending meticulous human care in order to conserve and 
 selfishly utilize their man power. And at the same 
 time they also knew that in the United States there are 
 strata beginning with the economic enslavement of cer- 
 tain workers and ending in irresponsible and lightly 
 bound economic social groups. Perhaps our masses 
 could not have made an analysis and framed a deduction. 
 Their intuition springing from fountains of self-pres- 
 ervation bid them unite against the Germans with co- 
 herent effectiveness. At the bottom of it all the masses 
 in our country feel in terms varying from the nebulous 
 to the concrete that this is their country and that they 
 are responsible for it and that it can only endure if they 
 protect it against foes from without or within. This is 
 the guaranty of intelligent popular will where any of 
 the genius of government is possessed. It will be our 
 protection from the plague of bolshevism and even de- 
 mands that all parties demonstrate an ability to conduct 
 the affairs of government sanely if they are to be en- 
 
IN CONCLUSION 313 
 
 trusted with it for any long period. Somehow the sense 
 of order and proportion attends this sense of possession. 
 The people see about them in the universe the applica- 
 tion of the laws of order in the diurnal procession, the 
 coming and going of the months, the rising and setting 
 of the sun, the recurrence of moon and stars. Perhaps 
 they could not discourse philosophically upon these beau- 
 tiful phenomena, but they have deeply ingrained the 
 lessons they teach. One average man said to me that 
 the socialists are like a man who is hungry for an 
 apple pie: he has all the materials of flour, shortening, 
 apples, spices, sugar and the fire and a hunger, but he 
 cannot make an apple pie. How true it is. To be able 
 to distinguish those who can perform the services of 
 government safely is the first requisite of a free people 
 and popular government. Uncle Sam is an icono- 
 graphic individual made up of all his hundred million 
 parts ; and there are more parts than this, though not all 
 visible, in the individual unit. Some of the hundred 
 million of Uncle Sam are souls, some are brains, others 
 are lofty urges and sentimental desires; some are legs 
 and arms and spine and heart and soul and liver and 
 spleen and so on; some are eczema and psoriasis; some 
 just waste material. To a degree the individual may 
 elect his part and his function ; all cannot, because some 
 are hopeless, inert derelicts, operating negatively as 
 more or less dangerous ferments. But after all the 
 wholesome parts will protect, defend and keep the body 
 of the nation alive, just as the phagocytes and their aids 
 expel pathogenic germs in the individual and cure dis- 
 ease. In the individual there is a time limit fixed 
 beyond which there can be only disintegration with no 
 hope of tangible physical renewal. In the national en- 
 tity there is complete renewal every thirty-seven years, 
 
314 THE IKON HUNTER 
 
 which is the average of longevity among our people. In 
 that lies the great hope; the death of the aged; the 
 birth of the new essence. The habe cries lustily at birth 
 as the old man moans his departure. We do not know 
 much about what becomes of us, nor does it matter 
 much to us while in this sphere. It is comforting to 
 know that theologians and scientists are one in pro- 
 claiming immortality. Thomas Crowder Chamberlin, 
 head of the department of geology at the University of 
 Chicago, chief among the cosmic philosophers of the 
 world, in the closing paragraph of his recent book upon 
 the " Origin of the Earth " says : 
 
 " It is our (Professor Chamberlin's) personal view that what 
 we regard as merely material is at the same time spiritual, 
 that what we try to reduce to the mechanistic is at the same 
 time volitional, but whether this be so or not, the emergence 
 of what we call the living from the inorganic, and the 
 emergence of what we call the psychic from the physiologic, 
 were at once the transcendent and the transcendental fea- 
 tures of the earth's evolution." 
 
 This is beautiful. It is an admission by a great 
 scientist of the insufficiency of the human mind. Many 
 other intellectuals are brave enough and fair enough and 
 sufficiently without the dominating ego to agree with 
 Professor Chamberlin. Thus are the profound minds 
 grouping to convey the final fact that where man ends 
 God begins. Subsumed with religion it creates a per- 
 fumed hope. And yet man is so human and cowardly 
 at times and superselfish. While the war was going on 
 mankind rushed towards God as in the resurgent days 
 of the Crusades;. peace has come and will man forget 
 God when he is not terrified by necessity for higher 
 help? It has been ever so. 
 
 To justify the war we must rebuild Ihe world ; nor 
 
My father 
 George Augustus Osborn 
 
IN CONCLUSION 315 
 
 must we hide the fact from view that man's selfishness, 
 man's inhumanity, man's intolerance have created the 
 conditions that have sprung all the wars forever and 
 ever. Is it unkind or unjust or unfair to recall that 
 within the brief cycle of a century Great Britain, Kus- 
 sia, France and Italy, not to forget our part too, have 
 seized nearly two-thirds of the surface of the earth ? 
 Subject peoples in India, Burma, Trans-Caspia, Africa, 
 Madagascar and elsewhere numbering a billion souls 
 have been wrung for head taxes. Just a little time ago 
 Great Britain, at the time of the Sepoy uprising, loaded 
 live Indians into cannon and shot them out for schreck- 
 lichkeit. More recently we gave the Moros the water 
 cure for the same example. Within a half dozen years 
 the inhuman atrocities in the Belgian Congo perpetrated 
 by the Belgian Government, with no madness of war 
 to cause insane acts, shocked the world. Now it would 
 do no good to call attention to these better forgotten 
 blood marks were it not necessary to determine whether 
 an indictment of a present people can be made for the 
 crimes of their progenitors. We of to-day cannot be 
 to blame unless we condone and continue the sins of 
 yesterday. Consequently upon this very day we are 
 called upon practically to decide whether we will per- 
 mit to continue the era of intolerance and antagonism 
 or supplant it with a period of tolerance, justice, coop- 
 eration and sincere goodwill. Platitudes will not be 
 sufficient for the stomach of our people no matter how 
 musical they may sound to the senses. There must be 
 a clear admission that the human derelicts of to-day are 
 the blighted usufruct of the injustice of yesterday ; the 
 economic unfairness. 
 
 No brighter ray illumes the world's political firma- 
 ment than our policy in the Philippines. We really 
 
316 THE IRON HUNTER 
 
 seem to have done more in two decades to advance a 
 less apt people there than the British have achieved in 
 India during more than a century. It is not intended 
 that these comparisons shall he odious, for we have done 
 better with our suzerain peoples than with many of our 
 citizens at home. It is surely demanded that we shall 
 do more than talk our best ; we must do our best ; not in 
 spots; everywhere. 
 
 After all there is progress, even if the world does 
 fall over the edge of the precipice every so often and 
 flounder in what appears to be abysmal despair. It is 
 not satisfying to survey the social growth by decades, 
 but if we will begin with the Java man and his Neander- 
 thal contemporary and carry our vision on to the Cro- 
 naagnon and the Vazimba and then on to Lloyd George, 
 Clemenceau, Wilson and Roosevelt, we can have some 
 food of assurance that the growth tendency will con- 
 tinue until we shall have to scratch more deeply to un- 
 cover the carnivorous cave dweller. It took eras for the 
 eohippus to become a horse and the dodo to become an 
 aeroplane. Perhaps our greatest concern comes from 
 a tendency to regard ourselves and our times too seri- 
 ously. If I were to endeavor to coagulate wisdom into a 
 short sentence it would be : Do your best and do not 
 quarrel with Providence. 
 
 The dearest hope of mankind lies beyond the horizon 
 of the present. We shall attain it. 
 
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