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The Man in Perspective
211
and down the Yukon to the Klondyke, and write them letters about conditions there. He brought the telegram to me, laughing heartily at the absurdity of anybody making him such a proposition.
"Do they think I'm daft," he asked, "like a' the lave o' thae puin bodies? When I go into that wild it will not be in a crowd like this or on such a sordid mission. Ah! my old friend, they'll be spoiling our grand Alaska."
He offered to secure for me the reporter's job tendered to him. I refused, urging my lack of training for such work and my more important and responsible position.
"Why, that same paper has a host of reporters on the way to the Klondyke now," I said. "There is——" (naming a noted poet and author of the Coast). "He must be
