MEET "SOURDOUGH" SAM
Sooner or later, folks, you are
sure to meet Sourdough Sam. Great
fellow, Sam. You may have seen him
around since he returned to the val
ley about two weeks ago. Sam is all
—' of seventy, but he’s straight as a
canoe birch and tough as a piece of
'Tigaluk whalebone. His hair is snow
white and curls a little over his
collar.
If he should stop suddenly while
talking to you, and look out over...',
the valley with an awed light in his
clear blue eyes, pay no attention to
it. Sam is still a little bewil
dered by all this activity. And no
./onder.
Sam left here last March to pros
oect far back in the hills. His
sole companion was his dog, Bum, and
they didn’t see a soul all summer.
Then Sam came hiking back over an
old Indian trail he knew. Out near
Cottonwood Lake he stumbled suddenly
upon a gravelled road that shouldn’t
have been there. He scratched his
head.
"Tins wa n o nere wnen we wenu
out," he said to Bum. "Maybe I got
turned ’round er somethin’. Maybe
this ain't the Matanuska Valley."
Just then a big staff sedan bore
down on them with horn wide open.
Sam jumped about twenty feet.
"Wa’n't nothin’ like that here,
neither." Bum apparently agreed and
kept close to Sam’s heels as he left
the road for the trail he was sure
of. And in less than a half mile he
ran into a big Diesel cat clearing
land.
Sam shook his head and skirted
the growling machine on a branch
trail that led him smack into a big
frame house all freshly painted.
Old Sam can take a shock, but he
staggered under that one. Then, for
mile after mile, he wound down past
camps four and two; past chugging
— well drills, big frame and log house
building crews, while every few min
utes one of the transient cowboys
tore past with a truck-load of lum
ber.
And it was almost too much when
he ran into Harry Sears and his gang
following a caterpillar-drawn potato
ligger up those long rows. "And I
ain’t had a drink in months," he re
minded Bum.
At last he came into Matanuska,
and the town was the first thing in
the valley he could recognize. When
ho dropped into Phil Allen’s place
he kept his mouth shut. He knew that
the marshal usually takes charge of
people who imagine they see things
that don’t exist, and there was Joe
Hofman with his gold badge all a
shine.
It wasn't until after he had
studied the problem through a whole
pint of Seagrams that he decided to
take the bull by the horns. He’d
find out whether he'd missed too
many boats to the States or not.
"Say," he demanded of Phil,
"V'/hat in the devil's been going
on around here anyway?"
Phil, realizing that Sam had
left before there was any talk of
a colonization project, and gues
sing what was in his mind, decided
to have some fun.
"Going on?" he said. "Oh, not
much right now. Valley has grown
a lot though in the ten years you
been gone, Sam."
"Ten YearsJ" You could have
heard Sam clear across the Knik
flats. He ordered another bottle
and, avoiding Joe, strode rapidly
off toward his cabin.
"Ten years," he repeated. "It
don't seem possible, does it, Bum?
Yet I hear'n 'bout a feller once't
what slept longer'n that. Yep,
feller named Wip van Rinkle."
It was a week before Sam got it
all straightened out, and now he’s
more interested in the project and
the colonists themselves than any
man I know. He dropped into the
tent here the other evening.
"Now look, Jack," he said. "You
take these here colynists, they’s
some reg’lar farmers *mong ’em,
an' they're going to make a big go
of this here thing, but they's new
to the country an' there's lots of
little tricks they don't know.
"Now f’rinstance, t'other night
I see one of the women folks tryin
to git 'long a muddy road with a
box of matches. Said the battery
in her flashlight was dead. So I
picks up an empty tomato can, gets
a piece of wire off'n Shonbeck's
fence fer a handle, then cuts a
hole, you know, just a cross then
bend the corners in, and after I
stuck a stub of candle through
that I just happened to have in my
pocket she had as good a lantern
as any man'd want. You know, them
bugs is good, Jack, an' you can
even put glass in ’em if they's
much wind."
Sam bit off a big hunk of Star
and then suit against the red spot
on the stove. It's a habit of his
"Yep," he continued, "They's a
lot of them little wrinkles that
make life in this here country a
bit easier, and them's the things
you don't find in school books."
After Sam left I began to wonde
if perhaps you might not like to
know something about these 'kinks'
of his. The 'bug' has been very
popular here in Alaska where can
dles are plentiful and batteries
and kerosene sometimes hard to get
Below is a sketch of Sam's bug,
and let's hope he drops in again
on something else
You can cut a
slit along the
dotted line and
drop in a piece
of glass.
with suggestic
,o