Klondike Joe Boyle: Heroic Adventures from Gold Fields to Battlefields

by Sauerwein, Stan

• ISBN13: 9781551539690
• ISBN10: 1551539691
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2003-09-15
• Publisher: Altitude Pub Canada Ltd

Summary

An adventurer and a natural leader, Joe Whiteside Boyle blazed the White Pass to the Yukon and was among the few who scratched a fortune from the Klondike. During the First World War, he was a spymaster working behind Russian lines. He cheated death many times to become the saviour of Romania, and in the process fell in love with a queen.

Table of Contents

Prologue

Fighting Irish

Golden Fantasies

Bring on the Hun

Instilling Order

A Secret Life

The "Saviour of Rumania"

Feeding a Nation

The Legend Passes

Epilogue

Bibliography

Table of Contents provided by Publisher. All Rights Reserved.

Excerpts

PrologueHe hefted his yellow haversack and reached for the rope. It hung from the scoured deck of the Susan in a lazy sag that dipped downwards to a bollard on the dock, more like a tired snake than a handrail. In a large, meaty hand he gripped it for meagre balance, and for the first time since lifting anchor in Ireland he stepped towards land. He didn't look back.Joe Whiteside Boyle, barely 20, was a robust 187 pounds and he walked with the bobbing gait of a fighter. He had muscular arms, a chest the size of a rum cask, and piercing blue eyes, but he wasn't a man who lived in the cupped hand of God. When he'd run away to sea at 17, Joe had no way of knowing he was born for solid ground. On one of his marine journeys, he had almost drowned in the rage of an ocean gale when his first ship, a three-masted barque named Wallace, rounded the Horn. The sight of New York harbour was a welcome blessing to this Ontario horse breeder's son.Joe was kind-hearted when it suited him, and that often depended upon what he received in return. Not that he refused to help a friend when he was called on for a strong hand. Quite the contrary. Joe stepped in whenothers were afraid to help, but he was a pragmatist. He gave where and when it was warranted, and he took his fair and honourable compensation without guilt. He never demanded more than his due nor accepted less. He'd saved his share of cargo profits like a miser, always planning for the day he'd return home.With a wave to the city he'd left three years earlier,he stepped towards that future, eager and confident.