{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_44077/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_44077","id":"gutenberg_44077","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/44077","summary":null,"tags":["Alaska -- Description and travel -- Juvenile literature","Category: Adventure","Category: Biographies","Category: History - American","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Category: Travel Writing"],"text":"Adventures in Alaska\n\n\n\n\nBy\n\nS. HALL YOUNG, D.D.\n\n\n_Alaska Days with John Muir._ Illustrated, 12mo, cloth....\n\n\"Do you remember Stickeen, the canine hero of John Muir's dog story?\nHere is a book by the man who owned Stickeen and was Muir's companion\non the adventurous trip among the Alaskan glaciers. This is not only\na breezy outdoor book, full of the wild beauties of the Alaskan\nwilderness, it is also a living portrait of John Muir in the great\nmoments of his career.\"--_New York Times._\n\n\"I can see only one fault with the book, it is far too short. I should\nlove to read such a book as big as the dictionary. Thank you very\nmuch!\"--_Gene Stratton-Porter._\n\n\"One need not be an admirer of John Muir to be thoroughly entertained\nby the lively pages. The Muir of this book is the familiar vibrant\npersonality. This little book, the record of these trips, is written\nin a style animated and vivid without being journalistic--a style not\nunlike that of the lover of glaciers himself.\"--_The Nation._\n\n\n\n\n  Adventures in Alaska\n\n\n  By\n\n  S. HALL YOUNG\n\n  _Author of \"Alaska Days with John Muir,\"\n  \"The Klondike Clan\"_\n\n\n  ILLUSTRATED\n\n\n\n\n  [Illustration]\n\n\n\n\n  NEW YORK     CHICAGO\n  Fleming H. Revell Company\n  LONDON AND EDINBURGH\n\n\n\n\n  Copyright, 1919, by\n  FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY\n\n\n\n\n  New York: 158 Fifth Avenue\n  Chicago: 17 North Wabash Ave.\n  London: 21 Paternoster Square\n  Edinburgh: 75 Princes Street\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration: Stalking Walrus in an Oomiak\n\nDr. Young's figure is to the left. This is the time he got his ivory\nfor the gavels]\n\n\n\n\nForeword\n\n\nThe author puts forth this little book of actual adventures in\nthe great new land of Alaska with the hope that it will afford\nhealthy-minded young people a true idea of some phases of human and\nanimal life there. These stories are picked out of an experience of\nforty years and selected with a view to both unity and variety.\n\nThe first three chapters are an attempt to draw in bold outline some\ndramatic episodes of the author's experience in the second of the\nthree great gold stampedes of the Northwest. All these struggles\nfor gold have in them richly dramatic elements. Life in such camps\npulses strongly with all human ambitions, affections and passions. The\nmissionary, if he is really to commend himself to the men who rush into\nthe wilderness for gold, and do them good, must, first of all, prove\nhimself a _man_, ready and able to do and suffer everything that falls\nto the lot of the gold seekers. He must live their life and play the\ngame with them. He must cheerfully put up with the privations they\nendure, must take the lead in their healthy sports, must alleviate\ntheir sufferings, and, keeping himself free from the deadly gold-lust,\nmust show that he has in himself and can give to his fellow pioneers\nsomething better than gold. His heart must be, for himself and those\nabout him, a living fountain of joy and peace.\n\nAs in his earlier work, \"The Klondike Clan,\" the author endeavored to\ndraw a true picture not only of the life and conditions of the first\nNorthwestern gold-rush, but also of the minister's aims and field of\nduty; so in this short sketch of the second Stampede his aim has been,\nabove all things, _truth_. Every incident is actual history, and even\nthe names are real. The dog story is also conscientiously true history,\nand belongs to one of the minor gold stampedes.\n\nThe second section of the book--the three bear stories and the walrus\nstory--are also bits of history. Every pioneer missionary in Alaska\nshould be an ardent hunter. The author's life has often depended upon\nhis gun and fishing tackle. For ten years in Southeastern Alaska he\nand his family had no beef or pork or mutton, but the game--animals,\nbirds and fish--more than made up for the lack of these.\n\nIn Interior Alaska the same conditions prevail. The wild animals\nfurnish not only the food of the people, both natives and whites,\nbut also their winter clothing. Life would be unbearable there in\n\"sixty-below weather\" were the inhabitants unable to procure the\nwarm coats provided by kindly Mother Nature for the use both of her\nfour-footed and her human children.\n\nThe Eskimo faces the hardest conditions of almost any native race in\nhis battle for life; and yet he is, perhaps, the most comfortable of\nany. He gets his living from the Arctic seas, the seal and walrus being\nhis main dependence. From the great walrus he gets meat, clam chowder,\nlight and fuel; its skin makes his foot-wear, the walls and roof of\nhis house, and his boats; its ivory furnishes his tools and implements\nof the chase. When the author and his friends brought the great supply\nof walrus meat to the Eskimo village of East Cape they insured the\nlife and comfort of its inhabitants for the winter. All this is an\nessential part of a missionary's beneficent work. Good service for God\nand humanity is not inconsistent with the joy of the chase.\n\nAs the author confidently expects that many of his young readers will\nfind their permanent homes in \"The great big, broad land 'way up\nyonder,\" he hopes this book may prove, in some degree, an introduction\nto the enjoyments and achievements of the life there.\n\nS. H. Y.\n\n_New York._\n\n\n\n\n  Contents\n\n\n  I. THE NOME STAMPEDE                            13\n\n  II. THE ANVIL                                   33\n\n  III. BUNCH-GRASS BILL                           49\n\n  IV. MY DOGS                                     76\n\n  V. LOUIE PAUL AND THE HOOTZ                    100\n\n  VI. OLD SNOOK AND THE COW                      112\n\n  VII. NINA AND THE BEARS                        131\n\n  VIII. THE ABSURD WALRUS                        153\n\n\n\n\n  Illustrations\n\n\n  STALKING WALRUS IN AN OOMIAK        _Frontispiece_\n\n                                       _Facing page_\n\n  NOME, ALASKA, SUMMER OF 1900                    28\n\n  ANVIL ROCK, OVERLOOKING NOME                    36\n\n  THE ODORIFEROUS BUT INTERESTING ESKIMO          48\n\n  DR. YOUNG AND HIS DOG TEAM                      80\n\n  FORT WRANGELL, ALASKA, ON ETOLIN HARBOR        100\n\n  NATIVE HOUSES, SHOWING TOTEM POLES             118\n\n  FIVE KODIAK BEARS                              148\n\n\n\n\nI\n\nTHE NOME STAMPEDE\n\n\nIt was with the excitement of a veteran soldier going into a fresh\nbattle that I teetered over the springy plank from the Rampart shore to\nthe deck of the Yukon River steamboat. My year's outfit of \"grub and\nduds,\" as the miners would put it, was aboard. I grasped the hand of\nDr. Koonce, with whom I had just floated in an open boat down the Yukon\ntwelve hundred miles. A fine fellow--\"Kooncie\"! We had been camping,\nand fishing, and packing, and boating together since the first of May,\n1899, and it was now the middle of August. He was to stay at the new\nmining town of Rampart, build a church there and learn the joyous life\nof a pioneer missionary.\n\nWhat a queer mix-up of men on the crowded decks of the steamboat! Wild\nrumors of a ridiculous sort had reached the ears of gold hunters clear\nup the two thousand miles of the swift and crooked Yukon to Dawson.\nGold! Not snugly reposing in the frozen gravel of deep gulches and\ncanyons cut through the high hills--where respectable and orthodox gold\nought to be; but gold on the wind-swept, stormy, treeless, exposed\ncoast of Seward Peninsula--the tongue that impudent young Alaska sticks\nout at old Asia. Gold, like yellow corn-meal, in the beach-sands of\nBering Sea, where nobody could lawfully stake a claim, but where\nanybody could go with shovel, pan and rocker and gather it up. Nuggets\na-plenty and coarse gold--enticing shallow diggings--in the bed of\nAnvil Creek and other creeks and runlets in the hills, and the flat\ntundra about Nome.\n\nThe reports of the new \"strike,\" often wild and exaggerated, came\nas a life-saver to weary and discouraged thousands of Klondikers,\nwho had packed their outfits over the terrible thirty miles of the\nChilcoot Pass in the fall of '97 or the spring of '98, sawed the\nlumber themselves in the \"armstrong sawmill,\" sailed their clumsy\nboats through the lakes, shot the rapids of the Upper Yukon, spent the\nsummer of '98 and the winter that followed surging here and there on\n\"wildcat\" stampedes or putting down \"dry\" holes on unprofitable lays,\nand were now eagerly snatching at this new straw, hoping to \"strike it\"\non the Nome beach. From Dawson, Forty Mile, Eagle, Circle, Fort Yukon;\nfrom wood camps and prospectors' tents along the Yukon, and now from\nRampart, these bearded, battered, sun-blistered men came rushing aboard\nthe steamboat.\n\nI had engaged a state-room before the steamboat arrived, but when it\ncame a placard of the company owning the boat menaced us in the office:\n\"_All reservations cancelled. Boat overcrowded. No passengers to be\ntaken at Rampart_.\"\n\nOf course there was a mighty howl from the Rampart men, nearly half of\nwhom had packed up to go on the boat. I hurried to the purser, whom I\nknew, and showed my pass from the manager of the company.\n\n\"Can't help it, Doctor,\" he said in a loud tone, for the benefit of the\nbystanders. \"The boat's past her limit now, and we're liable for big\ndamages if anything happens. We can't take _anybody_.\"\n\nPresently he slyly pulled my arm, and I followed him to an inner office\nof the store. \"Get your goods aboard,\" he directed. \"You can spread\nyour blankets on the floor of my office.\"\n\nWhile I was checking off my outfit and seeing it on board, I noticed\na lot of the Rampart men, with hand-trucks gathered from the various\nstores, taking their own outfits aboard, ignoring the shipping clerk\nand dumping their goods wherever they found a place to put them. The\nofficers and deck-hands were protesting and swearing, but the men went\nright along loading their outfits.\n\nPresently the captain pulled the whistle rope and ordered the plank\ndrawn in and the cable cast off from the \"dead man.\" Instantly three\nmen marched to the cable's end, seized the man who was to cast it off\nand held him. Then fully fifty men with their packs on their backs\nfiled down the plank. The first mate tried to stop them. He even made a\nmove to draw his pistol; but the foremost man--a big six-footer--threw\nhis arms around him and carried him back against the stairway and held\nhim until the men with their packs were all aboard. It was all done\nquietly, and with the utmost good humor. The men grinned up at the\nswearing, red-faced captain on the upper deck, and one shouted, \"We'll\ngive you a poke of dust, Cap., when we get to Nome.\"\n\nWhen all were aboard, somebody on the bank cast off the cable, the\nswift current caught the boat, the wheel backed, and we swung around\nand headed down the Yukon, bound for the new strike.\n\nWhiskers were very much in evidence in that closely packed mob of men\nthat stood around on all the decks, stepping on each other's feet,\nperching on stairways, boxes, pole-bunks--anywhere for a resting place.\nTo go from one part of the boat to another was a difficult proposition.\n\nThe most evident trait of the crowd was its good nature. The\ndeck-hands, among whom I recognized a lawyer friend from Dawson and\na former customs collector from Juneau, were gold-seekers like all\nthe rest; and it was, \"Hello, Shorty!\" \"Ah, there, Dutch!\" \"Where\nyou goin', Jim?\" between them and the newcomers. A rollicking,\nhappy-go-lucky crowd, all joyful at being on the way to the new\ndiggings. Even the officers of the boat began to smile, secretly\npleased that they had a record-breaking and most profitable load\naboard, and were free from blame for overloading, because they could\nnot help it.\n\nAs for me, I was well content, even to be hustled and jostled and\nelbow-punched by this horde of scraggly-bearded men of the northwestern\nwilderness. This was my parish, my home; and these were my comrades, my\nchums, my brothers. I was just as sunburned and weather-beaten as they\nwere, and felt the same tingling of nerves, the same leap of the blood\nat the call of fresh adventure.\n\nI was dressed in the same sort of rough woolen mackinaw clothes and\nsoft flannel underwear as the men around me. I had left my clerical\nsuit and white shirts and collars behind, for three reasons: First,\nfor the sake of economy. These strong, loose garments did not cost a\nthird as much as broadcloth, and would wear twice as well. Besides,\nit would cost a dollar and a half to have a white shirt laundered in\nInterior Alaska (which, at that time, was twice the original cost of\nthe shirt), and twenty-five cents to do up a collar, the cost price of\nwhich \"outside\" was three for a quarter. I could wash my flannel shirts\nmyself. Second, for comfort's sake. The soft wool of these garments\nwas so much warmer and more pliable than a \"Prince Albert\" suit; and\na starched collar would sear one's neck like fire, when it was \"sixty\nbelow.\" My chief reason, however, was that I wished to create no\nartificial barriers between my parishioners and myself. I wished to\nstand on the same social level. I desired these men to feel that I was\none of them, and could camp and \"rustle,\" carry a pack, live on rabbits\nand rough it generally as deftly and cheerfully as they--live the same\noutdoor life and endure the same so-called \"hardships.\"\n\nThe view-point of these \"sour-doughs\" was shown in a funny way at our\nfirst landing place after leaving Rampart, which was the little town\nof Tanana. When the boat tied up, the whistle gave three sharp hoots,\nshowing that the stay would be very short. As soon as the plank was\nashore a man ran up it, and when he reached the deck he called loudly:\n\"Is there a preacher aboard? Is there a preacher aboard?\"\n\nA grizzled old miner, who did not know me, pointed to the only man on\nthe steamboat who wore a Prince Albert coat and white shirt and collar,\nand drawled: \"Wa-al, that there feller, he's either a preacher or a\ngambler; I don't know which.\"\n\nThe \"dressed-up\" man proved to be a gambler. I made myself known to the\nanxious man from the village, followed him ashore and married him to a\nwoman who was waiting in the company's office.\n\nThat was one voyage of mingled discomfort and pleasure. Discomforts and\nhardships are as you make them and take them. There were a few of that\ncompany who grumbled and swore at being crowded, at being obliged to\nstand up all day, to lie on the floor or on the piles of cord-wood at\nnight, besides being compelled to fairly fight for their meals or to\nget their food from their own kits. But the majority of these men had\nbeen camping and roughing it for two years. Many of them had packed\nheavy loads over the Chilcoot Pass in the great Klondike Stampede, had\nmade their own boats and navigated hundreds of miles of unknown and\ndangerous rivers, had encountered and overcome thousands of untried\nexperiences. To all of them these little discomforts were trifles to be\ndismissed with a smile or joke, and they had contempt for any man who\nfussed or complained.\n\nOne of the cheeriest of the crowd aboard the steamboat was a newsboy\ntwelve or thirteen years old. His name was Joe: I never knew his\nsurname. He had had a very wonderful time. The year before--the summer\nof 1898--he was selling papers in Seattle. He heard of the high prices\npaid for newspapers and magazines at the camps of the Northwest.\nHe bought three or four hundred copies of the Seattle P. I. (_Post\nIntelligencer_) and _Times_. He paid two and a half and three cents\napiece for them, the selling price at Seattle being five cents. Then he\ngot five or six hundred back numbers of these papers, from a day to a\nweek old, for nothing. He also got, mostly by gift from those who had\nread them, three or four hundred of the cheaper magazines, some new,\nsome a month or two old. For his whole stock he paid scarcely fifteen\ndollars.\n\nJoe smuggled himself and his papers aboard a steamboat bound for\nSkagway, and worked his passage as cabin boy, waiter and general\nroustabout. At Juneau and Skagway he sold about one-fourth of his\npapers and magazines--the papers for twenty-five cents each and the\nten-cent magazines for fifty cents. He could have sold out, but\nhearing that he could get double these prices at Dawson and down the\nYukon, held on to his stock.\n\nHe formed a partnership with an old \"sour-dough\" miner, who helped him\nget his papers over the Chilcoot Pass and down the Yukon to Dawson.\nAt the great Klondike camp he quickly sold out his papers at a dollar\neach, and the magazines at a dollar and a half to two and a half.\n\nJoe spent the winter of 1898-9 at Dawson, selling the two papers\npublished in that city and running a general news stand, in which he\nsold the reading matter he had sold before but gathered up again from\nthe buyers. Sometimes he sold the same magazine four or five times.\n\nWhen the Nome Stampede began, Joe got into the good graces of the\nmanager of the steamboat company and got free passage down the Yukon.\nHe shared my wolf-robe on the floor of the purser's room, and we became\ngreat chums. The boy was so bright and quick, and at the same time so\npolite and accommodating, that he made friends everywhere. He was a\nSunday-school boy, and distributed my little red hymn-books when I\nheld service in the social hall of the steamboat on Sunday, and his\nclear soprano sounded sweetly above the bass notes of the men.\n\n\"Joe,\" I asked him one day, \"how much money have you made during the\nlast year and a half?\"\n\n\"Well,\" he replied, \"I sent two thousand dollars out home from Dawson\nbefore I started down here, and with what I am making on this trip and\nwhat I hope to make at Nome, I think I'll have five thousand dollars\nclear when I land at Seattle the last of October.\"\n\n\"That's a dangerous amount of money for a small boy to have,\" I warned\nhim. \"Have you lost any of it?\"\n\nJoe grinned. \"No, I dassen't. Some card sharps tried to get me to\ngamble at Dawson. They said I could double my money. But my partner\n[the old miner] said he'd lick me half to death if I ever went near the\ngreen tables. I didn't want to, anyhow. Everybody helps me take care of\nmy money.\"\n\n\"What are you going to do with it?\"\n\n\"Why, give it all to mother, of course. She'll use it for me and my\nsister. I'm going to school as soon as I get home. Mother works in a\nstore, but I guess this money'll give her a rest. She needs it.\"\n\nA word more about little Joe before I leave him. He made good at Nome\nin September, and sailed for Seattle the last of October. The last I\nheard of him, four or five years later, he was making his way through\nthe University of Washington, and still managing newspaper routes in\nSeattle. His is a case of exceptional good fortune; and yet I know of a\nnumber of boys who have made remarkable sums selling papers in Alaska.\nIt is a boy's land of opportunity as well as a man's.\n\nOur voyage to St. Michael was a tedious one--down the long stretches\nof the Lower Yukon, worming through the sand-bars and muddy shallows\nof the interminable delta, waiting through weary hours for tide and\nwind to be just right before venturing out on Bering Sea. Hurrying at\nlast under full steam through the choppy sea, with the waves washing\nthe lower deck and producing panic, uproar and swearing among the men\npacked upon it--we came to the harbor of St. Michael on the wind-swept,\ntreeless, mossy shore of Norton Sound.\n\nI was still to work my way through a tangle of delays and adventures\nbefore I could reach my goal--the great new camp at Nome, one hundred\nand thirty miles from St. Michael.\n\nI had first to get my outfit together on the wharf, counting the boxes\nand war bags, pursuing the missing ones to other outfits and proving\nmy claim to them. In the confusion this was a hard job, but I only\nlost two or three of my boxes. I piled my goods in a corner of the big\nwarehouse of the North American Trading and Transportation Co., and set\nup my tent on the beach, for I was near the end of my money, and could\nnot pay the high prices charged at the hotels. I got into my camp kit\nand did my own cooking, protecting my food as best I could against the\nthievish Eskimo dogs.\n\nThen began a search, which lasted a week, for means of getting to Nome.\nThe gold-hunters were putting off every day in whale boats, Eskimo\n_oomiaks_, and small sloops and schooners; but these craft were too\nsmall and uncertain for me to risk passage in them. My caution proved\nwise, for five or six of these small boats, after setting out, were\nnever heard of again.\n\nWhile I was waiting, the U. S. Revenue Cutter, _Bear_, came into the\nharbor, and aboard her was Sheldon Jackson, Superintendent of Education\nfor Alaska, the noted pioneer missionary. He was just returning from\na tour of the native schools and reindeer stations. (He was the man\nwho had introduced the reindeer into Alaska from Siberia to supply the\nwants of the Eskimo.)\n\n\"Hurry on to Nome,\" he counseled me. \"You were never needed more in all\nyour life.\"\n\nAt length there limped into the harbor a little tub-like side-wheel\nsteamboat, belonging to the Alaska Exploration Company, whose wharf was\na mile and a half distant up the harbor. There was no way of getting my\ngoods across the swampy tundra of St. Michael Island to the wharf. On\nthe beach I found an abandoned old rowboat with open seams. I procured\npieces of boards, some oakum and pitch, and set to work to repair the\nold boat. The steamboat was to sail for Nome the next forenoon. I\nworked all night. I made a pair of clumsy oars out of boards. Then I\ncarried my goods to the leaky boat and rowed them to the dock. It took\nthree trips to transfer my outfit, and while I was rowing back and\nforth somebody carried off my most valuable war-bag, containing most of\nmy foot-wear and underclothes--one hundred dollars' worth.\n\nI was a tired man when I stumbled down the steep stairs into the dark\nand stuffy hold of the little steamboat; and much more tired when,\nafter two and a half days of seasickness, bobbing up and down in the\nchoppy seas like a man on a bucking broncho, I pulled up the stairs\nagain and let myself down the rope-ladder into the dory which was to\ntake the passengers ashore at Nome.\n\n\"You can only take what you can carry on your back,\" announced the\ncaptain. \"There's a storm coming up and I've got to hurry to the lee of\nSledge Island, twenty miles away. You'll get your outfits when I come\nback. Lucky we're not all down in Davy Jones's locker.\"\n\nI strapped my pack-sack, containing my wolf-robe and a pair of\nblankets, on my back, glad to get ashore on any terms. The dory\nwallowed heavily in the waves, the strong wind driving it towards the\nsandy beach. Boats have to anchor from one to two miles offshore at\nNome. When we reached the beach, a big wave lifted the dory and swung\nit sideways. The keel struck the sand, and she turned over, dumping us\nall out, the comber overwhelming us and rolling us over and over like\nbarrels. Drenched and battered, we crawled to land.\n\nA heavy rain was falling as I staggered up the beach with my\nwater-soaked blankets on my back, looking for a lodging-house. The\nbeach was lined with tents, placed without regard to order or the\nconvenience of anybody except the owner of each tent. A few straggling\nboard-shacks were stuck here and there on the swampy tundra. Two or\nthree large, low store buildings represented the various pioneer\ntrading companies. The one street, which ran parallel to the beach, was\nfull of mud. The buildings most in evidence were saloons, generally\nwith dance-hall attachments. The absence of trees, the leaden, weeping\nsky, the mud, the swampy tundra, the want of all light and beauty, made\nthis reception the dreariest of all my experiences in the new mining\ncamps.\n\nBut I long ago learned that nothing is so bad but that it might be\nworse. I had not at that time seen Edmund Vance Cook's sturdy lines,\nbut the spirit of them was in my heart:\n\n    \"Did you tackle the trouble that came your way\n       With a resolute heart and cheerful,\n    Or hide your face from the light of day\n       With a craven heart and fearful?\n    Oh, a trouble's a ton or a trouble's an ounce,\n       Or a trouble is what you make it;\n    And it isn't the fact that you're hurt that counts,\n       But only, how did you take it!\"\n\n[Illustration: Nome, Alaska, Summer of 1900\n\nA city of tents, twenty miles long]\n\nI soon found a sign written in charcoal on the lid of a paper\nbox--_Lodging_. I entered the rough building and found a cheery Irish\nwoman named M'Grath. There was no furniture in the house except two or\nthree cheap chairs and a home-made board table.\n\n\"Shure, ye can,\" she answered in reply to my question about spending\nthe night there. \"Ye'll spread yer robe an' blankets on the flure, an'\nit'll only cost ye a dollar an' four bits. Ye'll plaze pay in advance.\"\n\nI took stock of the contents of my pocketbook. There was just five\ndollars and a quarter left of the thousand dollars with which I\nhad started from home on the first of May. It was now the first of\nSeptember, and no more money was due me until the next spring. My food\nand tent were on the steamboat and would not be likely to come ashore\nfor many days. It was Sunday evening, and a whole week must elapse\nbefore I could take up a collection.\n\nI paid my landlady and she put my blankets by her stove to dry. I paid\nanother dollar and a half for a supper of beans and flap-jacks--the\nfirst food I had tasted for three days. I slept soundly that night on\nthe floor, without a care or anxiety. The next morning I paid another\ndollar and a half for breakfast, and could not resist the temptation of\npurchasing a Seattle paper (only three weeks old--what a luxury!). I\nhad just twenty-five cents left--and I was a stranger in this strange\ncorner of the earth!\n\nI could not help laughing at my predicament as I entered the Alaska\nExploration Company's store. A bearded man standing by the stove bade\nme \"good-morning.\"\n\n\"You seem to be pleased about something,\" he said. \"Have you struck it\nrich?\"\n\n\"Well, yes!\" I replied; \"a rich joke on me,\" and I told him of the fix\nI was in.\n\n\"What? You are Dr. Young?\" he exclaimed, shaking me heartily by the\nhand. \"Why, I'm a Presbyterian elder from San Francisco.\"\n\nThe man's name was Fickus, a carpenter, who had come to Nome to build\nthe store and warehouses of one of the big companies. He had held the\nfirst religious meetings in the new camp and had found quite a circle\nof Christian people.\n\nHe offered to lend me money, but I refused to take it. \"No,\" I said,\n\"let us wait and see what happens.\"\n\nSomething happened very quickly. While we were talking a young man\nentered the store and came up to me.\n\n\"I understand that you are a minister,\" he said.\n\n\"Yes,\" I replied. \"What can I do for you?\"\n\n\"You can marry me to the best woman in Alaska.\"\n\n\"Is she here?\" I asked, with a triumphant smile at Fickus.\n\n\"Oh, yes; she came on the last boat from Seattle.\"\n\n\"When do you wish the ceremony to take place?\" I inquired.\n\n\"Right now,\" he replied. \"You can't tie the knot too quickly to suit\nme.\"\n\nI followed the eager young man, married him to a nice-looking girl\nwho was waiting in a near-by cabin, received a wedding-fee of twenty\ndollars, and returned to my newly-found friend with the assurance that\nmy wants were supplied until my outfit would come ashore.\n\nThis was my introduction to the second great gold camp of the\nNorthwest--the raw, crazy, confused stampede of Nome.\n\n\n\n\nII\n\nTHE ANVIL\n\n\nThe first two great gold camps of the Northwest were very different,\nalthough largely composed of the same material. In physical features\nthey were most unlike. The Klondike was in the great, beautiful,\nmountainous, forested Interior; Nome was on the bleak, treeless, low,\nexposed coast of Bering Sea. To reach the Klondike you steamed from\nSeattle through twelve hundred miles of the wonderful \"Inside Passage,\"\nbroke through the chain of snowy mountains by the Chilcoot Pass, and,\nin your rough rowboat, shot down the six hundred miles of the untamed\nand untameable Yukon. Or else you sailed twenty-three hundred miles\nover the heaving Pacific and the choppy Bering Sea to St. Michael, and\nthen steamed laboriously against the stiff current of the same Father\nYukon eighteen hundred miles _up_ to Dawson. To reach Nome you simply\nsteamed the twenty-three hundred miles of Pacific Ocean and Bering\nSea; or, if you were up the Yukon, came down it to St. Michael and\nacross Norton Sound a hundred and fifty miles to Nome.\n\nThough on the same parallel of north latitude, the climates of the two\ncamps are very unlike. In the Klondike you have the light, dry, _hot_\nair of summer; the light, dry, _cold_ air of winter. There are long\nperiods when the sky is cloudless. In the summer of unbroken day the\nland drowses, bathed in warm sunshine and humming with insect life,\nno breath of air shaking the aspens; in the winter of almost unbroken\nbut luminous night, the Spirit of the North broods like James Whitcomb\nRiley's Lugubrious Whing-whang,\n\n    \"Crouching low by the winding creeks,\n    And holding his breath for weeks and weeks.\"\n\nThere are no wind-storms in the Klondike, and a blanket of fine, dry\nsnow covers the land in unvarying depth of only a foot or two.\n\nOn Seward Peninsula, the Spirit of Winter breathes hard, and hurls his\nsnow-laden blasts with fearful velocity over the icy wastes. The snow\nfalls to great depth, and never lies still in one place. It drifts,\nand will cover your house completely under in one night, and pack so\nhard that the Eskimo can drive his reindeer team over your roof in\nthe morning. The air becomes so full of the flying particles that you\ncannot see the lead-dog of your team. Men have lost their way in the\nstreets of Nome and wandered out on the tundra to their death. There is\nconsiderable sunshine in the summer, and some comparatively still days,\nbut there is much rain, and mossy swamps are everywhere.\n\nThe men at Nome in the fall of '99 included many who had been at Dawson\nin '97, but conditions were very different. The Klondike Stampede was\ncomposed of tenderfeet, not one in twenty of whom had ever mined for\nanything before--men of the city and village and workshop and farm,\nnew to wilderness life, unused to roughing it. Those who reached Nome\nin '99 were mostly victims of hard luck. Many were Klondikers who had\nspent two winters rushing wildly from creek to creek on fake reports,\npossessing themselves of a multitude of worthless claims, eating up the\noutfits they had brought in with them, and then working for wages in\nmines of the lucky ones to buy a passage to the new diggings. Many had\ncome down the Yukon in their own rowboats.\n\nBut the Klondike Stampede was the cause of other smaller but more\nfruitless stampedes. These were started by steamboat companies, or by\ntrading companies, and often by \"wildcat\" mining companies, and were\ngenerally cruel hoaxes. Scores of small steamboats, hastily built for\nthe purpose, went up the Yukon to the Koyakuk and other tributaries\nin the summer of '98. Other scores of power-schooners and small\nsailing vessels sailed through Bering Strait into the Arctic Ocean and\nthrough Kotzebue Sound to the Kobuk and Sewalik Rivers. Almost without\nexception these eager gold-seekers of '98 found only disappointment,\nendured the savage winter as best they could, and, out of money and\nfood, were making their way back to the States, when news of the\nmarvelous \"beach diggings\" at Nome met them and they flocked thither in\nhopes of at least making back their \"grub-stake.\"\n\nAs these vessels approached the new camp, the most prominent landmark\nwhich met their eyes was a lone rock in the shape of an anvil, which\ncrowned the summit of the highest of the hills near the coast. At the\nbase of this hill rich gold diggings were found in a creek. The town\nwhich sprung up was first called Anvil City; but the Government postal\nauthorities, looking at the map, found Cape Nome in the vicinity, and\nthe post-office was named after the Cape.\n\n[Illustration: Anvil Rock. Overlooking Nome]\n\nFor the name \"Nome\" two explanations are given. It is said that the\nAmerican and Canadian surveyors who were laying out the projected\nWestern Union Telegraph Line across the American and Asiatic\nContinents, failed to find a name for this cape and wrote it down\n\"No name,\" which was afterwards shortened to Nome. The more probable\nexplanation is that the surveyors asked an Eskimo the name of the cape.\nNow the Eskimo negative is \"No-me,\" and the man not understanding, or\nnot knowing its name said \"No-me.\" This was written down and put on the\nmap as the name.\n\nBut I like Anvil, and spoke and voted for that name at the first town\nmeeting, held soon after I landed at the new camp. For the camp has\nbeen a place of hard knocks from the first. Rugged men have come there\nto meet severe conditions and have been hammered and broken by the\nblows of adversity. Others have been shaped and moulded by fiery trial\nand \"the bludgeonings of chance.\" When I see that stone anvil I think\nof Tennyson's inspired lines:\n\n    \"For life is not an idle ore,\n    But iron, dug from central gloom,\n      And heated hot with burning fears,\n      And dipt in baths of hissing tears,\n    And battered with the shocks of doom,\n    To shape and use.\"\n\nI was battered as hard as any one on this anvil of the Northwest; but\nto-day I feel nothing but gratitude for the severe experience.\n\nI had to wait until Saturday before the little steamer on which I came\nfrom St. Michael returned from the shelter of Sledge Island and put my\ngoods ashore. In the meantime I had obtained permission to spread my\nblankets on the floor of the Alaska Exploration Company's store. During\nthat first week we had constant storms. Five or six vessels were driven\nashore and broken up by the violence of the waves.\n\nBut I was getting my congregation together, and so was happy. A goodly\nproportion of Christian men and women are always found in these gold\ncamps, and they are very willing workers. Before Sunday came I had\nfound an old acquaintance, Minor Bruce, whom I had known fifteen years\nbefore when he was a trader in Southeastern Alaska. He offered me\nthe use of the loft over his fur store. Mr. Fickus, the man from San\nFrancisco, to whom I have made reference in a former chapter, fixed up\nsome seats. I got my organ carried up the ladder and found singers.\n\"Judge\" McNulty, a lawyer friend who was handy with crayons, made fancy\nposters out of some pasteboard boxes I had got from the store.\n\nThe floor of Bruce's store was cluttered with Eskimo mucklucks, bales\nof hair-seal skins, and other unsavory articles; and an old Eskimo\nwoman, who had her lower lip and chin tattooed downwards in streaks\nafter the fashion of these people, sat among the skins, chewing walrus\nhides and shaping them into soles for mucklucks, while the congregation\nwas gathering. One usher received the people at the store door, steered\nthem carefully between the bales and skins, and headed them to another\nwho helped them up the steep stairway, while a third seated them. We\nhad a good congregation and a rousing meeting. Our choir was one of the\nbest I ever heard. Our organist and leader was Dr. Humphrey, a dentist,\nwho had been director of a large chorus and choir; Mr. Beebe, our chief\nbaritone, had sung in the choir of St. Paul's Episcopal Church of\nOakland, Cal.; and there were other professionals. I give these details\nas a typical beginning in a frontier camp. There is always fine talent\nof all sorts in a new gold town.\n\nLet me give right here two or three instances of the bread of kindness\n\"cast upon the waters\" and \"found after many days.\" Nowhere is this\nBible saying oftener realized than in the friendly wilderness.\n\nOne of the first men I met at Nome was an old Colorado miner, whom I\nhad known at Dawson. I had done him some kindness at the Klondike camp\nduring the illness and after the death of his nephew. When he found me\nat Nome he greeted me warmly. \"You're just the man I've been looking\nfor. I know you don't do any mining, but I'm going to do some for you.\nI expect to go 'outside' in a few days. You come out on the tundra\nwith me to-morrow, and I'll stake some ground for you; then I'll take\nyour papers out with me and try to sell the claims.\"\n\nI went with him and he marked off three claims for me, which he had\nalready selected. The next spring, when my long illness had plunged me\ndeeply into debt and I was wondering how I could pay my obligations, my\nold friend returned with a thousand dollars, from the sale of one of my\nclaims. I paid my doctor's bills and the other debts, and rejoiced. It\nwas as money thrown down to me from heaven, in my time of dire need.\n\nAt Dawson, in the summer of '98, I helped an old G. A. R. man from\nMissouri. He had been sick with the scurvy and was drowned out by the\nspring freshets and driven to the roof of his cabin, where I found him\nhelpless and half-devoured by mosquitoes. I raised money for his need\nand sent him out home by one of the first steamboats down the Yukon.\nBefore he left he pressed upon me the only gift he could offer--a fine\nParker shotgun. I took this gun with me when I went to stake my claims\nand bagged a lot of ptarmigan; and a number of times afterwards I shot\nothers of these delicious wild chickens with it. And when I was taken\nill and my money all spent, I was able to sell the gun for a goodly sum.\n\nOne more link in this chain of kindness: When my goods came ashore and\nI was able to set up my tent, I found two men, one a Norwegian, the\nother a Michigander, both of whom had just arrived, without a shelter.\nI took them into my tent. They helped me to move my goods, made me a\ncot and fixed up tables, box-chairs and shelves for me. The Norwegian\nwas a very fine cook and baked my \"shickens\" for me most deliciously. I\nkept the men in my tent until they could build a cabin. When I became\nill they would come to see me, bringing ptarmigan broth and other\ndelicacies; and when I was convalescing and ravenous the Norwegian came\nagain and again to my cabin, bringing \"shickens for Mr. Zhung,\" and\nroasted them for me, serving them with his famous nut-butter gravy. In\nthe language of the Northwest, \"I didn't do a thing to those chickens.\"\nOf all places in the world, I think Alaska is most fruitful in return\nfor little acts of kindness.\n\nMen such as I have just described were pure metal, and the heavy blows\nthey received on the anvil only made their characters more beautiful\nand efficient.\n\nIt was in the metal of the men themselves--what this hard life would do\nfor them. Some it made--some it ruined. Among the \"Lucky Swedes,\" who\nleaped in a few months from poverty to wealth by the discovery of gold\nin Anvil Creek, three form a typical illustration.\n\nOne was a missionary to the Eskimos, on a small salary. At first his\ngold gave him much perplexity and trouble while he was being shaped\nto fit new conditions; but he rose finely to the occasion, gave a\nlarge part of his wealth to his church board for building missions and\nschools among the natives, and pursued his Christian way, honored and\nbeloved, to broader paths of greater usefulness.\n\nA second Swede was also a missionary, teaching the little Eskimos on\na salary of six hundred dollars a year. His gold completely turned\nhis head. He fell an easy prey to designing men and women. He became\ndissipated and broken in body and character. He tried to keep for his\nown use the gold taken from the claim he had staked in the name of his\nMission. His Board sued him for their rights. Long litigation, in which\nhe figured as dishonest, selfish and grasping, followed, his church\ngetting only a small part of its dues. The last I heard of him he was\na mere wreck of a man, disgraced, despised and shunned by his former\nfriends. The anvil battering, the trial by fire, the hard blows, proved\nhim base metal.\n\nThe third man was a Swedish sailor and longshoreman, ignorant and\nlow, living a hand-to-mouth, sordid life, with no prospects of honor\nor wealth. His gold at first plunged him into a wild orgy of gambling\nand dissipation. He took the typhoid fever and was taken \"outside.\"\nEverybody prophesied that he would simply \"go the pace\" to complete\ndestruction.\n\nBut there was true steel in his composition. His moral fiber stiffened.\nHe began to think and study. He broke away from his drunken associates.\nHe sought the companionship of the cultured. A good woman married\nand educated him. He has become one of Alaska's wealthiest and most\ninfluential citizens, and his charities abound. The stern anvil shaped\nhim to world-usefulness. It is all in the _man_!\n\nHere at Nome I first made the acquaintance of that strange race in\nwhich I afterwards became so much interested--the Eskimo. At first they\nwere a source of considerable annoyance. I always felt like laughing\naloud when the queer, fat, dish-faced, pudgy folk came in sight. As\nwe had to depend upon driftwood for our fuel, they would come several\ntimes a day, bringing huge basketfuls of the soggy sticks for sale at\nfifty cents a basket.\n\nThey soon learned that I was a missionary, and then they would come\nrolling along, forty or fifty of them at a time, and \"bunch up\" in\nfront of my tent. If I were cooking dinner they were sure to gather in\nfull force, and would lift up the flap of my tent, grinning at me and\neyeing every mouthful I ate. I did not know enough of their language\neven to tell them to go away. Their rank native odors were overpowering\nin the hot tent. You could detect the presence of one of those fellows\nhalf a mile away if the wind were blowing from him to you. The combined\nsmells of a company of natives, not one of whom had ever taken a bath\nin his or her life, and who lived upon ancient fish and \"ripe\" seal\nblubber--well, I'll stop right here!\n\nOne evening at a social in our warehouse-church we played the\n\"limerick\" game, which was then a popular craze. We would take a word\nand each one would write a verse on it. One of the words was Esquimaux.\nA number of the \"limericks\" were published in the _Nome Nugget_. With\na man's usual egotism I can only remember my own, which I saw at\nintervals for several years in Eastern periodicals:\n\n    \"Oh, look at this queer Esquimaux!\n    His nose is too pudgy to blaux.\n        His odors are awful;\n        To tell them unlawful.\n    The thought of them fills me with waux.\"\n\nOne day I was getting dinner in my tent and the usual company of\nnatives watching the performance, when there came along a couple of\nmen who had just landed and who, evidently, had never seen an Eskimo\nbefore. I overheard their conversation.\n\n\"Say, Jim,\" said one, \"just look there. Did you ever see the like?\" (A\npause.) \"Say, do you think them things has souls?\"\n\n\"We-e-ll,\" drawled Jim, \"I reckon they must have. They're human bein's.\nBut I'll tell you this: If they do, they've all got to go to heaven,\nsure; for the devil'd never have them around.\"\n\nNow let me tell you a sequel: Two years afterwards I was a Commissioner\nfrom the newly organized Presbytery of Yukon to the General\nAssembly, which met at Philadelphia. My fellow Commissioner from the\nPresbytery--the elder who sat by my side--was Peter Koonooya, an\nEskimo elder from Ukeavik Church, Point Barrow. Ten years earlier,\nDr. Sheldon Jackson, then Superintendent of Education for Alaska,\nhad visited that northernmost point of the Continent and had started\na school and mission. Peter Koonooya was one of the fruits. He was\na native of extraordinary intelligence, a man of property, owning a\nfleet of whaling _oomiaks_. He could read, write and talk English, was\na constant student of the Bible, and was considered by the Presbytery\nof sufficient intelligence and piety to represent us in the supreme\nCouncil of the Church.\n\nI am quite certain that Peter always voted exactly right on all\nquestions which were up before that Assembly; because he watched me\nvery closely and voted as I did.\n\nI was able, then, and in after years, to do these gentle, good-natured\nnatives some good, and other Christian teachers have done much more for\nthem. So it comes about that the condition of the Alaska Eskimo, under\nthe influence of the various Christian missions and schools among them,\nas compared with that of their brothers and sisters of the same race\nacross Bering Strait in Asia, for whom nothing in a Christian way has\nbeen done, is as day to night. They are pliable metal, and the Anvil of\nthe Northwest is shaping them into vessels and implements of usefulness\nand honor.\n\n[Illustration: The Odoriferous but Interesting Eskimo\n\nTwo of Dr. Young's Parishioners]\n\n\n\n\nIII\n\nBUNCH-GRASS BILL\n\n\nAlthough I had often met him on the streets of Dawson in '98, I had\nnot come into hand-shaking contact with Bunch-grass Bill until my\nfirst week at Nome. Of all the social orders whose members gathered\ntogether in clubs for humane work during the epidemic of typhoid fever,\nthe first to organize, besides being the strongest and most active,\nwas the Odd Fellows' Club. It was already organized when I arrived\nand, as I belonged to the order, I was present at the second meeting.\nThe young lawyer who was president of the Club, taking me around the\nlittle circle of earnest men, brought me to a black-haired, black-eyed,\nsturdily-built and singularly handsome young Irishman by the name of\nBilly Murtagh.\n\n\"Billy owns and runs the 'Beach Saloon,' and goes by the name of\nBunch-grass Bill,\" introduced our president. \"I don't know how he got\ninto the Odd Fellows, under rules which bar saloon-keepers and bad men.\nBut he's in, and we'll not turn him out of the Club, at least so long\nas this distress continues.\"\n\nBill made no reply to this rather uncomplimentary introduction, but\nshook hands with Irish heartiness and looked at me with level gaze.\n\"I've seen you in my saloon at Dawson,\" he said.\n\nThe others laughed, and the president chided, \"You oughtn't to give a\npreacher away like that, Bill.\"\n\nTaking a closer look at the young man, a scene at Dawson a year earlier\nflashed upon me. I was collecting money to pay the passage on the\nsteamboat bound down the Yukon of some poor fellows who were broken and\nsick, and who must go \"outside\" or die. I made the round of the saloons\nand gambling halls, and going into one of these places was curtly\nrefused by one of the partners. The other, who was this young man, came\nup and quietly said to the cashier, \"Weigh him out two ounces ($32.00).\"\n\n\"Oh, I remember you now, and your two ounces,\" I said to Bill; and to\nthe others, \"I can vouch for his knowing the Second Degree of the\norder, at least.\"\n\nI was made chairman of the Relief Committee of the Club, and found\nwork a-plenty cut out for me. Although the members of the Club did not\nlook with indifference upon any case of distress, yet its prime object\nwas to look up and help the sick Odd Fellows. I prepared a bulletin\nand tacked it up in the stores and saloons, directing that any cases\nof distress among the members of the order should be reported to the\nCommittee. As the typhoid epidemic increased in virulence, the Club\nfound its hands full.\n\nA day or two after this first meeting, I was passing Bill's saloon when\nhe called me in.\n\n\"I've just heard of a sick man,\" he reported, \"and I think he's an Odd\nFellow.\" Then, after a pause, he added, \"But if he isn't that doesn't\nmake a ---- bit of difference.\"\n\nHe led the way along the beach for half a mile or more, to an isolated\ntent, where we found the typhoid case. Billy stayed until he made sure\nthat the man was well cared for in the charge of friends and a good\nphysician. Then he took me aside and slipped a twenty-dollar gold\npiece into my hand. \"Use that for him,\" he directed.\n\nThe next day I had to raise a hundred and fifty dollars to send an old\nminer who was poor and crippled \"outside.\" I marched at once to the\n\"Beach Saloon.\" \"Billy,\" I said, \"this old-timer has blown in all his\ndust for booze; and it's up to you who have got it from him to take\ncare of him now.\"\n\n\"That's right,\" he promptly answered. \"There's ten saloons; what would\nbe my share?\"\n\n\"An ounce,\" I replied, passing him the paper.\n\nHe weighed out the gold dust. \"Wait a while before going on. I'll pass\nthe word down the line,\" he said.\n\nHalf an hour afterwards I stopped again at his door. \"They're all\nready,\" reported Bill. \"If any of them guys don't come across, just\ntell me.\"\n\nThey all \"came across,\" and thereafter, until I left Nome, all the\nsaloon-keepers met every demand I made upon them without question.\nWhen a man had been impoverished or made sick through drink I went to\nthe saloons, _only_, for his relief. In other cases I made a general\ncanvass. When collecting money for church purposes I went to everybody,\n_except_ the saloon-keepers and their following.\n\nThe day before my second meeting with the Odd Fellows' Club--a rainy,\nblustering day--I came to Bunch-grass Bill with a greater demand.\n\n\"It is you I want this time, Billy, not just your money,\" I said.\n\"There is a sick Odd Fellow in a tent almost a mile from here. He is\nalone and lying in a puddle of water. Get your gum-boots and find three\nor four other stout men and come with me.\"\n\nBill agreed at once, found a man to tend his bar, secured a squad of\nstrong and willing men, a stretcher from the army post and a good\nphysician and went with me on the errand of mercy. He worked all day\nin the mud and rain. He carried the sick man to the warehouse which\nwe had turned into a temporary hospital, visited all the stores in an\nattempt to find mattresses, and, failing in that, bought eight large\nreindeer skins and piled them on the floor for a bed, bought underwear,\ndry blankets and other comforts for the sick man, and laid in a supply\nof delicacies for the use of the hospital. In all, he spent over fifty\ndollars and a whole day of strenuous work upon the case.\n\nWhen I asked him at dusk if he were not tired he laughed: \"Never had a\nbetter time in all my life.\"\n\nThat night was the regular weekly meeting of the Club. I made my\nreport, which was quite long, and mentioned many distressing cases,\nshowing an alarming increase of the typhoid. Then I asked for a rotary\nrelief committee of three to be chosen at every other meeting, and a\npermanent relief committee of two.\n\n\"I've found the biggest-hearted man in all Alaska,\" I said. \"His\nbusiness and mine are not quite the same. In fact I have been all\nmy life fighting saloons and saloon-keepers, and I expect to keep\non fighting them until I die. But this man's heart of love for his\nfellow-men fights his business harder than I can.\"\n\nThen I related some of the things Billy had done during the past week,\nand ended my speech by asking that he be put on the permanent relief\ncommittee with me. \"We two will find the sick and cut out the work for\nthe rest of you,\" I promised.\n\nThe Club applauded, much to the confusion of Bill, who tried his best\nto shrink out of sight. One of the boys reported next morning.\n\n\"Say, Doctor,\" he began, \"you sure scared Bunch-grass Bill near to\ndeath last night. Tickled, too. He asked us all to come in and have one\non him. He doesn't know anything else to do when he feels good. 'That's\na new one on me,' he said. 'I never had anything to do with a preacher\nin my life. Didn't like 'em. Kept shy of 'em. But if Father Young sees\nfit to come into my saloon--and he's in it every day--I'll go with him\nwherever he wants me to go--even if it's to his church.'\"\n\nThat touched me, for I could sense something of the sacrifice\nit would involve. It would be far easier for Bill to start on a\nthree-thousand-mile winter mush on snow-shoes, over unbroken trails,\nthan to step inside of a Protestant meeting-house.\n\nFrom that time on, Bill was my right hand. As the number of typhoid\nvictims increased, he made his saloon an intelligence office, finding\nand reporting to me all new cases. The example of the Odd Fellows\nstimulated the various social orders represented in the camp--the\nMasons, Knights of Pythias, Elks, Eagles, and others--to a like\nhumane work; and Bill looked up their sick members and reported to\ntheir committees. He saw that all the sick had medical attention, and\nguaranteed the payment of scores of doctor's bills. Each steamboat\nthat left Nome for the \"outside\" carried a number of convalescents and\nbroken-down and moneyless men, and funds had to be raised for their\npassage. Bill headed nearly all of these subscription lists, as well as\nthose for fitting up the four temporary hospitals we opened and filled\nwith sick men.\n\nBeing for over six weeks the only clergyman in that whole region, I\nconducted all the funerals. One week I had eleven--all typhoid cases.\nBill attended them all, looking after the digging of the graves and\nmaking coffins, and often acting as undertaker.\n\nNow, I am not setting up my saloon friend as a saint. Quite the\ncontrary. I suppose he had been guilty of every crime mentioned in the\nDecalogue. He had never known any home life, but had knocked about from\ncamp to camp of the western frontiers ever since boyhood. His ideas of\nmorality, therefore, were very vague. He was said to have been \"run\nout\" of several towns in Montana and Idaho. He had a violent temper\nand, as the phrase went, was \"quick on the trigger.\" Rumor said that\nhe had the blood of more than one man on his hands; although it was\nclaimed, in every case, that he had not sought the quarrel. He sold\nwhiskey and drank it, gambled and swore habitually without a thought of\nany of these things being wrong. He was simply an uncultured, ignorant,\nrough-and-ready, Irish-American backwoodsman.\n\nBut to those of us in the raw camp of Nome who witnessed Bill's\nuntiring kindness and self-sacrifice during those weeks of distress,\nhis faults faded into the background behind the light of his many good\ndeeds. St. Peter says, \"Charity covers a multitude of sins,\" and surely\nBill's charity \"abounded\" overwhelmingly, putting out of sight much of\nthe evil in his life.\n\nAs for me, I shall always think of him as one of the most loyal,\ndevoted friends I ever had, and the saver of my life. For after seven\nweeks of most strenuous and wearing work, I was suddenly stricken\ndown with the typhoid myself. The blow came when I was fairly drowned\nin the multitude of my duties. I was raising the money to send out\non the steamboat four or five men who must leave the country or\ndie--poor fellows whose vitality was so low that they could not combat\nthe cold and storms of a Nome winter. I was also preparing another\nwarehouse-hospital. So great was the demand for space for the care of\nthe sick that I had felt compelled to take into my own ten-by-twelve\ntent three men sick with the disease. So crowded was the tent that I\nhad to sleep under the bed of one of them. Billy Murtagh and others of\nthe Odd Fellows' Club warned me against thus exposing myself to the\ninfection, but there seemed to be no other way. Billy brought me all\nhis remaining Apollinaris water that I might not have to drink the\nimpure seepage of the tundra. Some of the brothers carried me pails of\nwater from the one well which had been recently put down.\n\nWhile I was in the midst of the canvass for funds, and in the bustle of\npreparation for the departure of the last steamboats, I had a terrific\nheadache for several days. I was besieged day and night by friends of\nsick men for places to put the stricken ones where they could be cared\nfor. The life of a number of these men seemed to depend on my keeping\non my feet. I had no _time_ to be sick. I kept away from Billy and my\nother friends, for fear they might forcibly interfere.\n\nBut one of the Odd Fellows saw me as I was coming out of a store with a\nsubscription paper in my hand. He looked at me for a moment and hurried\nto the \"Beach Saloon.\"\n\n\"Bill,\" he shouted, \"get a doctor, quick, and go to the parson. I saw\nhim just now staggering along with his face as red as fire and his hand\nto his head. He's got the fever, sure.\"\n\nBilly came running down the beach with Dr. Davy at his heels and caught\nme as I was entering my tent. Without ceremony they picked up the sick\nman who was in my cot and carried him to another tent near by. Then, in\nspite of my protests, they undressed me and laid me in my blankets. I\nwas half delirious and stubborn. I fought them.\n\n\"This is all nonsense, Doctor,\" I protested. \"I have only a headache.\nThere is no time to fool away. These men must go out on this steamboat,\nand the money is not raised. Let me alone.\"\n\nDr. Davy finished his examination and turned to Bunch-grass Bill. \"He\nhas a bad case of typhoid,\" was his verdict, \"and ought to have been in\nbed three or four days ago. Find a house to put him in and a woman to\nnurse him.\"\n\nBill had one of the softest and sweetest voices I ever heard. He came\nto me and laid his cool hand on my forehead. \"Don't you worry about\nthose men, Father,\" he said gently. \"I'll attend to that. Now who do\nyou want to nurse you?\"\n\n\"Mrs. Perrigo,\" I replied. \"She has just built a new cabin. I helped\nher with it. Her husband is recovering from the fever.\"\n\nSoon the good woman was in my tent, eager to serve. I was carried\nthrough a driving snow-storm to her cabin. It was a rude affair built\nof rough boards set upright and battened with narrow, half-inch strips.\nA single thickness of building-paper poorly supplemented the inch\nboards. But cold and uncomfortable as it was, it was the only available\nshelter. I had them bring my tent and make a storm-shed of it in front\nof the door. There, for more than two months, I was to lie helpless.\n\nMy friends told me afterwards of the consternation that my illness\ncaused. I was chairman of all the general relief committees--those\nof the town council, the citizens, the mission, the Odd Fellows. That\nthe leader should thus be laid aside seemed a greater calamity than\nwas actually the case. For Mr. Wirt of the Congregational Church\narrived with lumber to erect a hospital, and Raymond Robins, a young\nman of great earnestness and talent, who has since arisen to national\nprominence, came with him to help in Christian work.\n\nThe night after I was taken to the Perrigo cabin, there was a meeting\nof the Odd Fellows' Club. Billy Murtagh was present and made his first\npublic speech. As my illness and the general situation was discussed\nhe rose to his feet, the tears streaming down his face. He seemed\nunconscious of them--or, at least, unashamed.\n\n\"Fellers,\" he faltered, \"I'm hard hit. This gets me where I live. Now\nI'll tell you this: you fellers can look after the other sick folks,\nand call on me when you need any money. But I want you to leave Father\nYoung to me. I've adopted him. He's my father. All I've got is his. If\nthere's anything in this camp he needs, he's goin' to have it.\"\n\nAh, that long, desperate fight for life! The stunning pain in my head,\nthe high fever, the delirium, the nervous terror, the deadly weakness,\nthe emaciation, the chills and nausea! I was badly handicapped in my\nfight. The two months of wearing work and strain which preceded my\nillness had exhausted me, body and mind--there was no vital reserve to\ndraw upon.\n\nI was in a little, cold shanty, twelve feet square, crowded and\nunhealthy. Two people besides myself must live in that tiny room--sleep\nthere, cook there. The savage arctic winter raged against us, howling\nhis vengeance upon our impudence in thus braving him, unprepared.\nHe made every nail-head inside the house a knob of frost. When my\nblankets, damp with the steam of cooking, touched the wall, he clamped\nthem so tight one must tear the fabric in pulling it free. He made my\nclothing, stowed under the cot, a solid lump of ice. He asphyxiated us\nwith foul gases when the door was closed, and filled the room instantly\nwith fine snow from the condensation of the moisture when it was\nopened. He charged constantly upon the thin shell of the house with his\nhigh October and November winds, shaking it wildly and threatening\nto bowl it over. He drove, in horizontal sheets, the fine, flour-like\nsnow, shooting it through batten-crevice, door-crack and keyhole; and,\nfinding myriad small apertures in the shake roof, sifted it down upon\nmy face. He piled it in fantastic whirls around the house, selecting\nthe side on which our one small window was, to bank it highest, so that\nhe might shut out our light. He sent the red spirit in the thermometer\ntube down, down, down--ten below zero, twenty, thirty when it stormed,\nand forty, fifty, sixty below when it was still, and the black\ndeath-mist brooded over the icy wastes and men breathed ice-splinters\ninstead of air.\n\nThe fuel supply for the Nome camp was very poor and scanty. Men were\ndigging old, sodden logs of driftwood out of the snow, and hauling this\nsorry fire-wood twenty miles by hand. Coal was scarce and sold by the\nton for $150.00, or by the bucket for ten cents a pound.\n\nHaving had experience with typhoid epidemics and other sicknesses in\nthe Klondike Stampede, I had laid in a good supply of nice foods for\nthe sick, such as malted milk, the best brands of condensed milk,\ntapioca, farina, and other delicacies; but all of these had been given\naway before my own illness, and there was a scarcity of such articles\nin the stores.\n\nBut my friends, women and men,--indeed, everybody in the camp seemed\ninterested in me and anxious to do something for me--arose to meet all\nthese emergencies and \"ministered to mine infirmities.\" The Odd Fellows\nsupplemented the efforts of the convalescent, but still shaky Perrigo,\nand cut the wind-packed snow into bricks and built it around the house,\nuntil it looked like a veritable Eskimo igloo. It was much warmer after\nthis was done.\n\nThe doctors at Nome all prescribed a diet of milk and whiskey for their\nfever patients. Upon the news of my illness circulating in the camp a\ndozen bottles of different brands were at once sent to me. Billy came,\nexamined, smelled at, and tasted these liquors, with the air of an\nexpert. Then he bundled all the bottles into a gunny sack and carried\nthem away, saying, \"He's not going to have any of this dope. I've got\nsome of the pure stuff, made in Ireland.\" And he brought me an ample\nsupply for all my needs, and a gallon of pure alcohol for sponge-baths.\n\nThe Odd Fellows organized wood-cutting \"bees\" for my benefit, and\ndaily carried water from the well for Mrs. Perrigo's use. The women\ncollected food and milk from their own stores and those of others, and\nbrought them to me. The fellowship of the wilderness, the finest in the\nworld, had its full exercise for my benefit there at Nome. I doubt if\nthere was a person in all that great camp who would not have given me\ncheerfully his last can of milk.\n\nAs the fever progressed and my condition grew more serious, the daily\nvisitors were restricted to two--Mrs. Strong and Bunch-grass Bill. The\nlady looked after matters of business, my letters, and information\nabout other sick people. Billy, with his soft, low voice and gentle\nmanner, hovered over me, sitting for hours at my bedside, lifting me\nin his two big hands with infinite care and deftness. Never did son\ncare for father with more tender solicitude and fuller devotion than\ndid this Irish Catholic saloon-keeper, this \"bad man\" of the western\nfrontier, for me--a Protestant preacher.\n\nThere were many malamute dogs at Nome, great, beautiful, wolf-like\nbeasts, and the \"malamute chorus\" was much in evidence in the late\nhours of the night. One, in particular, which was tied up not far from\nPerrigo's cabin, tuned up regularly every morning at three o'clock\nwith his high-pitched tremolo, waking every dog within a mile, until\nall were howling, and keeping it up till daylight. There was no sleep\npossible for me while this concert was in progress, and I used to lie\nawake for hours, waiting fearfully for the leader to begin, and to\ncower in my robes with nervous chills coursing down my spine at every\nrenewal of the long-drawn cadence, \"Oo-o-o-o-o, oo-o-o-o-o, ow, ow, ow,\now.\"\n\nMy fever would always rise with the commencement of this discordant\nchorus and increase as long as it continued, and the doctor on his\nmorning visit would find me exhausted and trembling. The words of\nClarence would chase each other through my brain:\n\n    \"With that, methought, a legion of foul fiends\n    Environ'd me, and howled in mine ears\n    Such hideous cries, that, with the very noise\n    I trembling wak'd, and, for a season after\n    Could not believe but what I was in hell.\"\n\nMrs. Perrigo told Billy of the nuisance. He stayed up that night until\nthe leading canine musician shrieked his solo to the moon. He followed\nup the sound until he found the dog, roused the grumbling owner, paid\nthe high price asked for the animal, led him down the beach half a\nmile, and shot him.\n\nAn errand of an opposite character also fell to Billy's lot. The\nbarracks which housed a squadron of United States soldiers was less\nthan a block from the cabin in which I lay. Every night at eleven\no'clock a bugle of remarkable sweetness and expression would blow\n\"Taps.\" I would listen for the soothing melody, and when it would sound\nI would turn over in my robe and obey its command, \"Go-o-o to sle-e-ep.\"\n\nLieutenant Craig, the commander of the post, ordered the discontinuance\nof \"Taps,\" thinking it would disturb me and the other sick people. That\nnight I waited, as usual, for the \"good-night\" bugle, and when it did\nnot sound I grew anxious and distraught. I thought my watch was wrong\nor the bugler must be sick. I grew excited, restless and feverish,\nand passed a sleepless night, missing my accustomed lullaby. We told\nBilly; he went to see the Lieutenant, and the next night the lovely,\nsoothing phrase sounded forth on the still night air, and I slept.\n\nTAPS.\n\n[Music]\n\nAnother cause of nervousness and anxiety arose, requiring the efforts\nof both Mrs. Strong and Billy Murtagh to solve the difficulty. I was\npaying my nurse, Mrs. Perrigo, five dollars a day, which was almost all\nshe and her husband had to live on. They had been eating for a year and\na half a food outfit designed for only a single season, and there was\nbut little of it left. Mr. Perrigo, who was a Yankee tintype-picture\npeddler and knew no other trade, had tried his best to be a gold-miner;\nbut, in common with the rest of the forlorn \"Kobuckers,\" had made\nnothing at all. His wife, who had been a bookkeeper in Boston,\nvaliantly took up the trades of waitress, washerwoman and cook in the\nArctic wilderness, but there was but little money in that disappointed\ncrowd. Almost immediately after landing on the \"golden sands\" of Nome\nin August Mr. Perrigo was stricken with the fever. With the fearful\nprices that prevailed, my five dollars a day was little enough to feed\nthem and meet the monthly payments on their house.\n\nI had accumulated $125.00--mostly wedding fees--when I was taken sick.\nIt melted away like a spoonful of sugar in a cup of hot coffee. Every\nMonday I must have thirty-five dollars for my faithful nurse. I placed\nin Mrs. Strong's hands for sale my Parker shotgun, my typewriter, my\ngold-scales, my extra overcoat, all gifts from friends. She got good\nprices for them, and for the few articles I could spare from my food\nsupply--but still the phantom weekly payment menaced me. When I closed\nmy eyes the figures--$35.00--big and lurid--stared at me, and in my\ndelirious dreams became red goblins, mocking me.\n\nA splendid woman, member of the church which assumed my salary, had\ngiven me two beautiful wolf robes. I was lying in the heavier one. I\ndelivered the other to Mrs. Strong. \"Sell it for me,\" I requested. \"You\nought to get fifty or sixty dollars for it.\"\n\nA week passed--then another. Mrs. Strong reported she \"was holding the\nrobe for a higher price.\" The crisis I had dreaded had arrived. My\nmoney was gone. I had none to meet next Monday's payment.\n\n\"Sell the robe for what it will bring,\" I directed Mrs. Strong. \"I must\nhave the money.\"\n\n\"I'll sell it on Saturday,\" she promised.\n\nMonday morning Mrs. Strong marched in with a large canvas money-bag in\nher hand. With Mrs. Perrigo's assistance she counted out the money,\nwhich was mostly in silver coins. Then she wrote in large figures,\n\"$158.50,\" and pinned the paper on the wall by my head.\n\n\"Where on earth did you get that money?\" I cried.\n\n\"Why, for the robe, of course.\"\n\n\"You never got all that for it.\"\n\n\"Yes, I did,\" she affirmed.\n\nThen the truth dawned upon me. \"Mrs. Strong!\" I exclaimed, \"you raffled\nthe robe!\"\n\n\"Yes,\" she laughed. \"What are you going to do about it?\"\n\nThen she explained. Finding it impossible to get a fair price for the\nfur blanket she and Bunch-grass Bill had laid their heads together.\nThey knew that I would not consent to a raffle, so they kept the\nmatter quiet. Bill displayed the robe in front of his saloon. Shares\nwere offered at fifty cents each. My lady friends of the mission sold\ntickets. Bill bought fifty and others of my friends did almost as well.\nTheir purpose if they won the robe was to give it back to me.\n\nWhat could I do? To rebuke their kindly deception would be ungracious\nindeed. With brimming eyes I thanked my friends, and Mrs. Perrigo got\nher money.\n\nBut the greatest of Bunch-grass Bill's many acts of kindness towards\nme remains to be told. As Dr. Davy had said from the first, mine was\n\"a bad case.\" I had seven and a half weeks of high fever before it\nbroke, whereas the usual limit of fever was three weeks. I reached the\nextreme of emaciation and weakness. I could hardly lift my hand. When\nthey bundled me in a blanket like a baby and hung me on the hook of a\nbig steelyard I weighed sixty pounds! I was long in the Valley of the\nShadow of Death and reached its utmost boundary, until the very waters\nof the dark river lapped my feet.\n\n\"Well, Bill,\" said Dr. Davy with a sigh, as he was returning one\nmorning from his call upon me, and stopped, as was his custom, to\nreport to the \"Beach Saloon,\" \"I'm afraid it's about over. I don't\nthink Dr. Young can last much longer. He can retain nothing on his\nstomach. We've tried all the brands of condensed milk in the camp to\nno avail. Everything comes up the instant it is swallowed. There are\nmany internal complications, and he may go off any hour in one of those\ndeathly convulsive chills.\"\n\n\"Big Wilbur,\" who reported the scene to me afterwards, said that Bill's\nface \"went white as chalk, and then flushed red as fire.\" He jumped at\nthe doctor as though he were going to assault him.\n\n\"By God,\" he cried, \"he's not goin' to die. We'll not let him, Doc. See\nhere: When I had the fever at Dawson, what saved me was cow's milk.\nNow, there's a cow here. You come with me, and we'll go see her.\"\n\n\"That cow,\" explained Wilbur, \"was a wonderful animal. Her owner sold\ntwenty gallons of milk a day from her, and she didn't look as if she\ngave one. Bill knew the owner was doping the milk with condensed milk\nand corn-starch and water and other stuff. So he strapped on his two\nbig guns. He's great for bluff, is Bill. Doc. and I went along to see\nthe fun. We found the owner in the stable 'tending to his cow. Bill\ndidn't beat around the bush any.\n\n\"'You look here' he said. 'Your cow's givin' too darned much milk. Now\nthis man I want it for is my father, an' he's got enough microbes in\nhim already. Doc. here, analyzed your milk; didn't you, Doc?' (Doc.\nDavy was game, and nodded.) 'He says you put tundra water and all\nkinds of dope in it. I'm goin' to keep tab on you, an' if you dope\nmy milk--well, you know _me_! It don't make no difference what you\ncharge--a dollar a bottle or five dollars a bottle--my father's got to\nhave pure milk. Understand?'\"\n\nFor three months Billy went to the stable every day and superintended\nthe milking. At a cost to him, sometimes, of three dollars for a pint\nbottle, and never less than a dollar a bottle, the \"bad man\" brought\nme every day, with his own hands, a bottle of fresh milk. When Bill\nand the doctor came in with that first bottle Mrs. Perrigo carefully\nraised my head and gave me a brimming glass of the rich milk. I drank\nit all and dropped off to sleep. I needed no more whiskey. The turning\npoint of my illness was that glass of cow's milk. Bill's big bluff\nsaved my life!\n\nTo show the rough, yet fine sentiment of the man, let me tell one last\nword about the lone cow. She went dry before spring, and, as the camp\nwas crazy for fresh meat, the owner butchered her. One of the Odd\nFellows told me. Said he, \"Bill just went wild when he heard of it, and\nwe had all we could do to keep him from going gunning for the man who\nkilled the cow that saved your life. Why, that man would lay down his\nlife for you, and laugh while he was doin' it.\"\n\nI would I could tell of Bunch-grass Bill's conversion and entire\nreformation, but this is a true story, and I never heard that he ever\ngot so far as that. This much, however, I am proud to tell. One day in\nthe spring of 1900, when the army of gold-seekers was beginning to land\non the \"Golden Beach,\" I was standing with Bill near his saloon. On a\nsudden impulse I spoke to him.\n\n\"Billy,\" I said, \"I love you, but I don't like your business. It's a\nbad business. See what it has done to lots of good fellows around here.\nYou are too big for that game. I wish you'd drop it and do something\nthat's clean--that doesn't hurt anybody.\"\n\nBill made no reply, and I supposed my words had been fruitless. But in\na few weeks one of my friends informed me that Bill had sold out and\nhad gone to gold-mining.\n\n\"That's good!\" I exclaimed. \"Did he give any reason?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" the man replied, \"Bill said you told him to.\"\n\nWhen I was returning to Alaska in 1901, I bought a nice buffalo\nsmoking-set at the Pan-American Exposition and took it to Alaska for\nBunch-grass Bill. I did not see him, as he was mining at a distance,\nbut I heard of his pride and pleasure as he displayed the gift and\ntalked affectionately of \"Father Young.\" He left Alaska that summer,\nand I have heard vaguely of his presence in the Nevada gold-fields.\nBut wherever he is, I pray that God may bless and save the Irish\nsaloon-keeper, who loved me and saved my life.\n\n\n\n\nIV\n\nMY DOGS\n\n\nMushing with dogs in Alaska is the worst and the best mode of traveling\nin all the world--the most joyful and the most exasperating--according\nto the angle from which you look at it.\n\nOnce I was preaching a series of sermons on the Ten Commandments to the\nminers at Council, a town on Seward Peninsula eighty-five miles east of\nNome. I had come to the Third Commandment; and I bore down pretty hard\nupon the useless and foolish habit of profane swearing.\n\nWhen I was going home from the meeting, a group of young men stood on\nthe corner waiting for me.\n\n\"Come over here, Doctor,\" called one of the men. \"I have a bet with\nJim, and I want you to decide it.\"\n\nI crossed over to the jolly group. \"What is your bet?\" I asked.\n\n\"Why,\" he replied, \"I've bet Jim five dollars that you have never\nmushed a dog-team.\"\n\n\"Well, you've lost,\" I answered. \"I have driven dogs many times--and\nnever found it necessary to swear at them, either.\"\n\nBefore I go on with my story, perhaps I would better explain that word\n\"mush,\" as it is used in the Northwest. The word is never used in\nAlaska as you use it in the East, to denote porridge, or some sort of\ncereal. There we say \"oatmeal\" or \"corn-meal,\" or simply \"cereal.\"\n\nIn Alaska the word has but one use. It is a corruption of the French\n_marchez, marche_, which the Canadian _coureurs du bois_, or travelers\nof the woods, shout at their dogs when urging them along the trail.\nFrom _marche_ to \"mush\" is easy. So now, throughout the great\nNorthwest, Canadian or Alaskan, when a man is traveling he is \"on a\nmush.\" When he is speaking to his dogs, either to drive them out of the\nhouse or to urge them along the trail, he shouts \"mush!\" If he be a\ngood traveler, he is a \"great musher.\" Of all the pet names they used\nto give me up there, the one of which I was proudest was \"The Mushing\nParson.\"\n\nThey tell a story, which has the ear-marks of truth, which illustrates\nthis universal use of the word \"mush\" in the Northwest.\n\nTwo miners, who for years had been in the mining camps of Alaska,\nat last came \"outside\" to Seattle. In the morning they went to\na restaurant for breakfast and took seats at a table. A rather\ncross-looking waitress came to take their order. \"Mush?\" she asked. The\nminers looked at one another in surprise and alarm. The woman waited\na while, and when they did not answer she supposed they were deaf and\nhad not heard her question. \"Mush?\" she screamed. The two men arose\nand fled. When they got safely to the sidewalk, one said to the other,\n\"Now, what the Sam Hill did she fire us for?\"\n\nThere are three principal breeds of native dogs found in Alaska--the\nHusky, the Malamute and the Siberian Dog--all descendants of wolves,\nwith wolfish traits and the wolf's warm coat and powers of endurance.\nOf these the Malamute is the largest, descended, as he is, from the\ngreat gray wolves of the Arctic regions. The Husky seems to be derived\nfrom the red wolf of the McKenzie River Valley; while the Siberian Dog\nhas for ancestor the smaller, shorter-legged, heavier-furred Arctic\nwolf of the Siberian coast. The smaller and more worthless dogs of\nthe southern Alaska Coast, if descended from wolves, must have the\ncoyote as their progenitor--having his lighter and slimmer body and his\nsneaking, thievish, cowardly disposition.\n\nEverywhere, however, the dog is largely what his master makes him, and\nthese northern wolf-dogs have greatly improved since they have fallen\ninto the hands of white masters. More intelligent breeding, greater\ncare in feeding and more careful training, have made them what they\nare--the finest, most enduring and most dependable sleigh-dogs in the\nworld.\n\nThe dog is by all odds the most valuable animal of the Northwest to the\nwhite miner and settler. He is the miner's horse, bicycle, automobile,\nlocomotive, all in one. Life in those wilds would be almost unendurable\nwithout him. The miners appreciate this, and cases of cruelty and\nmistreatment are very rare. In the days of the early gold stampedes the\n_cheechackos_ or tenderfeet, who knew but little about life in the\nwilderness, and still less about the dogs of the wilderness, sometimes\nwere guilty of abusing their dogs; but this very seldom occurred, and\nthe old-timers always frowned upon, and sometimes punished, cases of\ncruelty. I remember once holding, with joy, the coat of one of these\nold-timers at Dawson in the strenuous winter of 1897-8, while he\nadministered a very beautiful and artistic thrashing to a newcomer who\nwas guilty of beating his dogs with a heavy chain and knocking out the\neye of one of them.\n\nBut I cannot better give you an idea of what dog-mushing in the\nNorthwest is than by sketching a trip I took to a meeting of the\nPresbytery of Yukon in March, 1912. I was at Iditarod, a new\ngold-mining town in the western interior of Alaska. The meeting was\nto be held at Cordova on the southern coast, seven hundred and twenty\nmiles distant. To reach Cordova I must cross four mountain ranges--the\nWestern, the Alaska, the Chugach and the Kenai Ranges; and traverse\nfour great river valleys--the Yukon, the Kuskoquim, the Susitna and\nthe Matanuska. There was first a very rough stretch of rudely marked\ntrail five hundred and twenty miles to Seward. There I would take\na steamboat two hundred miles to Cordova. Let us betake ourselves\ntogether to this big miner's camp, and talk the matter over in the\nfree, familiar way of the Northwest:\n\nA young fellow of Scotch descent hailing from the north of Ireland,\nWilliam Breeze, known far and wide as an experienced \"dog musher,\" is\nto be my companion on this trip. He is bound for Susitna, three hundred\nmiles from Iditarod, on a prospecting trip, and will take care of my\ndogs, boil their feed at night and do the heaviest part of the work.\n\n[Illustration: Dr. Young and his Dog Team\n\nIditarod, February, 1912]\n\nAnd now let me introduce you to my team. It is one of the finest teams\nin all the North. There are five pups of the same litter, now six or\nseven years old. They are a cross between the McKenzie River husky and\nthe shepherd dog, and have the long hair and hardy endurance of the\nformer and the sagacity, intelligence and affection of the latter.\nBeing brothers, they know each other and are taught to work together,\nalthough this fact does not hinder them from engaging in a general\nfree-for-all fight now and again. However, if attacked by strange dogs\nthe whole five work together beautifully, centering their forces with\nNapoleonic strategy and beating the enemy in detail.\n\nThe leader is black, white and tan, marked like a shepherd dog. He has\nbeen named \"Nigger,\" but I have changed his name simply to \"Leader.\"\nIt sounds enough like the original to please him and keep him going.\nHe is a splendid leader. He has a swift, swinging pace, and can keep\nthe trail when it is covered a foot deep by fresh snow and there is no\nexternal sign of it. He has that intelligence which leads him to avoid\ndangers, and he will stop and look back at you if there is a hole in\nthe ice or a dangerous slide, awaiting your orders and co-operation\nbefore he essays the difficult problem. His knowledge of \"Gee\" and\n\"Haw\" is perfect, the tone in which you pronounce these words and the\nforce with which you utter them telling him just how far to the right,\nor to the left, he is to swing. \"_Gee!_\" spoken in a short, explosive,\nloud tone will turn him square to the right, while \"Ge-e-e, ge-e-e-e,\"\nin soft lengthened syllables, will make him veer slowly and gradually.\nHis sense of responsibility is very great, and his censorship of the\nconduct of his fellow teamsters very severe. He will not tolerate any\nshirking on their part and takes keen delight in their correction when\nthey deserve it. But he will fly at your throat if you touch _him_ with\nthe whip.\n\nThe \"swing dogs\" just behind him are \"Moose\" and \"Ring,\" colored like\nIrish setters. They have exactly the same gait, are the same size, and\nalmost the same coloring, \"Ring\" a little lighter than \"Moose\" and with\na white collar around his neck which suggested his name. \"Moose\" is a\nlittle gentleman, the loveliest dog I have ever known. His traces are\nalways taut, and when you utter his name he will jump right up into the\nair, straining on his collar. He knows the words of command as well as\nthe leader, and has never, perhaps, been touched with the whip. I think\nchastisement would break his heart, for he would know it was unmerited.\nHe is my pet, the one dog of the team that I allow in my cabin, and\nmy companion in my short journeys through the camp. He is remarkably\nclean and dainty in his habits, his coat shining like polished bronze.\nHe would guard my person or my coat with his life, the most faithful,\nintelligent and affectionate dog I have ever had. I love that dog.\n\n\"Ring\" is also willing, but has not the intelligence or the good nature\nof \"Moose.\" He is a scrapper and apt to embroil the rest of the team in\na general fight. But he will work all day at his highest tension.\n\n\"Teddy\" and \"Sheep,\" the \"wheel dogs,\" are not so valuable as the other\nthree. \"Teddy\" has the longest hair and the lightest weight of any, and\nthe least strength; but he is a willing little fellow and a very keen\nhunter. Make a noise like a squirrel or a bird, and he will prick up\nhis ears and dash down the path after the game, and when a real rabbit\nor ptarmigan crosses his path he will tear madly along until the game\nis passed. You can fool him every minute of the day, and Breeze has\na way of imitating the little birds that keeps \"Teddy\" working his\nhardest.\n\n\"Sheep\" is a malingerer. He is a clown, and so comical that you cannot\nhelp laughing at him, even when you know he deserves a good thrashing.\nHe is fat, heavy and awkward. In color he is a light, tawny yellow,\nwith long hair like \"Teddy,\" but labors under the serious disability\nof having a different gait from the others. They are pacers; he is a\ntrotter. When they are swinging rhythmically along at a five-mile\ngait, \"Sheep\" has to lope, his trot not being equal to the occasion.\nHe has a way of playing off sick or fagged; but if game appears, he\nforgets all about his pretenses, his lameness is all gone in a second\nand he is the keenest of the team. Also, when nearing the camp he\nforgets his weariness and pulls harder than any of the team. It is\nnecessary to let him see the whip constantly, and occasionally to feel\nit, and he is the only one of the team that necessitates its use at all.\n\nAbout once a day, on the trail, a funny scene has to be enacted.\nWe may be laboring up a long hill, or wallowing through deep snow,\nthe difficult ascent requiring every man and dog to do his best.\n\"Sheep\" will get tired, and, with a backward look at me to see if I\nam noticing, will let his traces slacken. I give him a touch of the\nwhip, and, although he can hardly feel the lash through his thick\ncoat, he yelps and pulls manfully for a short distance; but presently\nhis trace chain sags again. Soon \"Leader\" notices the heavier pulling\nand, knowing where the blame lies, turns his head, shows his teeth and\ngrowls at \"Sheep,\" who jumps into his collar and pulls like a good\nfellow. Soon he forgets and lets up again, getting a fiercer growl\nfrom \"Leader.\" A third time he is a slacker. Then \"Leader\" stops and\nbegins to swing around carefully so as not to tangle the harness.\n\"Moose\" and \"Ring\" and \"Teddy\" all stand still and look at \"Sheep.\"\nThat unfortunate trotter lies down on his back with his feet in the\nair and begins to howl in anguish. I sit down on the sled and wait--I\nknow what is coming. \"Leader\" reaches \"Sheep\" and for about a minute\nthere is a bedlam of savage growls from \"Leader\" and piercing shrieks\nfrom \"Sheep.\" I notice that \"Leader\" does not take the culprit by the\nthroat, but only pinches the loose hide on his breast and side. That\ncannot injure him, so I am not uneasy. The punishment over, \"Leader\"\nresumes his place. \"Sheep\" gets up and shakes himself with an air of\nrelief. I take the handle-bars and call \"Mush.\" For the rest of the day\n\"Sheep\" pulls for all he is worth; but the next day he forgets and has\nto be trounced again.\n\nI am conscious that this story may have a \"fishy\" flavor for some of my\nreaders, but I can assure them it is true.\n\nBut mine are all fine little dogs, not as large as the malamute, but\nwith more courage, spirit and intelligence. The long hair protects them\nfrom the cold and they will cuddle down in the snow contentedly, curled\nup like little shrimps, and let it cover them.\n\nWe must take along enough feed for the dogs, to last them from salmon\nstream to salmon stream. The staple of their feed is dried salmon; it\ngoes a long way for its weight. We start with a hundred pounds of it,\nand fifty pounds of rice and tallow. This, boiled into a savory mess\nand served once a day (when they stop for the night), keeps the dogs\nfat and hearty. We shall replenish the supply at intervals, for five\ndogs will eat an immense amount of food, and must have all that they\ncan eat at their daily meal.\n\nThe sled is a basket-sleigh with handle-bars and brake at the back and\na \"gee-pole\" in front, with an extra rope when we have to \"neck it\" to\nhelp the dogs. My wolf-robe is spread on the floor of the sleigh for\nmy accommodation in the brief intervals of riding. For dog mushing in\nAlaska does not mean luxuriously riding in your sleigh wrapped up in\nyour fur robe while the dogs haul you along the trail. When Dr. Egbert\nKoonce sledded twelve hundred miles from Rampart to Valdez in 1902\non his way to the General Assembly, I told the Assembly of the feat.\nA good friend from Philadelphia said: \"It must after all be a really\nluxurious way of traveling, wrapped up in your furs and reclining in a\ncomfortable sleigh behind your dogs.\" I turned to Koonce and asked him\nhow much of that twelve hundred miles he rode. \"About two miles,\" he\nreplied.\n\nI shall ride more than this on my way to Seward, but there will not\nbe many places where I can ride half a mile at a stretch without\ngetting out and running behind the dogs. The beauty of \"dog mushing\"\nis that you are compelled to work as hard as the dogs. You are not\non a well-beaten boulevard; you are wending your way around trees\nand stumps, over hummocks, up and down hills, along the sides of the\nmountains, and must keep your hands on the handle-bars, lifting the\nsled on the trail when it runs off and often breaking the trail ahead\nwith your snow-shoes. When the dogs are on fairly good roads they swing\nalong uninterruptedly and you run your best behind. If there are two\nof you, one holds the handle-bars and the other sprints along, either\nin front or behind the sleigh. You will get pretty tired the first two\nor three days, but after your muscles become hardened and you get your\nsecond wind, you can run at your keenest gait two or three miles at a\ntime.\n\nBut let us get started. All preparations are made, the supply of\ndog-feed loaded, our robes and blankets put aboard, heavy canvas corded\naround the load and our snow-shoes strapped on top. We shall not need\na gun, for there will be plenty of game to be had at the roadhouses,\nand we shall not have time to bother with hunting. We have a long\njourney to make and everything must bend to getting over the ground.\nThat \"ribbon of the trail\" must be unwound for five hundred and twenty\nmiles. A company of warm and sympathetic friends foregather to bid us\n\"good-bye,\" and off we go.\n\nThe trail is well beaten from Iditarod to Flat City, seven and a half\nmiles, and I get aboard, with Breeze at the handle-bars. My huskies\nleap into the harness at the word of command and we make a flying\nstart. They are just as keen to go as we are, and seem to enjoy it as\nwell. I ride perhaps half a mile then jump off without stopping the\nteam, and run ahead of the dogs up the long hill. I soon find my fur\nparka too heavy, and discard it for the lighter one made of drilling,\nin which I do the rest of my mushing to the end of the trail. Moccasins\nare on my feet, for the trail must be taken flat-footed if one is to\nhave reasonable comfort.\n\nAfter two or three miles we leave the broad road and strike the trail\nthrough the wilderness. Our sled is twenty-one inches wide, light and\nshod with steel, and the trail, henceforth, will be about twenty-four\ninches in width, sometimes sunken deep, where snow has not recently\nfallen and the trail has been well beaten, sometimes only a trace along\nthe snow where the wind has blown it clean and where the trail is hard.\n\nWe soon begin to labor up the first divide. No more riding now. The\ntrail is hard enough to dispense with snow-shoes, but heavy enough to\nmake us both walk and labor. I strike the trail ahead, leaving Breeze\nto the handle-bars. I begin to feel the joy of it. The keen, light, dry\nair is like wine. The trail winds through the woods, along the edges of\ngorges, then up a steep mountain. Now the timber ceases and we have\nrounded, wind-swept summits. I leave the dogs far behind, for it is\nheavy pulling up the steep. Their bells tinkle faintly from below. I\ngain nearly a mile on them before they round the summit. I strike my\nlope down the farther side, but soon hear the bells as they charge down\nupon me and pass me, swinging on towards the roadhouse.\n\nWe only make twenty miles the first day, for it was nearly noon when\nwe started, and we are glad to stop at \"Bonanza Roadhouse\" as dusk is\ncoming on. How good the moose meat tastes! How sweet the beds of hard\nboards and blankets! The luxury of rest we enjoy to the full. The dogs\nare fed, our moccasins and socks hung up to dry, and we crawl in our\nbunks with sighs of relief. There is no floor in the roadhouse; all\nthe lumber has been whipsawed by hand, the furniture manufactured out\nof boxes and stumps, the utensils of the rudest. But the luxury of\nsplendid meat and good sour-dough bread and coffee makes us feel that\nwe have all that goes to make life desirable.\n\nAn early morning start is necessary. We eat our breakfast by\ncandle-light, fill up our thermos bottle with hot coffee, take a\nbig hunk of roasted meat for lunch, and \"hit the trail\" by daylight.\nTwenty-six miles to-day--to \"Moorecreek Roadhouse.\" Snow begins to\nfall, and soon the trail is obliterated by the fast-coming feathery\nflakes. Now the snow-shoes must be unstrapped and one of us break the\ntrail ahead. We take turns and swing along at a three and a half mile\ngait. This is real work, and we reach the roadhouse in the middle of\nthe afternoon, but not so tired as on the preceding day.\n\nThese are samples of the journey throughout; but oh, the variety!--no\ntwo miles alike--and the panorama of beauty that unfolds before us!\n\n    \"Each fir tree flings a bridal veil,\n      A bridal veil of shimmering white,\n      Like stately maidens tall and bright,\n      Slow marching as to solemn rite\n    Beside the ribbon of the trail.\"\n\nNotice the beauty of the frost sparkling on the trees. The wonderful\nlaw that gives its own distinct varieties of frost crystals to\neach species of tree, fir, spruce, birch, cottonwood or alder, is\nexemplified so plainly here that, after the first examination, you can\ntell the kind of tree under the frost crystals by the shade of silver.\nThe mountains tower above you, wind-swept, waving snow-banners. The\nvastness of that white hush awes and thrills you. A rough sound would\nbe blasphemy in the solemn silence. The whole landscape is a poem.\n\nTo relate even the leading incidents of this \"joy-mush\" of three weeks\nwould take up too much space. The longest distance we traveled in any\none day was fifty-five miles; while our hardest and longest day's\nstruggle through drifted snow and over a steep mountain pass yielded\nus only twelve miles of trail. In most of the roadhouses I found old\nfriends, and, in several of them, Christian people who had been members\nof missions I had established in new mining camps. What grand times\nwe had together! No fellowship is so warm and sweet as that of the\nwilderness. Of many adventures on the trail I can give but two.\n\nOne morning, about half-way from Iditarod to Seward, we left the fine\ncabin of French Joe, on the South Fork of the Kuskoquim River, under\nthe two beautiful peaks, Mts. Egypt and Pyramid. We were making for\nRainy Pass over the Alaskan Range. What follows is an extract from an\naccount I wrote at the time.\n\nThe day out from Joe's I meet with my first disaster. We have nineteen\nmiles of absolutely clear ice on the South Fork of the Kuskoquim. The\nriver is full of air-holes and open riffles. The dogs swing along at\na ripping pace, digging their toe nails into the hard ice, the sled\nslipping sideways and sliding dangerously near to the open places.\nBreeze often has to run ahead at full speed to choose a route, for\nthere is no trail on the ice. Half-way up the river I \"get gay,\" as\nBreeze calls it. I leave the handle-bars to find a route, and fall down\nhard on the smooth ice. A sharp pang strikes through the small of my\nback as if from a spear-thrust. I get up and go along, thinking the\npain will cease, but soon I realize that I am in the grip of an old\nenemy, lumbago.\n\nFrom this point on to Seward I cannot make a move without pain,\nsometimes so great that I gasp for breath. At night in the roadhouse I\nhave great trouble in getting into my bunk, and sometimes Breeze has\nto lift me out in the morning. Were I at home I would be in bed for a\ncouple of weeks with doctors and nurses fussing over me, but it is\njust as well that I cannot stop. I take the philosophy of an old fellow\nin the \"Rainy Pass Roadhouse\" near the summit of the range, who says\nthe best cure for a lame back is to \"keep on a-mushin'\"!\n\nBeyond Rainy Pass we drop into the canyon of Happy River, and here we\nhave our famous moose-hunt. Soon after we enter the gorge we come upon\nits tracks--a big bull-moose. We have already traveled nearly thirty\nmiles to-day, and are anxious to make the roadhouse twelve or fifteen\nmiles further on; and now, here comes this big, blundering beast to\npoke our trail full of deep holes and excite our dogs. He is running\nahead of us. The snow is five or six feet deep and he goes in almost to\nhis back at every step. The walls of the canyon are sheer and he cannot\nescape up its side. The river turns and winds, and here and there are\nlittle patches of level ground, thick with large spruce trees.\n\nFor three miles we do not catch sight of the moose, but our dogs show\nthat he is on ahead. In spite of my lame back I have to struggle on\nin front of them and bat \"Leader\" in the face with my cap, Breeze\nstanding on the brake to keep them from running away. The moose tracks\nfill our trail for a while, smashing it all to pieces, then veer\nsideways to a little patch of woods, and the dogs go pell-mell in the\nmoose track, burying our sled out of sight in the deep snow. Then we\nhave to haul them around and lift the sled on the track again, and try\nto get them along the trail.\n\nThree miles down the river we catch sight of the big moose, and the\ndogs go wild. \"Sheep,\" who has been disposed to malinger, is the worst\nof the lot. He forgets all his maladies and weariness and dashes\nforward, but \"Leader\" will not leave the track and swings along as\nbest he can, except when the moose is in full sight. Then I have\nto bat him in the face to keep the team in bounds. Our bells are\ntingling, our dogs barking and we are shouting. It is a fearsome thing\nto the bull-moose, this animated machine that is charging down the\nriver at him. So on he struggles through the deep snow, spoiling our\ntrail and filling my companion's mind with blasphemous thoughts which\noccasionally break out in expression, in spite of his respect for my\n\"cloth.\"\n\nFour miles of this moose-hunt, with the big brute growing more tired\nand we more anxious to pass him. Instead of our hunting the moose he\nis haunting us. At last, around a little point of woods, we see him\nlying down in the middle of the river right ahead of us. The dogs break\nbounds and almost upset me as they dash down the trail with Breeze\nstanding on the brake and yelling \"Whoa!\" The weary bull-moose staggers\nto his feet again and makes the edge of the woods, but there lies down\nagain.\n\nThe trail veers right up to him. I run ahead and take \"Leader\" and\n\"Ring,\" one in each hand, and Breeze does the same with \"Teddy\" and\n\"Sheep.\" \"Moose\" is more tractable and we can control him with our\nvoices. We drag the dogs bodily with the sled behind, pass the big\nbrute, his long face not a rod from us, and then, setting \"Leader\" on\nthe trail again, we urge them down five miles further to \"Happy River\nRoadhouse.\" That was _one_ hunt in which I was glad to lose the game.\n\nFour hundred miles from our starting point we put up at the \"Pioneer\nRoadhouse\" in the little town of Knik at the head of Cook's Inlet. This\nwas one of half a dozen small towns around Knik Arm and Turn-again\nArm, the two prongs of Cook's Inlet. These towns had been in existence\nfor fifteen or twenty years, with gold-miners and their families living\nthere; and yet, here at Knik, I preached the first sermon that had ever\nbeen preached in a region larger than the state of Pennsylvania! This\nvisit led to the establishment of a number of missions in that region,\nwhich is now traversed by the new Government railroad. The towns of\nAnchorage and Matanuska have sprung into existence and a thriving\npopulation of railroad builders, coal miners, gold miners, farmers and\nmen of other trades and professions has settled there.\n\nI left Iditarod on March fifth. I swung into Seward at nine o'clock\non the morning of March twenty-eighth and was heartily greeted and\nentertained by Rev. L. S. Pedersen, pastor of the Methodist Church. He\nwas a photographer as well as a preacher, and took the picture of my\narrival. In spite of their hard work, my dogs were fatter and fuller of\n\"pep\" than when we started.\n\nI fairly cried when I bade my team good-bye at Seward, taking each\nbeautiful head in my arms and talking to them all. They seemed to feel\nthe parting as keenly as I, for there was a general chorus of mournful\nhowls as I turned away. I never saw my splendid dogs again, for the\nman who engaged to take them back to Iditarod failed to keep to his\nbargain, and I had to give them to the man who cared for and fed them\nat Susitna. I shall never find another team like them.\n\nNotwithstanding the heaviness of the trail, the bitter struggles\nover mountains and through deep snows, not to mention the pains of\nlumbago, I look back upon that trip and other trips like it with joyful\nrecollection and longing to repeat the experience. I would rather take\na trip through that beautiful wilderness, with my dogs, than travel\nluxuriously around the world on palatial steamboats. There is more fun\nin dog-mushing.\n\n\n\n\nV\n\nLOUIE PAUL AND THE HOOTZ\n\n\n\"Oh, 'e's bad feller, dat hootz,\" exclaimed Louie Paul, our half-breed\nStickeen young man, the blood of his French father sparkling in his\neyes and gesturing in his hands and shoulders. \"'E's devil, 'im. Dat's\nno swear--dat's truf. Bad spirit got him, sure. _Quonsum sallix_\n(Always mad). 'E no savvy scare, no savvy love, no savvy die. 'E's\ndevil, dat's all.\"\n\nLouie's handsome face and coal-black eyes were alive with excitement,\nas he danced about his big bundle of _tseek_ (black bear) skins, which\nhe had just brought into Stevens' store at Fort Wrangell, and was\nunwrapping, preparatory to bartering. His outburst of language was\ncalled out by a question of mine. I had been noticing with surprise\nthat among the great numbers of black bear skins that were being\nbrought into the Wrangell stores daily by the Indians, were none\nof the big brown bear--the _hootz_. I knew these brown bears to be\nvery plentiful up the Stickeen and Iskoot Rivers where Louie had been\nhunting. At this season (it was in early May) both species of bears,\nhaving wakened from their long winter's sleep, were roaming the banks\nof the streams restlessly day and night, making up in their fierce\nactivity for their six months of torpor. Their coats were at their\nbest--long, silky, glistening, thick and soft. The skins of the black\nbear Louie had brought were prime. They were more than black. Their\nebony surfaces shone and sparkled, beneath our handling, like black\ndiamonds.\n\n[Illustration: Fort Wrangell, Alaska, on Etolin Harbor\n\nTo the left may be seen the first Protestant Church in Alaska, built by\nDr. Young, 1879]\n\nI knew that the skins of the hootz would be equally beautiful and twice\nas large as those of the tseek. They would not be tawny at this season,\nbut a rich, velvety brown, the color of the Irish setter's coat. In\nmy canoe trips and steamboat voyages up the Stickeen I had seen more\nbrown bears than black, standing boldly out on the bank to watch the\nsputtering steamboat, or grubbing for roots and worms in the green\npatches up the mountain slopes.\n\n\"Why don't you shoot the big bears?\" I asked Louie. \"I saw four in a\nbunch the other day. Don't you see any in your hunting trips?\"\n\n\"Oh, yes,\" he confessed, \"me plenty see hootz. All time me see heem.\nYestaday me see tree--big fellers; stand up, all same man.\"\n\n\"What's the matter, then?\" I pressed him. \"Are you afraid of them?\"\n\n\"Yes, you bet you boots, I scare of heem. I no shame scare about hootz.\nS'pose I big fool, I no scare; I shoot heem.--You never see me again no\nmo'.\"\n\nLouie Paul had two claims to special distinction. First, he was a very\nexpert and successful bear hunter; and, second, he was the husband\nof the star pupil of Mrs. McFarland's Home for Girls,--Tilly, the\nhandsomest and brightest of the girls whom we had rescued from the\nvileness, squalor and sin of heathen life, and were training to be\nexamples and teachers of Christian civilization to their tribe.\n\nI had taken Louie and Tilly the preceding fall and established them\nat Tongas, one hundred miles south of Wrangell, outfitting Tilly with\nschool books, Bibles, Sunday-school supplies, etc., and paying her a\nsalary as teacher to that wild tribe. Louie's task was to keep up\nthe fires for the school, and to cook for his wife and supply her\nneeds. He had stayed at home faithfully during the winter, procuring\nthe venison, ducks, geese, fish, clams, crabs, and other articles of\nfood they needed, and making himself useful around the branch mission,\neven occasionally leading in prayer, and exhorting the people. But the\ntrapper's \"call of the wild\" sounded in the early spring--a call he\ncould not resist. So here he was, having left Tilly to cook her own\nmeals and make her own fires, while he explored the streams, bayous and\nlakes in his small canoe, pursuing the elusive plantigrades.\n\nThe natives of Alaska at that time were handicapped in their hunting\nby an order of the Government which forbade the Indians to own or use\nbreech-loading guns. This order was enforced among our peaceful Alaska\nnatives, who had never had a serious trouble with the whites, while the\nSioux, Apaches and Nez Perces, who were often on the war-path, had all\nthe Winchester, Henry and Enfield rifles they wanted.\n\nThe natives of Alaska at that time--the early eighties--had only\nbreech-loading, smooth-bore Hudson Bay muskets; and their round\nbullets had not much penetrating power. They were all right for deer,\nbut you might fill a hootz full of those big, round balls and he would\nstill have strength to tear you to pieces.\n\n\"The more you pester them big bear with them old-fashioned\nsmooth-bores,\" said one of the old white hunters at Fort Wrangell, \"the\nmadder he gits.\"\n\nLouie Paul looked so much more like a white man than like an Indian,\nand talked English so fluently, that I had persuaded the collector of\ncustoms--the only civil officer we had in that region--to permit me\nto lend Louie my new 45-75 Winchester repeating rifle. The repeater\nwas a hard-shooting, accurate gun, chambering twelve cartridges in the\nmagazine--the most efficient rifle made at that time. Louie was a fine\nshot, and the possession of this rifle gave him a great superiority\nover all the other Indian bear-hunters. He made more money in his\nthree or four weeks of hunting in the spring than Tilly earned by her\nwinter's teaching.\n\n\"I should think you would not be afraid of a brown bear when you have\nmy Winchester,\" I urged. \"You could put half a dozen balls clean\nthrough him before he could get to you.\"\n\nLouie shook his curly head doubtfully. \"Mebby so; mebby not.\"\n\nThen his face lit up with a broad grin. \"Mebby so I be lak Buck. You\nhear about Buck an' Kokaekish?\"\n\n\"No,\" I replied, scenting a story. \"What about them?\"\n\nI knew both these men. Kokaekish was a fine old Indian, the father of\none of our best boys, whose Christian name was Louis Kellogg, but whose\nIndian name was Kokaek. The name, Kokaekish, means \"Kokaek's Father,\"\nillustrating the curious custom of the Thlingets of naming parents\nafter their children.\n\n\"Buck\" was a French Canadian, Alex Choquette--a white man who had\nmarried a Stickeen woman and had been adopted into the tribe. He had\nseemingly become in heart and life an Indian, talking the language of\nhis tribe, thinking their thoughts and pursuing their customs. How\nthoroughly he had become Indianized was evidenced by the language of\nShustaak--the old heathen chief who had adopted Buck. \"Wuck,\" he said,\n\"delate siwash. Yacka tolo konaway nesika kopa klemenhoot.\" (Buck is a\ngenuine Indian. He can beat all the rest of us lying.)\n\nTrue to this definition of him, Buck had built his log house--a\ncombined dwelling-house, hotel and store--thirty miles up the Stickeen\nRiver, opposite the Great Glacier, right on the boundary line between\nAlaska and British Columbia. Here he sold blankets, guns, groceries\nand whiskey to the white miners and to the Indians. When the Canadian\nauthorities attempted to arrest him for his illicit traffic he claimed\nto be on the American side. When the Alaska custom officers went after\nhim, he was a Canadian. Thus for years he had carried on his crooked\nbusiness and escaped punishment.\n\n\"You know Buck,\" Louie began, \"he worse siwash dan anybody; but he\nalltam make fun odder Injun. One day Kokaekish come Buck store, buy\npowder.\n\n\"'Where you come?' Buck say.\n\n\"'Iskoot,' say Kokaekish, 'make dry dog salmon. Now too many hootz, me\ncome back.'\n\n\"Buck laugh. 'Eehya-a-ah! You _shawat-too_ (woman-heart); you coward!\nWhat for you 'fraid hootz? S'pose me, I shootem all.' Buck much laugh.\n\n\"Kokaekish, he shame. He head hang down, so. Buck more laugh. Bimeby\nKokaekish say, 'Buck, you strong heart. You want killem hootz?'\n\n\"Buck big bluff. 'Sure' he say. 'You show me hootz, me shootem quick.'\n\n\"'All light, come along. Me showem you hootz now.' Kokaekish go he\ncanoe.\n\n\"Buck shame for back out. He get Winchester, all same you rifle. 'Where\nyou go?'\n\n\"'No far. Ict tintin, nesika clap.' (One hour, we find.)\n\n\"Dey go up Iskoot, mebby tree mile. Fin' leetle stream. Plenty humpback\nan' dog salmon dere. Flap, flap, splash in shallow place. All roun'\nde grass all flat--plenty tail, fin, bone. Buck look. He scare, but\nshame go back. Leetle hill dere by de creek. Plenty bush. Kokaekish\nan' Buck go up; sit down; wait. Pitty soon sitkum polakly (half\nnight--twilight), Kokaekish ketch Buck arm. Whisper, 'Hootz come.'\n\n\"Buck look. Bear all same house--delate hya-a-as! (very big), come down\ncreek. Swing slow an' lazy. Go in water; slap out big salmon on bank\npitty near two man; go an' eatem.\n\n\"Kokaekish whisper, 'Why you no shootem, Buck? You brave man! You much\nwant killem hootz. Shootem quick!'\n\n\"Buck scare stiff. 'Sh-sh-sh! you ol' fool!' he say. He toof clap all\nsame medicine-man rattle; water come out on he face; he shake like\nCottonwood leaf.\n\n\"Kokaekish laugh. 'More hootz come,' he say. Nodder big bear come;\ngrowl, gr-r-r! go fishin'. Den she-bear an' two leetle feller come.\nMamma ketch salmon; leetle bear play; run up-hill mos' on top man.\nNodder bear come. _Six Hootz_; ketch salmon; scrap; one chase nodder;\nplay.\n\n\"Buck not quite die. He lie flat down. He's finger count he's bead; he\nplay Maly; he shake.\n\n\"Kokaekish much laugh. He rub it in. 'You brave man, Buck. You white\nman--no scare nuttin'. You want see hootz. Me fin' heem. Why you no\nshootem?'\n\n\"Bimeby delate polakly (quite dark). All hootz go leetle way up creek.\nKokaekish shake Buck. 'Mebby so, you no want more hootz, we go now.'\nDey walk han' an' foot--all same dog. Buck fo'get he's rifle. Dey fin'\ncanoe; paddle quick Buck house.\n\n\"Now all Injun put shame on Buck face. 'Hey, Buck, you want shootem\nhootz? You white man; you brave; no scare nuttin'. How many hootz you\nkill?' Buck delate shame. Mos' keel hese'f. Mebby so, I lak dat.\"\n\n\"No, Louie,\" I replied when we had done laughing, \"you are not like\nBuck. You would keep your nerve, and at least account for some of the\nbrown bears.\"\n\n\"Well,\" he ventured doubtfully, \"dis Winshesser mighty fine gun. I\nt'ink I try hootz nex' tam.\"\n\nA week afterwards Louie came to my house in great excitement. He\nknocked repeatedly before I could get to the door.\n\n\"Mista Yuy,\" he almost shouted, \"you come see my hootz skin. My firs';\nmy las' too.\"\n\nI went with him to the store where several fine black bear skins were\ndisplayed to an admiring group of whites and natives. With them was\nan enormous brown bear skin, the largest I had ever seen. The fur was\nbeautiful--rich in color, thick and glossy; but it was bloody and badly\nmussed. Turning it over I saw that the skin was full of holes--fairly\nriddled. I counted seventeen perforations. The larger and more ragged\nof the holes marked the exit of the balls that had ranged clear through\nthe bear.\n\n\"Why, Louie,\" I exclaimed, \"what did you mean by spoiling this fine\nskin? It is like a sieve. You have taken away more than half its value\nby shooting it up like that.\"\n\nLouie danced about like a monkey--head, hands, feet, his whole body\ngesturing, his voice rising higher and louder as he went on with his\nstory.\n\n\"You lissen me! I see dis big feller stan' up all same man. Open place;\nno big tree. Maybe hunner ya'd. I say me, 'Louie, you betta draw good\nbead dis tam. You shoot heem straight troo de heart, keel heem dead\nfust shot.'\n\n\"I shoot; he fall down. Klosh tumtum (good heart), me. I put de gun on\nshoul'er. Den I look. I 'stonish. De hootz, he git up queek; he come\nstraight fo' me. I shoot queek; he fall down; he git up; he come for\nme. I shoot; I shoot; I shoot; he fall down; he fall down; he git up;\nhe come for me. You betcha boots I hit heem ev'y tam. I scare to miss.\nI forgit how many catridge. I shoot; I shoot; I say, 'Dat's de las';\nnow he git me; dat's de las'; now he git me.'\n\n\"I git awful scare. I t'ink, 'Tilly widow now fo' sure. Nobody git wood\nfo' her no mo'.'--Dat bear git close--right here! He jus' goin' grab\nme. I mos' fall down; I so scare. I try once mo'. I put my gun agains'\nhe's head. I shoot; he fall down; he don' git up no mo'. My las'\ncatridge. I put ten ball t'rough heem. _No-mo'-hootz-fo'-me!_\"\n\n\n\n\nVI\n\nOLD SNOOK AND THE COW\n\n\nIn the early missionary days at Fort Wrangell I had to be a little of\neverything to those grown-up, naughty, forest-wise but world-foolish\nchildren of the islands whom we called Thlingets and Hydas. I had\nto be carpenter, and show them how to build better houses. I had to\nbe undertaker, and teach them to make coffins and bury their dead\ndecently. I had to be farmer, showing them how to raise turnips,\npotatoes, cabbage and peas. Once I gave a package of turnip seed to an\nold Indian woman. Towards the close of the season I went to see her\ngarden. I found that she had dug a big hole and put all the turnip seed\nin it. You can imagine the result.\n\nAmong other things, I had to be doctor and surgeon to those people. I\nhad never taken a course at a medical school and knew very little about\nmedicine or surgery. But I had books and studied them and did the best\nI could. The hardest surgical cases I had were the result of little\nlove-taps by old Mr. Hootz, the big brown bear. This bear is almost\nidentical, except in color, with _ursus horribilis_, the grizzly--he\nis as large and ferocious and as hard to kill. Farther west in Alaska\nhe has the true grizzly color and is called the silver-tip; but in\nSoutheastern Alaska he is a rich brown, the female being much lighter\nin color than the male.\n\nOnce the Indians brought to me a man who had been foolish enough to\nshoot a hootz with his smooth-bore musket. The bear charged on the\nIndian, gave him one tap with his paw and went away. The poor man\npresented a horrible appearance. One eye was torn out, the skin of one\nside of his face torn loose and hanging down on his shoulder, the cheek\nlaid entirely open. I did my best for him, washed his awful wound,\nreplaced the skin on his face and took many stitches; but I couldn't\nmake a pretty man of him.\n\nAnother Indian was hunting in the spring when he came across a little\nbrown cub, and thought he would have a fine pet. He had just caught\nthe little fellow and was trying to hush its cries, when suddenly the\nmother-bear came on him like an avalanche and he was knocked senseless.\nWhen he came to, hours afterwards, he was unable to move. The bear had\ntorn off much of his scalp with the first blow, and then had bitten\nand chewed him from head to foot, injuring his spine, so that he could\nnever walk again. I dressed twenty-one wounds which the angry she-bear\nhad given him.\n\nBut the greatest example of the strength and ferocity of the hootz\nof which I ever knew was afforded by the adventure of an Irishman--a\ngold-prospector, whom we called Big Mike. He was a giant in\nstature--over six feet, broad and stalwart, physically the king of the\nCassiar miners. He was a good-natured, happy-go-lucky fellow, a typical\ngold-prospector, making money very fast at times and spending it just\nas fast. Like the most of the miners of the Cassiar region (which was\nreached by traveling by steamboat from Victoria to Fort Wrangell,\nthen by canoe or river steamboat up the Stickeen River a hundred and\nfifty miles, then across country by pack-train from one hundred to two\nhundred miles, according to the location of the \"diggings\"), Mike made\nFort Wrangell his stopping place to and from the Cassiar, sometimes\nwintering there.\n\nOne day Dave Flannery, another Irishman, whose Stickeen wife was a\nmember of my mission, came hurriedly up to my house.\n\n\"I wish you'd come down and see Big Mike,\" he said; \"he's hurrt bad.\"\n\nI found Mike in one of the miners' shanties on the beach, lying on a\nbed, entirely helpless. He could only use his arms, his legs being\nparalyzed. This was the story he told me:\n\n\"Me an' me partner, Steve,\" he began, \"has been prospectin' up the\nIskoot.\" (A tributary of the Stickeen which runs into it about\ntwenty-five miles from its mouth.) \"Ye know the Iskoot--a domd bad\nriver--little flat islands thick as spots on a burrd-dog--th' river\nswift an' shaller--lots av quick-sands an' rocks everywhere--th' shores\nan' th' islands all matted thick wid trays an' underbrush--big fallen\ntrays lyin' across one anodher an' odher trays growin' out av thim--an'\nalders, willows, divil-clubs and salmon-berry bushes thicker'n hair on\na cat.\n\n\"Well, me an' Steve set up our tint by a trickle av cold water in a\nside gulch, an' thought to spind th' sayson prospectin'. Th' thickets\nan' brush has scared off prospectors, an' it's new counthry. A wake ago\nOi made up me pack for four or five days' prospectin'--blankets, fly\ntint, an' some grub, wid gold-pan, pick, shovel an' coffee-pot on top.\n\n\"Afther an hour o' harrd worrk Oi'd got mebby half a moil from\ncamp, when Oi come to Sathan's own pile o' logs an' brush, stuck up\nev'ry-which-way, wid bushes an' divil-clubs atween. Ye cuddn't see a\nyarrd. Oi tackled it as well as Oi cud wid me pack, an' got onto th'\ntop log. Th' brush wuz that thick Oi cuddn't see pwhat wuz undher me.\nOi tuk hold av a limb an' swung down into th' bushes. But before I\ntouched th' groun'--gr-r-r--woof! somethin' of fur an' iron was all\nover an' aroun' me; me breath was squshed out o' me; somethin' was\ntearin' the cords out o' me neck an' shouldher, an' me back was bruk\nintoirly.\n\n\"Oi've some repitation as a sthrong man, an' Oi've niver met th' man Oi\ncuddent down in a fair wrassle; but this thing thut had me didn't play\nfair. He tuk a foul hold o' me when Oi wasn't lookin', an' niver guv\nme a chanst to break ut. Whin Oi swung down me left arrum wuz straight\nup, aholt av th' limb, an' the right wan wuz steadyin' me pack. Th'\nbrute pinned that fast, an' Oi cud no more move it than a baby cud lift\na ton.\n\n\"When Oi got me sinses gathered togither, an' knowed Oi wuz in the\nclutches av a bear, me dandher riz an' Oi thought av me knoif. 'Twas\nin a scabbard on me roight hip, an' that han' was hild toight agin me\npack. Me blankets saved me ribs from bein' all stove in.\n\n\"Oi tried to twist aroun' an' git me knoif wid me lift han', but it\nwas loik a mouse thryin' to pry off th' paws av a cat. Me fate wuz aff\nth' groun' an' Oi had no purchase. At las' Oi got ahold av th' handle\nav th' knoif. Jist as Oi felt me sinses lavin' me Oi got th' knoif\nan' begun to dig it wid all me strent into th' bear's belly, workin'\nupwards an' thryin' fer his heart. Thin ev'rythin' wint black.\n\n\"Whin Oi come to th' sun was hoigh. Ut must o' bin tree hours Oi laid\nthere sinseless. Oi throied to git up, but me legs wuz dead. Oi cud\npull mesilf up a little wid me arrms, an' there Oi saw fur th' furrst\ntoim th' baste thut bruk me. He wuz lyin' besoid me, stone dead. 'Twas\nall th' joy Oi had.\n\n\"Well, there Oi wuz, undher all th' logs an' brush, an' down in a\nlittle hollow in th' muck--an' helpless. 'Twas too fur away to make\nSteve hear. Oi hollered as best Oi cud, but 'twas no use. Th' bear\nhadn't left me much breath. Then Oi thought Oi'd thry annyhow. Me\narrums wuz good, an' th' bushes wuz thick, so Oi begun to pull meself\nalong troo th' muck by me hands, usin' me knoif whin th' bushes blocked\nme. It tuck me two hours to gain th' top av th' hill in soight av th'\ncamp, an' anither to make a flag av a bit o' ma shurrt an' wave it on a\npole so that Steve cud see it. He drug me down to camp, put me in th'\ncanoe, an' here Oi am wid all th' man squose out av me, bad cess to th'\nbear. Ef anny one says anny man c'n fight anny bear wid his two han's\nan' bate it, tell 'im from me he's a loiarr.\"\n\nWe raised a purse and sent Big Mike on the monthly steamboat to\nVictoria. He lived several years. They gave him the position of\nwatchman on the wharves, and we used to see him--a pathetic figure,\ncreeping slowly about the dock, first with a pair of crutches and then\nwith a cane. He was never a man again, after his encounter with the\nhootz.\n\n[Illustration: Native Houses, Showing Totem Poles\n\nIn such a house Snook lived]\n\nBut although the hootz was so strong and so fierce there was in\nalmost every Indian tribe one who would attack and kill him. In the\nStickeen tribe this man's name was Snook. Tilly, our star pupil and my\ninterpreter, proudly pointed him out, one day when I was down in the\nIndian village, as her granduncle and the head of the family.\n\nI had never before seen Snook. He never came to church or to my house.\nHe must have been sixty or sixty-five years old--a great, stalwart,\nbig-boned savage with a huge head and a tremendous jaw. He was almost\nalways absent from Fort Wrangell, hunting in the mountains or fishing\namong the islands. \"My gran'fader, the greatest hootz-hunter in the\nworld,\" was Tilly's introduction.\n\nIt was on the occasion of a visit with Tilly to the community house of\nher family. As she spoke she went behind the carved totemic corner post\nwhich supported the roof, and brought forth old Snook's most valuable\nand proudest possession. It was a beautiful spear. The shaft was of\ncrabapple wood and eight feet long, thick enough for a good grip, and\npolished until it shone like brown granite. It was carved all over\nwith the totemic images of the eagle and the brown bear, the totems\nof Snook's family. The head was made of a large steel rasp and was a\nfoot and a half long, five inches across in the widest place, finely\npointed, the edges sharp as a razor. The handle of the spear-head was\nlet into the end of the shaft in a very ingenious way, and secured\nby many tightly wrapped turns of a cord of deer-sinew. It was a most\nperfect and ferocious weapon. I learned that the chief of another tribe\nhad offered a slave, whose value was five hundred blankets, for the\nspear, and his offer had been refused.\n\nAll efforts to get Snook to talk about his hunting exploits were\nunavailing. He only grunted and went on with some carving with which\nhe was occupied. But Sam Tahtain, a member of Snook's family, who\nwas noted for his powers of oratory, described most graphically,\nin a mixture of Chinook, Thlinget and bad English, Snook's way of\nkilling the big bears. He acted it so perfectly that even if I had not\nunderstood a word, the scene would have stood out very vividly before\nmy mental vision. He showed the hootz grubbing among mossy logs and\nflirting the salmon out of a swift mountain stream; then Snook came in\nsight, creeping stealthily through the forest, a flintlock musket in\none hand, his spear in the other. From that point the story grew more\nanimated and the gestures more rapid to the climax. I can best tell it\nin the present tense:\n\nThe bear hears a stick snap and catches a faint human odor; he stands\nup on his hind feet to investigate. His lips are drawn back from his\nbig teeth, and he snarls a question.\n\nThe man dodges behind a tree; creeps closer--cautiously flits from\ntree to tree--moves slowly out from a sheltering trunk--sinks on one\nknee--raises his gun--aims. \"_Bang!_\" from the gun,--\"wah-a-ah-gr-r-r!\"\nfrom the bear. The bear whirls round and round, biting his wound; then\nhe charges straight for the man, his teeth champing, his jaws slavering.\n\nThe man throws away the gun and takes his spear in both hands. He steps\nboldly out in the open and stands still, his left foot advanced, his\nspear slanting upwards, braced for the shock. The bear comes galumphing\non, his hair on end, his sideways strut showing his anger and his\nreadiness for the battle.\n\nWhen within a few feet of the man the bear stops short with a startling\n\"Woof!\" and stands upright on his hind feet. The man knows this habit\nof the hootz, and seizes the opportunity. He springs forward before the\nbear is steadied on his two feet and thrusts mightily with his spear.\nThe bear strikes viciously at the man and howls hoarsely. A stream of\nred gushes out from the wide wound. Now the bear attacks, his fangs\ngleaming, his long claws standing stiffly out. He jumps and strikes and\nslashes with his teeth at the man.\n\nThe man is alert--firm and sure on his feet--quick as lightning, yet\nsteady. He dodges and leaps about the bear, feinting and thrusting.\nAgain and again the spear goes home. The froth from the bear's jaws is\nbloody now, while the man's face is covered with drops of sweat. The\nbreath of both comes in gasps. The air seems full of violent motion and\nraucous sounds. At every fresh wound the bear howls--\"wa-a-ah\"--this\nchanges immediately to a vicious growl as he rears on his hind\nfeet again and rushes to the fray. The man begins to shout his\nwar-cry--\"hoohooh--hoohooh\"--as he jabs his terrible weapon into the\nbear's breast.\n\nThe bear is visibly weakening. His eyes grow dim, his rushes and blows\nhave less steel and lightning in them. The man begins to taunt him,\n\"Oh, you big-chief hootz--I thought you brave man--strong man. You no\nbrave--no strong. You just like baby. Why you no stand up, fight like\nman?\"\n\nAt last the bear, sick and faint with loss of blood, but game to the\nend, stands with paws outstretched, swaying like a drunken man. The\nman comes close, and, bending back to gain force for his blow, thrusts\nupward and forward with all his strength, striking just under the\nbear's breast bone and buries the spear-head, splitting the heart\nin two. Over on his back topples the great beast, his paws feebly\ntwitching, his last breath bringing with it a great rush of blood.\n\nThe man, as soon as he can recover breath, puts his foot on the bear's\nneck, singing in quaint minor strain a brief song of triumph. Then he\nhastens to prop the bear's mouth open with a stick, to let his spirit\ngo forth in peace, and he also places between the dying jaws a piece\nof dried salmon, that the bear may not lack food when he goes to join\nthe _hoots-kwany_--the bear-people, in that spirit land of forests and\nmountains to which all brown bears, good and bad, must go.\n\nSam Tahtain was a little man, in striking contrast with his giant\nbrother, Snook, but he entered into his recital with infinite energy,\ndancing about the floor, striking and thrusting, acting the bear's\npart and then the man's, shouting and growling out his words; and when\nhe had finished, his own face was bathed in perspiration. His acting\nwas an artless piece of art, very perfect in its way; and it certainly\nthrilled the Indians who had drawn around in an eager circle as the\nrecitation proceeded, their fervent indrawn exclamations of wonder and\nadmiration supplying the most genuine applause.\n\nBut I must confess that the antics of the little man, and his evident\npride in his own performance, struck me as irresistibly funny; and I\ncould not help recalling a verse I had learned when a boy:\n\n    \"Little man with the wild, wild eye,\n      Man with the long, long hair,\n    Why do you dance about the floor?\n      Why do you beat the air?\n    Why do you howl and mutter so?\n      Why do you shake your fist?\"\n    Said the little man, in a deep, deep voice,\n      \"I'm an el-o-cu-tion-ist!\"\n\nBut the Indians saw nothing funny in Sam's oratory--it thrilled them\nthrough and through. Even old Snook, the hero of the story, ceased his\ncarving, fixing his eyes intently on the speaker, and rewarding him\nwith a fervent \"_Kluh-yukeh!_\" To exactly translate that exclamation\nwill require a paraphrase--\"My, but that was good!\"\n\nBut Tilly thought only of the glory of her granduncle. Her eyes shone\nwith pride, and she whispered to me, \"Isn't my gran'fader, Snook, just\nthe bravest man you ever heard of? Why, he isn't afraid of anything.\"\n\nThe other Indians also yielded Snook the palm for courage and strength.\nThey looked upon him as a sort of Indian superman, lauding him in their\nspeeches, and being careful not to offend him. He was the hero of the\nStickeens.\n\nAnd, indeed, I was much of the same opinion. Certainly a man who would\nstand up, single-handed, to a grizzly and kill him with a spear, must\nhave unqualified nerve and courage. Surely nothing on earth could\nfrighten a mighty bear-hunter like that.\n\nWell, listen. A few days after this visit to Snook's house I was\nsitting in my house, which was within the stockade of the old fort.\nThe posts of this stockade, some twelve feet high and firmly spiked\ntogether, had been put in place about sixteen years before, when the\nfort was first established. Although many of the posts were rotting,\nthe circle enclosing the parade ground, barracks, hospital and\nofficers' quarters was still unbroken. Our house was one of the old\nofficers' dwellings and not far from the gateway which led \"up the\nbeach\" towards the Indian village of temporary houses in which the\n\"foreign Indians\"--those from distant tribes--encamped. On the other\nside of the fort another gateway led \"down the beach,\" through the town\nwith its stores and white man's houses, to the large community houses\nof the Stickeens. To go from one Indian town to the other you had to\npass through the fort.\n\nIt was a lovely, sunny day in midsummer. Everything was peaceful about\nthe old fort. School was in session in the old hospital, our little\nchildren were playing on the grass, and our old cow, \"Spot,\" was\nfeeding in the gateway.\n\nThis cow was a little black and white Holstein which the ladies of\nPennsylvania had purchased for Mrs. Young's training-school, and to\nsupply our babies and the native babies with fresh milk. She was the\nfirst cow which had been brought to Fort Wrangell, and was a great\ncuriosity and wonder to the Indians. The Thlingets had no name for\ncattle, because these animals were not known in Alaska; so they adopted\nthe Chinook name--moosmoos--and, owing to the Thlingets' inability to\npronounce any consonant that brings the lips together, they called it\n\"wusoos.\"\n\nOur little \"wusoos\" was gentle and tame as a kitten. Our children used\nto hang onto her tail, and feed her bunches of grass and leaves of\ncabbage. Once I came upon a group that made me laugh. \"Spot\" was lying\ndown and placidly chewing her cud; Abby, aged five, was seated between\nthe cow's horns; while Alaska (Lassie), who was three, with her little\ndog, Jettie, in her arms, was sprawling on Spot's back.\n\nThis peaceful summer's morning the cow was cropping the grass by\nthe gate. Suddenly the silence was shattered by a strong Indian\nvoice, pitched high through fear, calling to me: \"_Uh-eedydashee;\nuh-eedydashee, uh-Ankow; uh-eedydashee!_\" (Help me; help me, my chief;\nhelp me!)\n\nI ran quickly out of the house and through the gateway in the direction\nof the cries, which were growing more agonizing. I thought somebody was\nbeing murdered. I rushed past \"Spot,\" who was calmly munching grass,\nundisturbed by the hullabaloo. At first I could see nobody; then I\ndiscovered the huge bulk of old Snook, the hootz-hunter, crouching\nbehind a stump. His face was as pale as its coating of smoke and grease\nwould permit, and he was shaking like a leaf.\n\n\"Why, Snook!\" I cried in Thlinget, \"what's the matter? Is anything\nwrong in the Indian village?\"\n\nHe pointed a trembling finger towards the cow and quavered, \"Drive\nthat thing away!\"\n\nThe thought of that famous old bear-hunter, scared to death at my\ngentle old cow, was too much for me, and I burst into a roar of\nlaughter. When I had recovered my powers of speech and locomotion I\nwalked to \"Spot\" and put my arm over her neck.\n\n\"This is a _shawat wusoos_\" (a woman cow), I explained. \"She will not\nhurt anybody. See how kind and gentle she is.\"\n\nSnook was unconvinced. His eyes were fixed in fascinated terror upon\n\"Spot,\" and he dodged at every motion of her head.\n\n\"Eehya-a-ah!\" he answered in contempt, \"she knows white man; she\ndoesn't know Indian. See the sharp horns on her head!\" and he refused\nto come away from the shelter of the stump until I had driven\n\"Spot\" away some distance; and even then he sidled past, eyeing her\napprehensively and then hurrying through the gateway and across the\nparade ground with the air of one who has escaped deadly peril.\n\nThe memory of Snook and the cow has often braced me up when I was\ntempted to retreat from the path of duty, because I did not know what\nwas in the gateway, or because of unfamiliar obstacles. It is the\nunknown that terrifies us. If we march right up to the bugaboos that\nstand across our way, we will find the terrible horned monster change\ninto something no more harmful than a gentle old cow.\n\n\n\n\nVII\n\nNINA AND THE BEARS\n\n\nAll these stories are true, in their essential points. In some of them,\nhowever, I have to change or suppress the names of persons and towns,\nbecause the characters introduced are still living, and might not like\npublicity. That is the case in this story.\n\nEver since the great gold stampede of 1897 into the Klondike, it has\nbeen my duty, as it certainly has been my pleasure, to follow the new\ngold stampedes into different parts of Alaska, and be at the beginning\nof most of the new gold camps and towns of the great Territory of the\nNorthwest. Of course I began preaching as soon as I arrived at one of\nthese camps, holding my first services on log piles, under the trees,\nin tents or saloons or lodging houses--wherever I could gather together\na congregation.\n\nAlways, the next thing was to start a Sunday-school, if there were any\nchildren in the camp, or at least a Bible class, if there were only\ngrown people. I always had hymn-books and a baby-organ along, and was\nsure of finding people to play the organ and sing. The gold-seekers\nare not all roughs and toughs, as some people think, but just such\npeople as may be seen in the States, and a large proportion of them are\nChristians.\n\nOne of the greatest of these gold stampedes occurred in the heart of\nAlaska--in the center of a great wilderness until then unexplored.\nA rich vein of gold was struck deep down in the frozen ground. The\nnews spread, and soon thousands of eager gold-seekers from all parts\nof Alaska, from the Pacific States, from Canada, and later from all\nparts of the United States came over the mountains from the coast,\ndown the Yukon from Dawson City, up the Yukon from Nome and from other\ndirections; traveling by steamboat, poling boat and canoe on the\nrivers, and with dog-sled, horse-sled and hand-sled in the winter over\nthe mountains, and with packs on their backs and guns in their hands in\nthe summer.\n\nOf course I was with the crowd. I never liked to miss the fun of a\ngreat scramble like that. When I got to the big new camp I set up my\ntent and began to prepare a preaching-place and to advertise a meeting\nfor the next Sunday by putting up posters on stumps and trees. I also\ncalled the children to come and be organized into a Sunday-school.\nAbout twenty children came the first Sunday.\n\nAmong them was a pretty little Swedish girl, named Nina. She had blue\neyes, flaxen hair and rosy cheeks, and was about twelve years old.\nShe won my heart at once, and soon we were great chums. She was so\nbright and pleasant and sweet, and such a fearless and intelligent\noutdoor girl, that one could not help loving her. She was always at\nSunday-school and church, always knew her lessons, and sang so heartily\nand tunefully that people turned their heads to see her, and her sunny\nsmile drew answering smiles even from care-worn faces.\n\nI soon found that among Nina's accomplishments she was already a good\nshot with both rifle and shotgun; and when the snow began to fall in\nOctober I took her with me on a couple of rabbit-hunts, and her glee\nat getting the biggest bag of snow-shoe rabbits was very enjoyable.\nRabbits formed our principal meat-supply that winter.\n\nWhen the cold weather of November covered the rivers, creeks and lakes\nwith ice and carpeted the hills and valleys with snow, a big stampede\noccurred away from the town of log houses into which the camp of tents\nhad grown. Almost every one who had a dog-team and sled packed up an\noutfit of food, blankets, tent and sheet-iron stove, and \"mushed\" away\ninto the mountains, prospecting for gold. If no dogs were available,\ntwo men, or sometimes a man and his wife, would harness themselves to\na sled with their outfit aboard, and, depending upon their guns for\ntheir meat supply, would cheerily set forth into the trackless wild,\nfollowing the water-courses until they found a likely-looking creek,\nwhen they would halt and build a snug log cabin, and spend the winter\nprospecting. To those who had courage, some knowledge of woodcraft and\nlove of nature, this adventurous life was very enticing. Thousands of\nmen in Alaska, to this day, spend their summers in the towns, working\nat their trades or professions, and then, on the approach of winter,\ninvest the money they have earned in an outfit of provisions, tools\nand ammunition, and bury themselves in the wilderness again. It is a\ngreat life; and I have often felt strongly tempted to leave everything\nand join these brave spirits for a winter's stay in the McKinley range\nof mountains.\n\nOne day, about the middle of November of that year, little Nina came\ninto our house and threw herself into our arms, crying as if her heart\nwould break.\n\n\"Why, Nina dear,\" asked my wife, \"what is the matter? Is any one sick\nor dead?\"\n\n\"Oh, no,\" she sobbed, \"but I can't come to Sunday-school any more. Papa\nand Mamma and I are going away off into the mountains to-morrow, and\nwe'll never come back here again.\"\n\nWe petted and soothed her, the best comfort I could give her being the\nthought of the great hunting adventures that were before her. So the\nwilderness swallowed up my brave little friend, and for eight years I\nhad no word of her. By that time I was at another large gold camp, in a\ndistant part of the great Yukon Valley.\n\nI was the only minister in a region larger than Pennsylvania. My parish\nextended from two to five hundred miles in different directions from\nthe camp in which I wintered. That winter I traveled with my dogs\nbetween two and three thousand miles, in preaching and exploring trips.\nMagazines, papers and books sent me by churches, Sunday-schools, Boys'\nScouts, and women's missionary societies, I found three hundred miles\nfrom my central reading room, in miners' and trappers' cabins and in\nroadhouses to which I had sent them.\n\nAbout the middle of the winter I was delighted to get a letter from\nNina. It was written from a point about two hundred and fifty miles\ndistant, in that great game-stocked region which lies west of the\nAlaska Range, of which Mt. McKinley, \"The Top of the Continent,\" is the\nhighest peak. It was a cheery, girlish letter--just such an one as I\nmight have expected from Nina--grown-up. It told me of her marriage,\ntwo years before, to a young man whom I had known--one who had loved\nher when she was a little girl, had followed her and her parents to the\nwestern wilderness, waited patiently for her to grow up, and, now that\nthey were married, seemed to her all that was admirable and complete\nin manhood. It was her one romance and was very sweet and perfect.\n\nNina and her husband were living in a large cabin on one of the trails\nthat led from the Interior to the Coast. Nina called it a roadhouse,\nand, though low and dark, with only poles for floor, and pole-bunks\nfor beds, it was fitted for the accommodation of a dozen travelers.\nNina was queen of a wide realm. Her cabin was a hundred and twenty-five\nmiles from that of the nearest white woman. They were two hundred miles\nfrom the nearest store. They were in the heart of the richest game\nregion of North America--the western foot-hills of the Alaska Range.\nThey were prospectors for gold in the summer; farmers, raising their\nown potatoes and vegetables and wheat for their chickens; trappers\nduring the winter; hunters all the time; and hotel-keepers during the\nsix months when snow and frozen streams and lakes lured travelers along\nthe lonely trail.\n\nThere was in Nina's letter, however, no hint of loneliness; rather a\njoyful tone of contentment, as one of God's favored creatures; and of\ncomradeship with the things about her--the mountains, the forests\nand the myriads of animals, small and great. She invited me to come\nand make them a long visit and have a big hunt. Her letter also spoke\nof the one need in her life that I could supply--Bibles, books and\nmagazines.\n\nVery few travelers came my way who had passed Nina's that winter, but\nfrom most of them I heard of my little chum, and always in terms of\nenthusiastic praise.\n\n\"I am a city man,\" said a young lawyer from Seattle, \"and am in this\nwild land just long enough to make my stake and get back to the rattle\nof the street-cars. The 'call of the wild' has no allurement for me.\nThere is just one thing that could make me settle down in Alaska, and\nthat is to find such a mate as that little woman.\"\n\n\"Know her?\" repeated a rugged, black-eyed man of thirty whom I had met\non the Chilcoot Pass in '97. \"Who doesn't? Say; she's a great woman.\nWhy, I'd go out of my way a hundred miles, any time, just to see her\nsmile, and to taste her grouse-pie or roast sheep. Tell you what she\ndid this last trip: As I swung into the edge of their clearin' a pair\nof sharp-tailed grouse flew up to the top of a dry spruce, a hundred\nyards from the cabin. Nina was complainin' that she had no makin's of\ngrouse pie in the house, knowin' my likin' for the same. I told her\nabout the two I'd scared up. 'Lend me a shotgun,' I said, 'and I'll go\nback and try for a shot at them.' We stepped to the door for a look.\nThere set the two grouse on the spruce, lookin' like robins agin the\nsky. Nina took down a twenty-two rifle from the wall and put some\n'extra-long' shells in the magazine. I thought she was goin' to give\nthe gun to me, and I planned to sneak back till I got under the birds\nbefore riskin' a shot; but she stood in the doorway and swung the rifle\nup quick and easy. Crack, crack! and dogged if them chickens didn't\ncome tumblin' right down. I never seen such shootin'. Then she slipped\non her snow-shoes and went and got the grouse and made me my pie. She's\nsure a little bit of 'all right.'\"\n\nI asked him if he had seen the magazines and Bibles I had sent her.\nWith a sheepish grin he took out of his pocket a little red Testament,\nand handed it to me. I saw his name on the fly-leaf with her initials\nunder it.\n\n\"First I've carried since I was a kid,\" he confessed. \"And she made me\npromise to _read_ it! A woman that can be a bright little Christian\nin a place like that, and a dead game sport, too, can make me do most\nanything. Joe [Nina's husband] is a lucky guy.\"\n\nNaturally such reports as these made me all the more anxious to\nsee this queen of the wilderness again. The necessity of taking a\nseven-hundred-mile trip to the Coast in March gave me the opportunity.\n\nOh, boys, you'll never know the real joy of living till you take a\nwinter trip with dog-sled in Alaska. The keen, fine air, lung-filling,\ninvigorating; your dogs yelping with eagerness, their feet twinkling,\nthe sled screaming its delight; frost-diamonds sparkling from every\nbranch, frost-symphonies played by the ice-harps under your feet; your\nown struggle, achievement, triumph, against and over the cold, the\ndifficulties of the trail, the long miles.\n\n    \"The morning breaks, the stars grow pale,\n    Your huskies leap, shrill shrieks the sled;\n    You follow free with flying tread;\n    A joy to live! What joy! to thread\n    The fluted ribbon of the trail.\"\n\nIt was near the sunset of a beautiful, bright day that I swung into\nJoe's clearing. For three days I had been headed almost directly\ntowards Dinali--The Great One, and Dinah's Wife (Mt. McKinley and Mt.\nForaker). Higher and higher these majestic mountains heaved their\nmighty shoulders. The country became more broken and rugged. Lesser\nmountains raised their white heads all around me. Only a few inches of\nsnow covered the ground instead of the six to ten feet that prevailed\nfarther west. The character of the trees had changed--more birch,\ncottonwood and other deciduous timber; less tamarack, hemlock and swamp\nspruce.\n\nSigns of abundant life were everywhere. Fox, wolf, lynx and wolverine\ntracks criss-crossed the snow in all directions; great moose tracks\ngoing in a straight line, and the imprint of thousands of caribou hoofs\ncrossing and obliterating each other, but keeping in the same general\ndirection showed the presence of abundance of big game; while grouse,\nptarmigan and rabbit tracks were so numerous that my dogs were kept\nexcited and on the \"keen jump\" every minute.\n\nOn the bank of a small river, in a clearing of a couple of acres cut\nout of a forest of great fir and cedar trees, stood Joe's log-cabin\nroadhouse. Enough of the big trees had been left standing to shade the\nhouse. In front of it were a dozen cozy log dog-kennels, and behind it\nwas a garden enclosed in a picket and wire fence.\n\nAs soon as \"Leader's\" bells gave shrill notice of my arrival the door\nflew open, a bright little figure in gingham and moccasins, with yellow\nhair flying and blue eyes sparkling, rushed at me, and I received\nthe first good hug that I had experienced since leaving my wife and\ndaughters in the East a year before.\n\nA cheery voice cried, \"Oh, you dear old man, you. I've been watching\nfor you every day for two weeks. I was so afraid you weren't coming!\"\n\nJoe's welcome, though not so demonstrative, was none the less hearty.\nIt was worth dog-mushing two hundred and fifty miles to have such\na reception. As soon as I stepped into the house I was made keenly\naware that I was in the home of hunters and trappers. In all my\nwide experience of wilderness homes I had never seen one like this.\nThe long, low cabin had two rooms. The smaller was kitchen and\ndining-room, having a sheet-iron range and home-made tables, shelves\nand chairs. The larger room had a good sized sheet-iron heating stove\nin the center, and was almost filled with bunks in tiers of three each,\nbuilt in double rows the length of the room. A little chamber enclosed\nwith snowy caribou buck-skin, the skins sewn together most skillfully\nwith sinew thread, was Nina's bedroom. The poles which formed the\nfloors had been hewn and laid so carefully that they looked like\nboards. The tables and shelves were of whipsawed lumber, every article\nshowing painstaking skill.\n\n\"Joe and I made the cabin and everything in and about it, all\nourselves,\" Nina boasted.\n\n\"What!\" I exclaimed, \"you two rolled up these heavy logs, without any\nhelp?\"\n\n\"Yes, indeed. We used block-and-tackle. It isn't so hard when you know\nhow; and it was great fun.\"\n\n\"But the lumber for the doors and tables and window-sash--it's so true\nand smooth and beautiful; how did you get that?\" I asked.\n\n\"Whipsawed and hand-planed it all,\" she replied. \"You see, we came\nhere two years ago this month, just after we were married. The\nGovernment was surveying this trail, and we thought we'd build this\nroadhouse and pick up a few dollars taking care of travelers. But\nchiefly we chose this place because it was so beautiful and such a game\ncountry. Then it has never been prospected for gold.\n\n\"Joe and I each had a good dog-team and sled when we were married. We\nloaded the sleds with tools, hardware, stoves and dishes, glass for\nthe windows, some flour, sugar, beans and a few other groceries, and\nbrought our traps and plenty of ammunition for our guns. It was hard\nbreaking trail through the deep snow on the east side of the Alaska\nRange, but nice going on this side. We mushed the two hundred and fifty\nmiles from the coast in two weeks; and had some time for trapping\nbefore warm weather.\"\n\n\"How do you get 'outside' in the summer time?\" I inquired.\n\n\"We can't, and we don't need to. We spent that first summer building\nthis house, making garden, gathering berries, drying fish, hunting and\ngetting ready for the winter. Almost all our wants are supplied right\nhere. From the middle of April till the middle of October we don't see\na human being, except now and then an Indian, or a stray prospector.\"\n\n\"What a lonesome life!\" I exclaimed.\n\n\"Now, Doctor, I know you don't mean that,\" protested Nina. \"Why, this\nis the most companionable place in the world. It is full of friendly\ncreatures. The winter before I was married I spent three months in\nSan Francisco. I nearly died, I was so lonely and homesick. I'd meet\nthousands of people on the streets every day, and not get a word or\nsmile from one of them. I wouldn't give my little 'Red' for the whole\ncrowd.\"\n\n\"Who's Red?\" I asked.\n\nNina leaned forward and made a squeaking noise with her lips. Instantly\na little furry creature of a bright scarlet color, with a short tail,\njumped out of a box in the corner, ran to her and up her hand and arm\nto her shoulder and then down to her knee, where he stood stiffly erect\nlike a soldier at attention. He was so quick and comical in his motions\nand so full of tricks that he kept us laughing.\n\n\"I had three Reds,\" explained Nina, \"but a weasel got two of them\nbefore I got the weasel. I have had many other pets besides the\nwood-mice. There isn't a creature in all the forest that would do me\nharm unless I hurt it first. And I don't have a grudge against any of\nthem, except the hawks and owls that come after my chickens.\"\n\nThe most striking feature about the cabin, however, was the abundance\nand variety of furs and other trophies of the chase. Adorning and\nalmost covering one end of the room was an enormous moose head. At the\nother end was a wonderful caribou head. Over the windows were beautiful\nheads of the white mountain sheep, the bighorn of the Northwest.\n\nBut the pelts! Great bunches of mink, marten, fisher, otter, muskrat\nand beaver; scores of red fox, with here and there a priceless black or\nsilver fox; lynx, wolf, wolverine and black bear.\n\n\"We have four lines of traps, each five miles long,\" explained Nina;\n\"and Joe and I each take two lines every other day, spending the\nalternate days caring for the skins. We are making bear traps now,\ngetting ready for Bruin when he comes out of his den. We have about\nfour thousand dollars' worth of furs caught this winter, and we'll make\nit five before warm weather.\"\n\nBut the most imposing objects of all in the cabin were two tremendous\nrugs--the skins of the _ursus gigas_ or Kodiak bear--the largest of\nexisting carnivorous mammals. Joe had learned something of taxidermy,\nand the heads were nicely preserved, the big teeth and claws showing,\nthe skins being lined with red blankets. The largest of these rugs was\nover twelve feet long, the distance from nose to tail over ten feet,\nthe lateral spread being almost as great. The fur was a rich brown in\ncolor, deep, thick and soft.\n\nAt my exclamation of wonder and admiration, Joe began eagerly to tell\nme the story of the rugs; but his wife stopped him.\n\n\"Better wait till after supper, Joe,\" she said.\n\nAh, that supper! The supreme physical pleasure of it lingers in my\nmemory still. Moose soup with potatoes, turnips, carrots and onions\nfrom their garden in it; fresh grayling, caught in the fall and frozen;\nruffed grouse pie; roast mountain sheep--the best meat that grows;\nomelet made of eggs laid that day; moose-nose cheese, delicately\npickled; fine sour-dough bread with raspberry jam and currant jelly;\npie made of fresh blueberries, the berries having been picked in the\nfall and preserved by the simple process of pouring water on them and\nletting them freeze. All of these viands, except the bread, being the\nproducts of Nina's labor or marksmanship, made them doubly sweet. Where\nelse in the world could you get a meal like that--or the appetite to\ndevour it all?\n\n\"Well,\" began Joe, when, sated, I lay back in the easy-chair curiously\nfashioned of moose horns, while the young couple washed the dishes,\n\"I'm mighty proud of them rugs. They're Nina's, both of 'em, and I\nreckon there's no other girl in the world would of tackled the job she\ndid, and got away with it. It scares me every time I think of it, and I\ndon't know whether I'd oughter scold her or pet her up.\"\n\n\"Nonsense!\" protested his wife; \"you know you'd have done exactly as I\ndid if you'd been here.\"\n\n\"Maybe I would,\" he retorted, \"but I wouldn't of let _you_ take that\nrisk.\"\n\n[Illustration: Five Kodiak Bears\n\nThe bear to the right is twice the size of a Grizzly]\n\n\"It was the first of last November,\" he resumed. \"I'd taken the two\nsleds and all the dogs, as soon as I thought the ice was strong enough,\nand I'd gone two hundred miles to the store at Ophir to lay in our\nwinter's outfit. The ice towards the coast wasn't strong enough to make\nsafe mushin', and Nina was all alone here for more'n three weeks. I\nknowed she would make the reg'lar round of the traps and keep things\ngoin' just as usual. She's never learned to be afraid--that girl.\n\n\"Well, one mornin' she was gettin' breakfast, when she heard a little\nnoise outside. She opened the door, and there, within twenty-five feet\nof her, were three big Kodiak bears. Two of them stood up on their hin'\nfeet when she opened the door, while the other kept smellin' around for\ngrub.\"\n\n\"Goodness, Nina!\" I exclaimed. \"What was your first thought when you\nsaw the big brutes so close?\"\n\n\"Well,\" she answered, smiling, \"my first thought was, 'What beautiful\nrugs those are on the backs of the bears! I want those rugs.'\"\n\n\"Yes,\" Joe went on, \"and so she stepped slowly back, inch by inch\ninto the house, and softly closed the door so as not to _scare_ the\nbears--they as big as a house and her such a leetle mite of a thing.\nShe took down that 30-40 Winchester, there, and filled the magazine\nfull (it chambers ten); and then she done a plumb foolish thing. I know\ndarned well what I'd 'a' done. I'd 'a' poked the moss out between the\nlogs, there, and stuck my rifle through and had some 'vantage.\"\n\n\"What did Nina do?\" I asked.\n\n\"Why, she threw the door wide open and stepped right out in front of\nit. Up came all three bears, this time, on their hind feet. Nina's\nlightnin' on the snap shot, and before the big he-bear was straightened\nup he got it right between the eyes. Down he tumbled, and the other two\nwas out of sight around the kennel there before she could throw another\nshell into the gun and aim.\" Joe pointed to a log dog-house about two\nrods in front of the door.\n\n\"Nina raced pell-mell past the kennel to get another shot, and there\nshe saw the big she-bear, standin' up behind the dog-house, awaitin'\nfor her, not a gun's length away. Nina swung around and fired\npointblank into the bear's breast. It went down on all-fours and\ncame for her with open mouth. There was nothing for it but to keep on\nshootin'. She worked the lever of her gun mighty fast. She put five\nbullets into the beast before she quieted it. She never saw the third\nbear again.\"\n\n\"Why, Nina!\" I cried, as soon as I could get my breath. \"You foolish\nchild! Your escape was miraculous! It frightens me to hear Joe tell of\nit. Weren't you dreadfully scared when you saw that great brute jump at\nyou like that?\"\n\n\"Oh, no,\" laughed the girl. \"I was too busy to get scared. But I was\nawfully provoked because the other one got away.\"\n\nOther details of Nina's great adventure followed--how it took her\nthree days to skin the two bears, she having to climb a tree to adjust\nthe block and tackle so as to move the heavy carcases; and how Joe\n\"blubbered\" when he got home and saw them, and knew the peril his\nbeloved had encountered.\n\nNina is an exceptional woman, but still she is truly a type. There\nis something in \"that great, big, broad land, way up yonder,\" that\nstiffens the moral fiber, enlarges the spirit and makes the people\nunafraid. The white settlers of Alaska, while by no means all saints,\nare as a class the strongest, bravest and most resourceful people I\nknow. I have not heard from my brave little chum for several years. I\npresume she is still living her joyous, fearless, Christian life in\nwhat John Muir used to call my \"beautiful, fruitful wilderness.\" Here's\nto her; God bless her!\n\n\n\n\nVIII\n\nTHE ABSURD WALRUS\n\n\nLewis Carroll's famous lines about the Walrus and the Carpenter will\nalways hold their place at the very top of humorous poems. For besides\nbeing funny they have a quality of truth which the careless reader\nlittle suspects:\n\n    \"The time has come,\" the walrus said,\n      \"To talk of many things,\n    Of shoes and ships and sealing wax,\n      Of cabbages and kings;\n    And why the sea is boiling hot,\n      And whether pigs have wings.\"\n\nThe very few men who have been acquainted with the walrus in his native\nhaunts know that the author of \"Alice in Wonderland\" in these verses\n\"hits the nail on the head,\" and, perhaps unwittingly, gives an insight\ninto the true character of the walrus as the most inconsistent,\ngrotesque and absurd of all beasts.\n\nIt was my good fortune the summer of 1913 to be one of a company of six\nhunters on board the three-masted power schooner, _P. J. Abler_, which\nsailed along the Alaskan and Siberian coasts for six thousand miles and\npounded its way northward into the Arctic ice-pack to within sixteen\ndegrees of the Pole.\n\nThe ship itself was of unusual pattern. Her owner called her the\n_Mudhen_. Her three masts stood stiff and straight in a row and were\nthe same height. Her lines were not particularly elegant, and her\nsmall engine could only push her through calm seas at the rate of five\nmiles an hour. But she was a comfortable ship and had one quality in\nparticular which overbalanced all the drawbacks and made her the boat\nfor us--she was built for \"bucking ice.\" She had extra heavy timbers,\nespecially about her bow. In spite of her slowness, she was an ideal\ncraft for venturing into Arctic ice-floes. She would come at a good\nspeed, bow on, against a huge berg and bring up with a jar that would\nshake her as a rat shaken by a terrier, and send your plate of polar\nbear meat into your lap. Then she would recover from her backward\nbounce and calmly proceed on her way undented and unharmed. Mr. Scull\nof Philadelphia, who has sailed the world over, could never get used\nto bumping the ice. He and I would be bent over the chess board,\nabsorbed in a difficult situation, when--bang! would go the schooner\nagainst the ice, and recoil, trembling like a hound. I would grab for\nthe tottering chessmen, while Scull would jump right into the air with\nhis hair standing straight up on each side of his bald pate like the\nears of a horned owl. He would rush frantically out of the cabin door,\nlean far over the vessel's side, train his big eye-glasses on the\nship's bow and watch for signs of her filling. Then he would come back\nmuttering strange words in any of the five or six languages of which\nhe is the master, and resume his study of the game, only to repeat\nthe performance at the next bump. \"Oh!\" he would say, \"it hurts me\nmore than it hurts the ship\"; which was undoubtedly true. I always had\nbetter luck in chess with Scull when we were bucking ice.\n\nThe personnel of our party was like some landscapes, varied and\ninteresting. The commander of the expedition and its manager, was\nCaptain Kleinschmidt, sailor, miner, hunter, author and moving-picture\nman. He chartered the _Abler_ and hired her crew, who were as\ncosmopolitan as it is possible for crew to be--the captain, a Swede;\nthe mate, a Dane; the engineers (brothers) German-Americans; the cook,\na \"Jap\"; the crew composed of one American, one Russian and five\nEskimos. There were two taxidermists to take care of the birdskins,\nbugs, mammals, etc., collected.\n\nOf the four hunters, who, with Captain Kleinschmidt, financed the\nexpedition, three were from Philadelphia: Scull, our polyglot\ninterpreter, a publisher of books; Collins, a manufacturer; and\nLovering, a young man who had lived part of his life in Wyoming. The\nfourth, Dr. Elting, was a surgeon of reputation from Albany, N. Y. All\nwere experienced hunters, Scull and Collins having followed trails in\nAfrica and America, Dr. Elting in the Western States and Canada, and\nLovering in the West. As for myself, the guest without responsibility\nor care, \"taken along,\" as the captain said, \"to lend dignity to the\nexpedition,\" you can call me by my common names: \"The Sour-dough\nPreacher,\" \"The Mushing Parson,\" \"The Alaska Sky-Pilot,\" or any of half\na dozen Northwestern cognomens, of all of which I am equally proud.\n\nMy object in joining this expedition was, first, to have a big hunt\nand a grand rest. But, more than the outing, I valued the privilege of\nexploring ground untrodden by the missionary, and, if possible, doing\nsomething towards bringing the Gospel to the heathen Eskimo of the\nAlaskan and Siberian shores.\n\nWe were all \"out for a lark,\" glad beyond expression to be hundreds\nof miles from a telegram or newspaper, to be able to wear our dirty\nclothes and eat in our shirtsleeves without shame; to forget that such\nthings existed as automobiles or stiff collars or dinner parties. We\nhad four months of a royal good time--along the Asiatic Coast after\nSiberian sheep, on the Alaska Peninsula for caribou and brown bears,\non Kenai Peninsula after moose, white sheep and black bear, among the\nislands of the Southern Alaska Coast and Bering Sea with the bird and\nseal rookeries, and pursuing polar bear amid the ice-floes of the\nArctic Ocean.\n\nWe visited many Eskimo villages; we shot for the museums hundreds of\nvarieties of birds on the Siberian and Alaskan Coasts; we captured new\nspecies of beetles, moths, butterflies and other insects; the camera\nfiends and moving-picture man reveled in novel scenes, animate and\ninanimate. We buffeted storms, pounded ice and sailed sunny seas.\n\nBut the climax of our joyous outing was the three or four days we spent\namong the walrus herds off the Northern Siberian Coast. Scull and\nCollins, who had hunted everything in Africa from dikdik to rhinoceros,\ndeclared that none of their experiences in that continent approached in\nthrilling interest their days with the walrus herds.\n\nFor the walrus is _sui generis_: there is no other mammal at all like\nhim in appearance, habits, habitat or characteristics. He is the least\nknown or written about of all the larger animals. No thorough study\nhas ever been made of him. More is known of the habits of the extinct\nwoolly elephant--the mammoth, whose bones, tusks, and even hair and\nskin we find on the Alaskan Coast--than the walrus. And what has been\nwritten and the common ideas concerning this animal are so erroneous as\nto be funny.\n\nA century or so ago a naturalist-traveler, writing about the Eskimos\nand the _morse_, as the walrus was then called, said that the tusks of\nthe animal are for the purpose of pulling himself up the icy mountains\nwhere he lives; that his habit is to thus work his way up to the top\nof the dizziest peak; that the Eskimos pursue him there and cut holes\nthrough the thick skin of his flippers unknown to the huge pachyderm,\nwhose hide is impervious to sensation. Then, having passed strong ropes\nthrough these holes and tied them to the jutting crags, they raise\na hullabaloo, and the walrus, alarmed, precipitating himself down\nthe mountain, jerks off his skin, which the Eskimos then use in the\nconstruction of their boats and houses. The year before our hunt, a\nCalifornia gentleman, interested in Captain K.'s moving pictures, asked\nhim whether the walrus brought forth their young alive or laid eggs and\nhatched them.\n\nIn May, 1913, when discussing my proposed outing with some of my\nministerial brethren, at the General Assembly at Atlanta, a good Doctor\nof Divinity tried to deter me from undertaking it because of its\ndangerous character.\n\n\"Is it not true, Dr. Young,\" he asked with great solicitude, \"that the\nwalrus sometimes devours human flesh?\"\n\nI patiently explained that the walrus has no incisors, no teeth at\nall but flat grinders, level with the gums and far back in the jaws,\n\"and therefore he cannot rend or eat anything so very tough as a\nmissionary\"; and that moreover his mouth is situated back of a narrow\nopening of three or four inches in width between his tusks, so that\nnothing bulky can enter it. \"He might drown me but he couldn't eat me!\"\n\nThe \"D. D.\" listened with open skepticism and put this poser: \"How then\ncan he devour his prey?\"\n\n\"What prey?\" I asked.\n\n\"Why, the seals and salmon and other large sea animals on which he\nfeeds.\"\n\nAgain I sternly suppressed my rising emotions: \"But he doesn't eat\nthese things. He couldn't catch them and doesn't want them. He is only\na clam-eater. His tusks are not spears, but an admirably constructed\nclam-hoe. He could not live without them; and his stiff whiskers form a\nfine brush to clean the clams of mud before he dines off them.\"\n\nThe good brother glanced from one to another of the listening group\nwith a look that plainly said: \"How sad it is that such shameless\nprevaricators will even slip into the ministry;\" and walked off\nmuttering something about consulting \"authorities.\"\n\nIllustrating my own roving habits, while a pioneer missionary in\nAlaska, I have sometimes said, using a common simile, that I \"had no\nmore home than a jack-rabbit.\" I am changing this now to a stronger\nexpression; \"no more home than a walrus.\" He is the most constantly on\nthe move of all the vagabonds. Even when sleeping he is moving, for the\nonly home the poor fellow has is the ice-cakes which form in the Arctic\nOcean and Bering Sea, entirely filling the former and in the winter\ncrowding down the latter to about fifty-eight degrees, north latitude.\nThe walrus herds, for the greater part of the year, keep on the borders\nof this great field of ice. In the summer when the Bering Sea ice melts\nand also that of the southern part of the Arctic Ocean, the walrus\nkeeps on the flat ice-cakes which float over the great clam beds of\nthese shallow seas. As the ice forms in the fall and the ice-floes\nextend southward he sets out on a long swim ahead of the fast freezing\nice, resting occasionally on the Siberian shore, the Diomedes, St.\nLawrence, St. Matthews and other islands. When the ice-field has\nextended to its southern limit he resumes his ice-house-boat habit and\nreturns north in the spring.\n\nSo little is known of the life history of the walrus that I am unable\nto speak with confidence, but the young are evidently brought forth\nvery early in the spring, April or May, and float with their mothers\n(the females and young herding together), up into the Arctic Ocean as\nfar as the shoals off Wrangle Island, one hundred and fifty miles north\nof the Siberian Coast. There the little ones are guarded by the cows,\nwhich during the summer months are the only really dangerous walrus\never met with. Were the walrus the ferocious and combatant animal he\nis sometimes depicted, it would be a risky thing indeed to hunt him\nin skin boats or any other small craft. Imagine three or four tons\nof muscular fierceness, armed with strong, sharp, spearlike tusks,\ncharging at you. The front part of his head is a solid mass of tough\nbone more than a foot thick. He could strike his tusks through your\nboat and sink it in an instant, or hook them over the edge and upset\nyou, spearing you one by one in the water.\n\nBut the huge pachyderm is the most timid and good-natured of animals.\nIt is only when the female fears for the safety of her young that she\nshows anything like ferocity. In 1911 Captain Kleinschmidt was taking\nmoving pictures of the walrus herds. He had two catamarans, made by\nlashing two kyaks together with firm cross pieces. In the foremost\ncraft two Eskimo hunters with their spears were paddling ahead, to\nslip up on the herds and harpoon them at the proper time, while the\nmoving-picture man was in the other craft to take pictures of the herds\nand of the whole performance.\n\nA herd of cows and their young had been frightened from an ice-cake\ninto the water. Suddenly one of these cows thrust her tusks forward,\nthe sign of a charge: \"Look out!\" cried K. to the Eskimo as the cow\ndived. They made frantic efforts to paddle their kyaks to the nearest\nberg, but the cow came up under the craft and slashed with her tusks\none of the kyaks, ripping the bottom and filling it with water. The\nother kyak of the catamaran tilted dangerously, the Eskimo in the\nsinking one throwing himself upon it, and the two frightened natives\nmade their escape to the ice-cake. Coming to the surface again the cow\nsighted Captain K.'s catamaran, thrust her tusks forward again and\ndived; he saw her body deep in the water coming toward him and thought\nhis time had come; but luckily when she struck the canoe had veered\nand received only a glancing blow. She came to the surface within a\nyard of the picture man, who had his rifle ready and thrust it against\nher brain and pulled the trigger, which ended that affair. But it was\na perilous adventure, and one is liable to meet with such if he is so\nrash as to venture among the herds of the cows with their young.\n\nDuring this hunt of ours, although we saw great herds aggregating\nhundreds of walrus, we did not see a cow or calf among them; only the\nbig bulls herded together and occasionally a solitary one.\n\nAfter passing Cape Prince of Wales into the Arctic Ocean we had a week\nof battling with winds and tide before we got into the ice-pack well up\ntowards Wrangell and Herald Islands. We had another week of pounding\nice, poking through the narrow \"leads,\" constantly turning and running\nthe other way in our effort to get to the shores where the walrus herds\nwould feed.\n\nWe had fun with the polar bears, but, with one exception, saw no walrus\nfor nearly two weeks of this strenuous fight. This one exception was\na big old bull that we sighted reposing in solitary dignity on an\nice-cake in the midst of this vast white solitude.\n\nCaptain K. took Dr. Elting with him in the kyaks which we manufactured\ninto a catamaran, and while the _Abler_ lay \"off and on\" the two\nhunters whom we watched through our field-glasses made their sinuous\nway behind ice hummocks through the narrow \"leads\" and around the\njamming cakes of the ice-field. We saw them at last seemingly right\nupon the walrus, on the same cake. The big fellow was fast asleep in\nthe uneasy fashion that all walrus and seal have of sleeping; that is,\nevery two or three minutes they will raise their heads and move them\nback and forth, during which time the hunters must keep perfectly still\nand if possible behind the ice-cakes. The walrus, however, has not the\nkeen sight of the seal, and is more easily approached.\n\nOur hunters moored their skin boat on the ice-cake close to the walrus,\ncrept up behind a hummock right upon him, and Dr. Elting put his bullet\ninto the brain of the beast, which is situated in his neck, and not\nin what appears to be his head. It was an easy and not very exciting\ntriumph. What possessed this old bull to lie there alone scores of\nmiles from his companions, I do not know. He may have been there two\nor three weeks on that one ice-cake, as the Eskimos tell us this is\nsometimes their habit.\n\nIt was not until August eighteenth that we got sight of our first\nwalrus herd, and then for three days we were right in the midst of\nthem. We had been driven by buffeting winds and threatening ice-packs\naway from the vicinity of the islands far westward along the Siberian\ncoast and were perhaps thirty or forty miles from land. The cry was\nraised from the \"crow's nest\": \"Walrus!\"\n\nThe appearance of the herd as we approached it was very unlike anything\nimagined by those who had not hitherto seen these animals. All sorts of\ncomparisons crowd upon one's imagination when trying to describe them.\nSome of them look like huge caterpillars and have an exactly similar\nmotion, except that their antenn\u0102\u00a6 are bent downward instead of upward.\nSometimes when bunched up they look like immense squirrels. Sometimes\nwhen scratching themselves with their flippers they have the languid\nmovements of a fashionable lady fanning herself; and again, when two\nare sparring at each other, they have the fierce mien of gladiators.\nBut always there is that particularly comical edge about them that\nimpels to irresistible laughter, as when one approaches a cage of\nmonkeys. Their attitudes and motions are so unexpected and ridiculous.\n\nI did little hunting myself but went with the other hunters in the\n_oomiak_ or large skin boat; and I believe I got more enjoyment than\nany one else of the party; for I was not doing the killing, and was\nenjoying equally the misses and the hits of the others and, above all,\nthe study of these huge and interesting brutes. Many of my preconceived\nnotions, obtained by reading and by hearsay, were put to flight during\nthose three or four days.\n\nOnly a few years ago a report to the Smithsonian Institute was\npublished in which it was stated that the walrus were very watchful and\nwary, and that when reposing on the ice-cake they selected a large bull\nto climb the highest pinnacle and keep watch for foes, and that when\nhe grew weary of his vigil and wished to sleep he would prod the bull\nnext to him with his tusks and let him take his turn while the former\nwatchman took a nap. It was thus inferred that the walrus scanned the\nregion of ice with eagle eyes and had a system of signalling similar to\nthe organized human gunboats or armies.\n\nBut this is all nonsense. The fact is that the walrus cannot see more\nthan ten or twelve feet at the most, and even at that distance I doubt\nwhether he can distinguish more than the mere outlines of any object.\nHis eyes are the eyes of a fish, small and rudely constructed and\nexceptionally nearsighted. They are made for use in the dim depths of\nthe sea. When the sun shines the walrus shut their eyes and apparently\ncannot open them. When alarmed they rush into the water and then come\nup and will crowd within five or six feet of the moving-picture man or\nhunter, bulging their eyes like those of a crab in frantic attempts to\nsee their foe.\n\nWe clad ourselves in white muslin parkas, and got our _oomiaks_ or\n_kyaks_ boldly up under the noses of these great beasts with them\nstaring down upon us. The only thing we had to guard against was their\ngetting our wind. If we kept to leeward of them we were always out of\ntheir sight. The strange bulging of the eyes when excited gives a most\ngrotesque appearance to the countenance of these walrus, as ordinarily\ntheir eyes are deep sunken in their heads.\n\nLet me sketch a picture from life: It is the twentieth of August. We\nare in the vicinity of Cape North on the Northern Siberian coast. We\nare twenty or thirty miles offshore. The day is warm, sunny, still. The\nship is tied to a large iceberg; a wilderness of floating ice-cakes\nstretches in every direction to the horizon. In some places these are\nmassed together; again there will be little open places, and ragged\nleads, but everywhere ice, ice, ice. And it is all in motion; a slow\nheaving and grinding of the floe, and the tidal currents moving in\ndifferent directions and with varied rapidity, but all trending\nnorthwest, the landscape--or seascape--changing every minute. There\nare herds of walrus all around us, some numerous, containing two or\nthree hundred on one cake of ice, others small; here a group of four or\nfive big bulls on a cake just large enough to hold them; then fifteen\nor twenty on a wider berg with little hummocks, up the slopes of which\nthe big brutes crowd.\n\nScull and Lovering have taken the kyak-catamaran and are paddling to\nthe nearest bunch of walrus not five hundred yards from the ship.\nCaptain K. has launched the big skin boat, or _oomiak_, and is perched\non the high stern, steering. His aeroscope moving-picture machine and\ngraphlex camera, his field-glass and rifle are by him. \"Eskimo Prank\"\nand I are in front of him with our paddles; while Dr. Elting and\nCollins are in the bow, with paddles in their hands and their big Ross\nand Mannlicher rifles close by. We corkscrew our way through the ice,\nsteering past a bunch of walrus on a small cake. \"Small ice--lose um\nquick,\" says Prank. We are heading to a herd of twenty or thirty, with\nsome big tuskers among them. We keep to the leeward of them, for the\nsense of smell seems to be their one keen sense, and even that does\nnot compare in acuteness with the nose of the polar bear or the caribou.\n\nCaptain K. and \"Eskimo Prank\" are the only ones in our party who are\nperfectly calm and unexcited, and they seem to the rest of us rash and\ncareless. The boat is steered right in sight of the herd, and we are\ngetting close to them. Now the big, ugly heads of five or six which\nhave been digging clams come up right alongside of us. Suddenly their\nheads rise high out of the water and their sunken eyes bulge out as\nthey stare up into our faces. It takes a whole minute's scrutiny to\nsatisfy them that we are enemies, and they go down with great splashing\nand blowing to come up again almost in the same place and stare at us\nagain. So we are escorted up to the edge of the ice-cake on which the\nherd reposes. As a precaution against discovery we list the _oomiak_ so\nthat its side protects us from their sight.\n\nWe range alongside the cake; \"Prank\" and I hold it steady by clutching\nspurs of ice. The captain with his picture machines, and the hunters\nwith their guns crawl out on the ice. They are clad in white\nparkas--but there is plenty to see about them in all conscience, and\nthey make plenty of noise. We are only twenty or thirty feet from\nthe nearest walrus. Two or three big bulls are on the hummock right\nabove us. The captain and the hunters maneuver about, cautiously but\nsometimes in plain sight, and discuss, in voices clearly audible three\ntimes the distance, the question as to which have the best tusks, which\nlie most favorably for a good shot, in which hump of the neck the brain\nlies and just where to shoot. The captain gets his bulky aeroscope\nplaced and sets the engine to buzzing and clacking. The hunters are\nwaiting for the beasts to turn just right so as to expose the brain.\nFor the brain of a walrus is as small as that of a rhinoceros in\nproportion to its size--about as big as one's two fists,--and you must\nknow just where it is, and place your ball right through it, or your\ngame will flop and flounder in his dying struggles and roll into the\nsea and you'll lose him. Hence the nervous care and uncertainty of\nthe hunters. For ten or fifteen minutes we wait for the chance, the\nfavorable moment.\n\nBut about that foolish sentinel story: A beast that cannot tell an\n_oomiak_ full of bipeds, or these same bipeds with guns or cameras\nfrom a fellow walrus at the distance of ten yards, doesn't plan and\nplace a relay of watchmen. We learned from close and long observation\nthat the walrus couldn't see us in the sunshine--their eyes were shut,\nor nearly so, and dim when open. Neither can they hear well. They\nhave no external ear at all, only a tiny hole which requires close\nobservation to discover. Even the near roar of a heavy rifle does not\nalways alarm them, and hunters with smaller rifles have killed one\nafter another of a whole herd until all were slain, without causing a\nstampede. Of course the repeated shots of two or three rifles close at\nhand will generally cause them to rush into the water, but even that\ndoes not always scare them. A heavy shot near by will bring all heads\nup, but if it is not repeated they will soon go to sleep again.\n\nBut what a thrilling time it was for me as I sat in the boat or on the\nice-cake and watched the drama! It was far more comedy than tragedy.\nThe great beasts, as heavy as elephants, were lying in bunches or\nrolling around like a lot of huge, fat hogs. Here a great bull with\nlong tusks was lying on his back and scratching himself against an\nice hummock, wriggling and squirming like a Newfoundland dog. Another\nwas curled up in an impossible heap and scratching the top of his head\nwith his hind flipper. Another was making his way through a bunch of\nsleeping comrades, rolling them around or scrambling over them and\nfighting those that resented his intrusion. Some were swimming about\nthe landing place of low ice and trying to scramble onto the cake, and\nthese would disturb a whole bunch of the lazy animals and there would\nbe trouble.\n\nAnd the noises they made were as various and interesting as their\npositions. One huge fellow, so close to me that I could have punched\nhim with a bamboo fishing-rod, shook his head slowly from side to side\nwith shut eyes and groaned with a dismal falling cadence, for all the\nworld like a fat old man with the rheumatism: \"O-o-o-h: D-e-a-r me,\nd-e-a-r me; this world's a wilderness of woe!\"\n\nAnother was optimistic, and his was a sigh of infinite content.\n\"A-a-h-h!\" he said, \"what a nice, soft, warm bed this ice-cake is! How\nfat and delicious those clams were! And I don't believe there is one\nof those horrible, malodorous little human bipeds with his deadly\nbang-stick within a hundred miles of us.\" And there we were within\ntwenty feet of him, trying to locate his brain-pan!\n\nSome grunted like pigs in sheer laziness. Others barked sharply as they\nprodded each other with their strong, sharp tusks: \"Get off my stomach,\nyou lazy son of a clam-digger! Wow! Wow!\"\n\nTwo of them were sparring like gladiators, raising their heads high and\nroaring defiance; but it was all good nature, for in a minute they were\nlying asleep, one with his head across the other's neck.\n\nAll their movements, attitudes and voices had such a droll element; all\nwere so irresistibly funny that I wanted to lie down on my back and\nroar with laughter.\n\nBut our hunters wanted big heads and tusks as trophies; our Eskimos\ndesired some hides to make their _oomiaks_ and to cover their houses;\nand we wanted tons of meat for the women and children of the Siberian\nvillages. And so after a while the rifles roared and roared again and\nagain, and the hunters moved close up, working their levers fast. The\nmad scramble of the walrus for the water was a most grotesque sight.\nThey charged blindly ahead whichever way they happened to be lying,\nhumping up their backs as they drew their hind flippers under them\nand stretching out again, just like the \"woolly bear\" caterpillars\nI used to tease when a boy. Those that escaped the volley splashed\nheavily into the water and dived deep, but presently they were all at\nthe surface again, blowing and coughing, bunching in masses, crowding\nclose to the feet of the moving-picture man, stretching their heads\nsix feet out of the water, popping and rolling their ochre-colored\neyes in frantic efforts to see. Then one would get a whiff of the\ndreaded man-scent and would go down with a mighty splash and snort,\nand the whole crowd would follow suit, soon to come up and repeat the\nperformance five or six times before they could finally get it into\ntheir slow brains that this was a dangerous neighborhood.\n\nWe had four most interesting days among the walrus, and the hunters\nwere sated with sport and trophies. My wishes were more modest. I had\nannounced to Dr. John Timothy Stone, the Moderator of the Atlanta\nGeneral Assembly, 1913, that my grand object in going on this hunt\nwas to kill a walrus myself, get his tusks and have a couple of ivory\ngavels made out of them, that I might present them to the outgoing and\nincoming moderators of the next General Assembly, which was to meet in\nChicago, 1914.\n\nI got my walrus in this fashion: Captain K., Dr. Elting and I were in\nthe _oomiak_ with \"Eskimo Prank.\" Dr. E. had got a fine head, and we\nwere cruising about, when we spied a bunch of seven or eight big walrus\non a hummocky berg near the edge of the ice-floe. The swell of the open\nocean came in here with considerable force, and long, smooth topped\nbillows heaved among the ice-floes, washing far up on the shelving\nbergs. We pushed our boat into a narrow passage and the swell took it\nand landed the bow on the ice right in the midst of the walrus. The\ncaptain and the doctor took the hazardous chance and leaped on the ice,\nplacing the muzzles of their rifles almost against the heads of their\nselection. I was not quick enough to make the jump, but as the _oomiak_\nsurged back with the receding wave I saw a walrus charging down the\nsloping ice diagonally from me. Both he and I were moving rapidly\nand in opposite directions and I could only take a hasty \"wing\" shot.\nIt was the most difficult shot of all my experience. I was standing\nuncertainly in the plunging _oomiak_, swaying and tottering as the\nlight craft shot down the receding wave away from the iceberg; while\nthe frightened walrus was humping himself for all he was worth, trying\nfrantically to get off the ice-floe into the ocean, his head bobbing\nup and down with his rapid motion. I was wobbling in one direction and\nhe in another, and the space between us was widening fast. There was\nno time to be lost. Balancing most unsteadily, I swung up my rifle for\na snap shot. It was a great moment. I had little hope of hitting the\nmark; but my walrus fell to the crack of the rifle, with his nose in\nthe water. A delay of one-tenth of a second and I would have lost him.\nI had my gavels.\n\nThe closing scene of our walrus drama was a comedy scene, and possessed\nwhat every drama ought to have--human interest. We had pounded our way\nsoutheast again through the fast thickening ice-floe driven upon us by\na strong northwest wind. At one time to the least experienced of the\nparty it seemed as if there was no possible way out, as if we must\nspend the winter on the bleak shore of Northern Siberia. But always the\nnarrow leads opened before us, and after two or three days of slow and\ncareful work through the ice we emerged from it, and before a strong,\nfair wind we bowled along towards Bering Strait. The early morning of\nAugust twenty-fifth found us anchored in the harbor of East Cape, after\na hard struggle against wind and tide.\n\nHere is a large Eskimo village. The Tchukchees, or reindeer-herding\nEskimos do not roam as far north as this, and these were the seal and\nwalrus hunters. They depend almost entirely for their food upon the\nsea, and a shortage of these animals sometimes causes starvation.\n\nThis village is situated behind a high bluff, but it is not well\nsheltered, and a fierce wind offshore caused the ship to tug violently\nat her anchor, and made landing difficult. Captain K. and the Eskimos\ngot a boat ashore and secured a stout line to the ship. Then the eight\nor nine great carcases on our deck were heaved by the donkey engine\ninto the sea. They would float by this time. They were not spoiled at\nall in the estimation of the Eskimo, only \"ripe.\" They were tied to\nthe line and then a large crowd of Eskimos took hold, ran up the beach\nand so towed the meat ashore.\n\nThen, what a scene! Out from every one of those large balloon-framed,\nskin-covered houses poured the men, women and children, shouting,\nscreaming, hurrying in joy and excitement. The men with high waterproof\nmukluks were cutting up the carcases, and men and women would seize\nthe hunks of meat and rush away to their houses, pursued by scores of\nwolfish dogs which leaped and snapped at the meat. Occasionally the\ndogs would succeed in getting away with a large chunk, when instantly\nthere would be a general mix-up from which some of the dogs would\nemerge limping and howling. There was a dog-fight every five minutes.\n\nThe moving-picture man and the camera fiends moved about \"taking\" the\ncrowd. The men with old ivory ornaments, white ivory implements, and\nother curios to sell besieged the white men. In all the houses cooking\nwas going on, and many were chewing on the raw blubber. It was a day\nof days to these poor people, and for the first time on our voyage of\npleasure we felt ourselves benefactors to the human race. \"The calendar\nof these Eskimos will date from to-day,\" said the only American white\nman who lives in East Cape village. \"They will count time all winter\nfrom the day of the big feed of walrus meat.\"\n\nBut better than the meat for their bodies which we procured for these\npoor people of the Arctic shore, was the Bread of Life that I was able\nto direct to several Eskimo towns, from the knowledge gained in this\ngreat walrus hunt.\n\n\n     _Printed in the United States of America_\n\n\n\n\nTRANSCRIBER'S NOTE:\n\nObvious printer errors have been corrected. Otherwise, the author's\noriginal spelling, punctuation and hyphenation have been left intact.","title":"Adventures in Alaska","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":34105}