V

"Each fir tree flings a bridal veil,A bridal veil of shimmering white,Like stately maidens tall and bright,Slow marching as to solemn riteBeside the ribbon of the trail."

Notice the beauty of the frost sparkling on the trees. The wonderful law that gives its own distinct varieties of frost crystals to each species of tree, fir, spruce, birch, cottonwood or alder, is exemplified so plainly here that, after the first examination, you can tell the kind of tree under the frost crystalsby the shade of silver. The mountains tower above you, wind-swept, waving snow-banners. The vastness of that white hush awes and thrills you. A rough sound would be blasphemy in the solemn silence. The whole landscape is a poem.

To relate even the leading incidents of this "joy-mush" of three weeks would take up too much space. The longest distance we traveled in any one day was fifty-five miles; while our hardest and longest day's struggle through drifted snow and over a steep mountain pass yielded us only twelve miles of trail. In most of the roadhouses I found old friends, and, in several of them, Christian people who had been members of missions I had established in new mining camps. What grand times we had together! No fellowship is so warm and sweet as that of the wilderness. Of many adventures on the trail I can give but two.

One morning, about half-way from Iditarod to Seward, we left the fine cabin of French Joe, on the South Fork of the Kuskoquim River, under the two beautiful peaks, Mts. Egypt and Pyramid. We were making for Rainy Pass over the Alaskan Range. What follows is an extract froman account I wrote at the time.

The day out from Joe's I meet with my first disaster. We have nineteen miles of absolutely clear ice on the South Fork of the Kuskoquim. The river is full of air-holes and open riffles. The dogs swing along at a ripping pace, digging their toe nails into the hard ice, the sled slipping sideways and sliding dangerously near to the open places. Breeze often has to run ahead at full speed to choose a route, for there is no trail on the ice. Half-way up the river I "get gay," as Breeze calls it. I leave the handle-bars to find a route, and fall down hard on the smooth ice. A sharp pang strikes through the small of my back as if from a spear-thrust. I get up and go along, thinking the pain will cease, but soon I realize that I am in the grip of an old enemy, lumbago.

From this point on to Seward I cannot make a move without pain, sometimes so great that I gasp for breath. At night in the roadhouse I have great trouble in getting into my bunk, and sometimes Breeze has to lift me out in the morning. Were I at home I would be in bed for a couple of weeks with doctors and nurses fussing overme, but it is just as well that I cannot stop. I take the philosophy of an old fellow in the "Rainy Pass Roadhouse" near the summit of the range, who says the best cure for a lame back is to "keep on a-mushin'"!

Beyond Rainy Pass we drop into the canyon of Happy River, and here we have our famous moose-hunt. Soon after we enter the gorge we come upon its tracks—a big bull-moose. We have already traveled nearly thirty miles to-day, and are anxious to make the roadhouse twelve or fifteen miles further on; and now, here comes this big, blundering beast to poke our trail full of deep holes and excite our dogs. He is running ahead of us. The snow is five or six feet deep and he goes in almost to his back at every step. The walls of the canyon are sheer and he cannot escape up its side. The river turns and winds, and here and there are little patches of level ground, thick with large spruce trees.

For three miles we do not catch sight of the moose, but our dogs show that he is on ahead. In spite of my lame back I have to struggle on in front of them and bat "Leader" in the face with my cap, Breeze standing on the brake to keep them fromrunning away. The moose tracks fill our trail for a while, smashing it all to pieces, then veer sideways to a little patch of woods, and the dogs go pell-mell in the moose track, burying our sled out of sight in the deep snow. Then we have to haul them around and lift the sled on the track again, and try to get them along the trail.

Three miles down the river we catch sight of the big moose, and the dogs go wild. "Sheep," who has been disposed to malinger, is the worst of the lot. He forgets all his maladies and weariness and dashes forward, but "Leader" will not leave the track and swings along as best he can, except when the moose is in full sight. Then I have to bat him in the face to keep the team in bounds. Our bells are tingling, our dogs barking and we are shouting. It is a fearsome thing to the bull-moose, this animated machine that is charging down the river at him. So on he struggles through the deep snow, spoiling our trail and filling my companion's mind with blasphemous thoughts which occasionally break out in expression, in spite of his respect for my "cloth."

Four miles of this moose-hunt, with the big brute growing more tired and we moreanxious to pass him. Instead of our hunting the moose he is haunting us. At last, around a little point of woods, we see him lying down in the middle of the river right ahead of us. The dogs break bounds and almost upset me as they dash down the trail with Breeze standing on the brake and yelling "Whoa!" The weary bull-moose staggers to his feet again and makes the edge of the woods, but there lies down again.

The trail veers right up to him. I run ahead and take "Leader" and "Ring," one in each hand, and Breeze does the same with "Teddy" and "Sheep." "Moose" is more tractable and we can control him with our voices. We drag the dogs bodily with the sled behind, pass the big brute, his long face not a rod from us, and then, setting "Leader" on the trail again, we urge them down five miles further to "Happy River Roadhouse." That wasonehunt in which I was glad to lose the game.

Four hundred miles from our starting point we put up at the "Pioneer Roadhouse" in the little town of Knik at the head of Cook's Inlet. This was one of half a dozen small towns around Knik Arm and Turn-again Arm, the two prongs of Cook'sInlet. These towns had been in existence for fifteen or twenty years, with gold-miners and their families living there; and yet, here at Knik, I preached the first sermon that had ever been preached in a region larger than the state of Pennsylvania! This visit led to the establishment of a number of missions in that region, which is now traversed by the new Government railroad. The towns of Anchorage and Matanuska have sprung into existence and a thriving population of railroad builders, coal miners, gold miners, farmers and men of other trades and professions has settled there.

I left Iditarod on March fifth. I swung into Seward at nine o'clock on the morning of March twenty-eighth and was heartily greeted and entertained by Rev. L. S. Pedersen, pastor of the Methodist Church. He was a photographer as well as a preacher, and took the picture of my arrival. In spite of their hard work, my dogs were fatter and fuller of "pep" than when we started.

I fairly cried when I bade my team good-bye at Seward, taking each beautiful head in my arms and talking to them all. They seemed to feel the parting as keenly as I, for there was a general chorus of mournfulhowls as I turned away. I never saw my splendid dogs again, for the man who engaged to take them back to Iditarod failed to keep to his bargain, and I had to give them to the man who cared for and fed them at Susitna. I shall never find another team like them.

Notwithstanding the heaviness of the trail, the bitter struggles over mountains and through deep snows, not to mention the pains of lumbago, I look back upon that trip and other trips like it with joyful recollection and longing to repeat the experience. I would rather take a trip through that beautiful wilderness, with my dogs, than travel luxuriously around the world on palatial steamboats. There is more fun in dog-mushing.

LOUIE PAUL AND THE HOOTZ

"Oh, 'e's bad feller, dat hootz," exclaimed Louie Paul, our half-breed Stickeen young man, the blood of his French father sparkling in his eyes and gesturing in his hands and shoulders. "'E's devil, 'im. Dat's no swear—dat's truf. Bad spirit got him, sure.Quonsum sallix(Always mad). 'E no savvy scare, no savvy love, no savvy die. 'E's devil, dat's all."

Louie's handsome face and coal-black eyes were alive with excitement, as he danced about his big bundle oftseek(black bear) skins, which he had just brought into Stevens' store at Fort Wrangell, and was unwrapping, preparatory to bartering. His outburst of language was called out by a question of mine. I had been noticing with surprise that among the great numbers of black bear skins that were being brought into the Wrangell stores daily by the Indians, were none of the big brown bear—thehootz. I knew these brown bears to be very plentiful up the Stickeen and Iskoot Rivers where Louie had been hunting. At this season (it was in early May) both species of bears, having wakened from their long winter's sleep, were roaming the banks of the streams restlessly day and night, making up in their fierce activity for their six months of torpor. Their coats were at their best—long, silky, glistening, thick and soft. The skins of the black bear Louie had brought were prime. They were more than black. Their ebony surfaces shone and sparkled, beneath our handling, like black diamonds.

Fort Wrangell, Alaska, on Etolin Harbor

To the left may be seen the first Protestant Church in Alaska, built by Dr. Young, 1879

I knew that the skins of the hootz would be equally beautiful and twice as large as those of the tseek. They would not be tawny at this season, but a rich, velvety brown, the color of the Irish setter's coat. In my canoe trips and steamboat voyages up the Stickeen I had seen more brown bears than black, standing boldly out on the bank to watch the sputtering steamboat, or grubbing for roots and worms in the green patches up the mountain slopes.

"Why don't you shoot the big bears?" I asked Louie. "I saw four in a bunch theother day. Don't you see any in your hunting trips?"

"Oh, yes," he confessed, "me plenty see hootz. All time me see heem. Yestaday me see tree—big fellers; stand up, all same man."

"What's the matter, then?" I pressed him. "Are you afraid of them?"

"Yes, you bet you boots, I scare of heem. I no shame scare about hootz. S'pose I big fool, I no scare; I shoot heem.—You never see me again no mo'."

Louie Paul had two claims to special distinction. First, he was a very expert and successful bear hunter; and, second, he was the husband of the star pupil of Mrs. McFarland's Home for Girls,—Tilly, the handsomest and brightest of the girls whom we had rescued from the vileness, squalor and sin of heathen life, and were training to be examples and teachers of Christian civilization to their tribe.

I had taken Louie and Tilly the preceding fall and established them at Tongas, one hundred miles south of Wrangell, outfitting Tilly with school books, Bibles, Sunday-school supplies, etc., and paying her a salary as teacher to that wild tribe. Louie's taskwas to keep up the fires for the school, and to cook for his wife and supply her needs. He had stayed at home faithfully during the winter, procuring the venison, ducks, geese, fish, clams, crabs, and other articles of food they needed, and making himself useful around the branch mission, even occasionally leading in prayer, and exhorting the people. But the trapper's "call of the wild" sounded in the early spring—a call he could not resist. So here he was, having left Tilly to cook her own meals and make her own fires, while he explored the streams, bayous and lakes in his small canoe, pursuing the elusive plantigrades.

The natives of Alaska at that time were handicapped in their hunting by an order of the Government which forbade the Indians to own or use breech-loading guns. This order was enforced among our peaceful Alaska natives, who had never had a serious trouble with the whites, while the Sioux, Apaches and Nez Perces, who were often on the war-path, had all the Winchester, Henry and Enfield rifles they wanted.

The natives of Alaska at that time—the early eighties—had only breech-loading, smooth-bore Hudson Bay muskets; andtheir round bullets had not much penetrating power. They were all right for deer, but you might fill a hootz full of those big, round balls and he would still have strength to tear you to pieces.

"The more you pester them big bear with them old-fashioned smooth-bores," said one of the old white hunters at Fort Wrangell, "the madder he gits."

Louie Paul looked so much more like a white man than like an Indian, and talked English so fluently, that I had persuaded the collector of customs—the only civil officer we had in that region—to permit me to lend Louie my new 45-75 Winchester repeating rifle. The repeater was a hard-shooting, accurate gun, chambering twelve cartridges in the magazine—the most efficient rifle made at that time. Louie was a fine shot, and the possession of this rifle gave him a great superiority over all the other Indian bear-hunters. He made more money in his three or four weeks of hunting in the spring than Tilly earned by her winter's teaching.

"I should think you would not be afraid of a brown bear when you have my Winchester," I urged. "You could put half a dozen balls clean through him before hecould get to you."

Louie shook his curly head doubtfully. "Mebby so; mebby not."

Then his face lit up with a broad grin. "Mebby so I be lak Buck. You hear about Buck an' Kokaekish?"

"No," I replied, scenting a story. "What about them?"

I knew both these men. Kokaekish was a fine old Indian, the father of one of our best boys, whose Christian name was Louis Kellogg, but whose Indian name was Kokaek. The name, Kokaekish, means "Kokaek's Father," illustrating the curious custom of the Thlingets of naming parents after their children.

"Buck" was a French Canadian, Alex Choquette—a white man who had married a Stickeen woman and had been adopted into the tribe. He had seemingly become in heart and life an Indian, talking the language of his tribe, thinking their thoughts and pursuing their customs. How thoroughly he had become Indianized was evidenced by the language of Shustaak—the old heathen chief who had adopted Buck. "Wuck," he said, "delate siwash. Yacka tolo konaway nesika kopa klemenhoot."(Buck is a genuine Indian. He can beat all the rest of us lying.)

True to this definition of him, Buck had built his log house—a combined dwelling-house, hotel and store—thirty miles up the Stickeen River, opposite the Great Glacier, right on the boundary line between Alaska and British Columbia. Here he sold blankets, guns, groceries and whiskey to the white miners and to the Indians. When the Canadian authorities attempted to arrest him for his illicit traffic he claimed to be on the American side. When the Alaska custom officers went after him, he was a Canadian. Thus for years he had carried on his crooked business and escaped punishment.

"You know Buck," Louie began, "he worse siwash dan anybody; but he alltam make fun odder Injun. One day Kokaekish come Buck store, buy powder.

"'Where you come?' Buck say.

"'Iskoot,' say Kokaekish, 'make dry dog salmon. Now too many hootz, me come back.'

"Buck laugh. 'Eehya-a-ah! Youshawat-too(woman-heart); you coward! What for you 'fraid hootz? S'pose me, I shootem all.'Buck much laugh.

"Kokaekish, he shame. He head hang down, so. Buck more laugh. Bimeby Kokaekish say, 'Buck, you strong heart. You want killem hootz?'

"Buck big bluff. 'Sure' he say. 'You show me hootz, me shootem quick.'

"'All light, come along. Me showem you hootz now.' Kokaekish go he canoe.

"Buck shame for back out. He get Winchester, all same you rifle. 'Where you go?'

"'No far. Ict tintin, nesika clap.' (One hour, we find.)

"Dey go up Iskoot, mebby tree mile. Fin' leetle stream. Plenty humpback an' dog salmon dere. Flap, flap, splash in shallow place. All roun' de grass all flat—plenty tail, fin, bone. Buck look. He scare, but shame go back. Leetle hill dere by de creek. Plenty bush. Kokaekish an' Buck go up; sit down; wait. Pitty soon sitkum polakly (half night—twilight), Kokaekish ketch Buck arm. Whisper, 'Hootz come.'

"Buck look. Bear all same house—delate hya-a-as! (very big), come down creek. Swing slow an' lazy. Go in water; slap out big salmon on bank pitty near twoman; go an' eatem.

"Kokaekish whisper, 'Why you no shootem, Buck? You brave man! You much want killem hootz. Shootem quick!'

"Buck scare stiff. 'Sh-sh-sh! you ol' fool!' he say. He toof clap all same medicine-man rattle; water come out on he face; he shake like Cottonwood leaf.

"Kokaekish laugh. 'More hootz come,' he say. Nodder big bear come; growl, gr-r-r! go fishin'. Den she-bear an' two leetle feller come. Mamma ketch salmon; leetle bear play; run up-hill mos' on top man. Nodder bear come.Six Hootz; ketch salmon; scrap; one chase nodder; play.

"Buck not quite die. He lie flat down. He's finger count he's bead; he play Maly; he shake.

"Kokaekish much laugh. He rub it in. 'You brave man, Buck. You white man—no scare nuttin'. You want see hootz. Me fin' heem. Why you no shootem?'

"Bimeby delate polakly (quite dark). All hootz go leetle way up creek. Kokaekish shake Buck. 'Mebby so, you no want more hootz, we go now.' Dey walk han' an' foot—all same dog. Buck fo'get he's rifle. Dey fin' canoe; paddle quick Buckhouse.

"Now all Injun put shame on Buck face. 'Hey, Buck, you want shootem hootz? You white man; you brave; no scare nuttin'. How many hootz you kill?' Buck delate shame. Mos' keel hese'f. Mebby so, I lak dat."

"No, Louie," I replied when we had done laughing, "you are not like Buck. You would keep your nerve, and at least account for some of the brown bears."

"Well," he ventured doubtfully, "dis Winshesser mighty fine gun. I t'ink I try hootz nex' tam."

A week afterwards Louie came to my house in great excitement. He knocked repeatedly before I could get to the door.

"Mista Yuy," he almost shouted, "you come see my hootz skin. My firs'; my las' too."

I went with him to the store where several fine black bear skins were displayed to an admiring group of whites and natives. With them was an enormous brown bear skin, the largest I had ever seen. The fur was beautiful—rich in color, thick and glossy; but it was bloody and badly mussed. Turning it over I saw that the skin wasfull of holes—fairly riddled. I counted seventeen perforations. The larger and more ragged of the holes marked the exit of the balls that had ranged clear through the bear.

"Why, Louie," I exclaimed, "what did you mean by spoiling this fine skin? It is like a sieve. You have taken away more than half its value by shooting it up like that."

Louie danced about like a monkey—head, hands, feet, his whole body gesturing, his voice rising higher and louder as he went on with his story.

"You lissen me! I see dis big feller stan' up all same man. Open place; no big tree. Maybe hunner ya'd. I say me, 'Louie, you betta draw good bead dis tam. You shoot heem straight troo de heart, keel heem dead fust shot.'

"I shoot; he fall down. Klosh tumtum (good heart), me. I put de gun on shoul'er. Den I look. I 'stonish. De hootz, he git up queek; he come straight fo' me. I shoot queek; he fall down; he git up; he come for me. I shoot; I shoot; I shoot; he fall down; he fall down; he git up; he come for me. You betcha boots I hit heem ev'y tam.I scare to miss. I forgit how many catridge. I shoot; I shoot; I say, 'Dat's de las'; now he git me; dat's de las'; now he git me.'

"I git awful scare. I t'ink, 'Tilly widow now fo' sure. Nobody git wood fo' her no mo'.'—Dat bear git close—right here! He jus' goin' grab me. I mos' fall down; I so scare. I try once mo'. I put my gun agains' he's head. I shoot; he fall down; he don' git up no mo'. My las' catridge. I put ten ball t'rough heem.No-mo'-hootz-fo'-me!"

OLD SNOOK AND THE COW

Inthe early missionary days at Fort Wrangell I had to be a little of everything to those grown-up, naughty, forest-wise but world-foolish children of the islands whom we called Thlingets and Hydas. I had to be carpenter, and show them how to build better houses. I had to be undertaker, and teach them to make coffins and bury their dead decently. I had to be farmer, showing them how to raise turnips, potatoes, cabbage and peas. Once I gave a package of turnip seed to an old Indian woman. Towards the close of the season I went to see her garden. I found that she had dug a big hole and put all the turnip seed in it. You can imagine the result.

Among other things, I had to be doctor and surgeon to those people. I had never taken a course at a medical school and knew very little about medicine or surgery. But I had books and studied them and did thebest I could. The hardest surgical cases I had were the result of little love-taps by old Mr. Hootz, the big brown bear. This bear is almost identical, except in color, withursus horribilis, the grizzly—he is as large and ferocious and as hard to kill. Farther west in Alaska he has the true grizzly color and is called the silver-tip; but in Southeastern Alaska he is a rich brown, the female being much lighter in color than the male.

Once the Indians brought to me a man who had been foolish enough to shoot a hootz with his smooth-bore musket. The bear charged on the Indian, gave him one tap with his paw and went away. The poor man presented a horrible appearance. One eye was torn out, the skin of one side of his face torn loose and hanging down on his shoulder, the cheek laid entirely open. I did my best for him, washed his awful wound, replaced the skin on his face and took many stitches; but I couldn't make a pretty man of him.

Another Indian was hunting in the spring when he came across a little brown cub, and thought he would have a fine pet. He had just caught the little fellow and was trying to hush its cries, when suddenly the mother-bearcame on him like an avalanche and he was knocked senseless. When he came to, hours afterwards, he was unable to move. The bear had torn off much of his scalp with the first blow, and then had bitten and chewed him from head to foot, injuring his spine, so that he could never walk again. I dressed twenty-one wounds which the angry she-bear had given him.

But the greatest example of the strength and ferocity of the hootz of which I ever knew was afforded by the adventure of an Irishman—a gold-prospector, whom we called Big Mike. He was a giant in stature—over six feet, broad and stalwart, physically the king of the Cassiar miners. He was a good-natured, happy-go-lucky fellow, a typical gold-prospector, making money very fast at times and spending it just as fast. Like the most of the miners of the Cassiar region (which was reached by traveling by steamboat from Victoria to Fort Wrangell, then by canoe or river steamboat up the Stickeen River a hundred and fifty miles, then across country by pack-train from one hundred to two hundred miles, according to the location of the "diggings"), Mike made Fort Wrangell hisstopping place to and from the Cassiar, sometimes wintering there.

One day Dave Flannery, another Irishman, whose Stickeen wife was a member of my mission, came hurriedly up to my house.

"I wish you'd come down and see Big Mike," he said; "he's hurrt bad."

I found Mike in one of the miners' shanties on the beach, lying on a bed, entirely helpless. He could only use his arms, his legs being paralyzed. This was the story he told me:

"Me an' me partner, Steve," he began, "has been prospectin' up the Iskoot." (A tributary of the Stickeen which runs into it about twenty-five miles from its mouth.) "Ye know the Iskoot—a domd bad river—little flat islands thick as spots on a burrd-dog—th' river swift an' shaller—lots av quick-sands an' rocks everywhere—th' shores an' th' islands all matted thick wid trays an' underbrush—big fallen trays lyin' across one anodher an' odher trays growin' out av thim—an' alders, willows, divil-clubs and salmon-berry bushes thicker'n hair on a cat.

"Well, me an' Steve set up our tint by a trickle av cold water in a side gulch, an' thought to spind th' sayson prospectin'. Th' thickets an' brush has scared off prospectors, an' it's new counthry. A wake ago Oi made up me pack for four or five days' prospectin'—blankets, fly tint, an' some grub, wid gold-pan, pick, shovel an' coffee-pot on top.

"Afther an hour o' harrd worrk Oi'd got mebby half a moil from camp, when Oi come to Sathan's own pile o' logs an' brush, stuck up ev'ry-which-way, wid bushes an' divil-clubs atween. Ye cuddn't see a yarrd. Oi tackled it as well as Oi cud wid me pack, an' got onto th' top log. Th' brush wuz that thick Oi cuddn't see pwhat wuz undher me. Oi tuk hold av a limb an' swung down into th' bushes. But before I touched th' groun'—gr-r-r—woof! somethin' of fur an' iron was all over an' aroun' me; me breath was squshed out o' me; somethin' was tearin' the cords out o' me neck an' shouldher, an' me back was bruk intoirly.

"Oi've some repitation as a sthrong man, an' Oi've niver met th' man Oi cuddent down in a fair wrassle; but this thing thut had me didn't play fair. He tuk a foul hold o' me when Oi wasn't lookin', an' niver guvme a chanst to break ut. Whin Oi swung down me left arrum wuz straight up, aholt av th' limb, an' the right wan wuz steadyin' me pack. Th' brute pinned that fast, an' Oi cud no more move it than a baby cud lift a ton.

"When Oi got me sinses gathered togither, an' knowed Oi wuz in the clutches av a bear, me dandher riz an' Oi thought av me knoif. 'Twas in a scabbard on me roight hip, an' that han' was hild toight agin me pack. Me blankets saved me ribs from bein' all stove in.

"Oi tried to twist aroun' an' git me knoif wid me lift han', but it was loik a mouse thryin' to pry off th' paws av a cat. Me fate wuz aff th' groun' an' Oi had no purchase. At las' Oi got ahold av th' handle av th' knoif. Jist as Oi felt me sinses lavin' me Oi got th' knoif an' begun to dig it wid all me strent into th' bear's belly, workin' upwards an' thryin' fer his heart. Thin ev'rythin' wint black.

"Whin Oi come to th' sun was hoigh. Ut must o' bin tree hours Oi laid there sinseless. Oi throied to git up, but me legs wuz dead. Oi cud pull mesilf up a little wid me arrms, an' there Oi saw fur th' furrst toimth' baste thut bruk me. He wuz lyin' besoid me, stone dead. 'Twas all th' joy Oi had.

"Well, there Oi wuz, undher all th' logs an' brush, an' down in a little hollow in th' muck—an' helpless. 'Twas too fur away to make Steve hear. Oi hollered as best Oi cud, but 'twas no use. Th' bear hadn't left me much breath. Then Oi thought Oi'd thry annyhow. Me arrums wuz good, an' th' bushes wuz thick, so Oi begun to pull meself along troo th' muck by me hands, usin' me knoif whin th' bushes blocked me. It tuck me two hours to gain th' top av th' hill in soight av th' camp, an' anither to make a flag av a bit o' ma shurrt an' wave it on a pole so that Steve cud see it. He drug me down to camp, put me in th' canoe, an' here Oi am wid all th' man squose out av me, bad cess to th' bear. Ef anny one says anny man c'n fight anny bear wid his two han's an' bate it, tell 'im from me he's a loiarr."

We raised a purse and sent Big Mike on the monthly steamboat to Victoria. He lived several years. They gave him the position of watchman on the wharves, and we used to see him—a pathetic figure, creeping slowly about the dock, first with apair of crutches and then with a cane. He was never a man again, after his encounter with the hootz.

Native Houses, Showing Totem Poles

In such a house Snook lived

But although the hootz was so strong and so fierce there was in almost every Indian tribe one who would attack and kill him. In the Stickeen tribe this man's name was Snook. Tilly, our star pupil and my interpreter, proudly pointed him out, one day when I was down in the Indian village, as her granduncle and the head of the family.

I had never before seen Snook. He never came to church or to my house. He must have been sixty or sixty-five years old—a great, stalwart, big-boned savage with a huge head and a tremendous jaw. He was almost always absent from Fort Wrangell, hunting in the mountains or fishing among the islands. "My gran'fader, the greatest hootz-hunter in the world," was Tilly's introduction.

It was on the occasion of a visit with Tilly to the community house of her family. As she spoke she went behind the carved totemic corner post which supported the roof, and brought forth old Snook's most valuable and proudest possession. It was a beautiful spear. The shaft was of crabapplewood and eight feet long, thick enough for a good grip, and polished until it shone like brown granite. It was carved all over with the totemic images of the eagle and the brown bear, the totems of Snook's family. The head was made of a large steel rasp and was a foot and a half long, five inches across in the widest place, finely pointed, the edges sharp as a razor. The handle of the spear-head was let into the end of the shaft in a very ingenious way, and secured by many tightly wrapped turns of a cord of deer-sinew. It was a most perfect and ferocious weapon. I learned that the chief of another tribe had offered a slave, whose value was five hundred blankets, for the spear, and his offer had been refused.

All efforts to get Snook to talk about his hunting exploits were unavailing. He only grunted and went on with some carving with which he was occupied. But Sam Tahtain, a member of Snook's family, who was noted for his powers of oratory, described most graphically, in a mixture of Chinook, Thlinget and bad English, Snook's way of killing the big bears. He acted it so perfectly that even if I had not understood a word, the scene would have stood out veryvividly before my mental vision. He showed the hootz grubbing among mossy logs and flirting the salmon out of a swift mountain stream; then Snook came in sight, creeping stealthily through the forest, a flintlock musket in one hand, his spear in the other. From that point the story grew more animated and the gestures more rapid to the climax. I can best tell it in the present tense:

The bear hears a stick snap and catches a faint human odor; he stands up on his hind feet to investigate. His lips are drawn back from his big teeth, and he snarls a question.

The man dodges behind a tree; creeps closer—cautiously flits from tree to tree—moves slowly out from a sheltering trunk—sinks on one knee—raises his gun—aims. "Bang!" from the gun,—"wah-a-ah-gr-r-r!" from the bear. The bear whirls round and round, biting his wound; then he charges straight for the man, his teeth champing, his jaws slavering.

The man throws away the gun and takes his spear in both hands. He steps boldly out in the open and stands still, his left foot advanced, his spear slanting upwards,braced for the shock. The bear comes galumphing on, his hair on end, his sideways strut showing his anger and his readiness for the battle.

When within a few feet of the man the bear stops short with a startling "Woof!" and stands upright on his hind feet. The man knows this habit of the hootz, and seizes the opportunity. He springs forward before the bear is steadied on his two feet and thrusts mightily with his spear. The bear strikes viciously at the man and howls hoarsely. A stream of red gushes out from the wide wound. Now the bear attacks, his fangs gleaming, his long claws standing stiffly out. He jumps and strikes and slashes with his teeth at the man.

The man is alert—firm and sure on his feet—quick as lightning, yet steady. He dodges and leaps about the bear, feinting and thrusting. Again and again the spear goes home. The froth from the bear's jaws is bloody now, while the man's face is covered with drops of sweat. The breath of both comes in gasps. The air seems full of violent motion and raucous sounds. At every fresh wound the bear howls—"wa-a-ah"—this changes immediatelyto a vicious growl as he rears on his hind feet again and rushes to the fray. The man begins to shout his war-cry—"hoohooh—hoohooh"—as he jabs his terrible weapon into the bear's breast.

The bear is visibly weakening. His eyes grow dim, his rushes and blows have less steel and lightning in them. The man begins to taunt him, "Oh, you big-chief hootz—I thought you brave man—strong man. You no brave—no strong. You just like baby. Why you no stand up, fight like man?"

At last the bear, sick and faint with loss of blood, but game to the end, stands with paws outstretched, swaying like a drunken man. The man comes close, and, bending back to gain force for his blow, thrusts upward and forward with all his strength, striking just under the bear's breast bone and buries the spear-head, splitting the heart in two. Over on his back topples the great beast, his paws feebly twitching, his last breath bringing with it a great rush of blood.

The man, as soon as he can recover breath, puts his foot on the bear's neck, singing in quaint minor strain a brief songof triumph. Then he hastens to prop the bear's mouth open with a stick, to let his spirit go forth in peace, and he also places between the dying jaws a piece of dried salmon, that the bear may not lack food when he goes to join thehoots-kwany—the bear-people, in that spirit land of forests and mountains to which all brown bears, good and bad, must go.

Sam Tahtain was a little man, in striking contrast with his giant brother, Snook, but he entered into his recital with infinite energy, dancing about the floor, striking and thrusting, acting the bear's part and then the man's, shouting and growling out his words; and when he had finished, his own face was bathed in perspiration. His acting was an artless piece of art, very perfect in its way; and it certainly thrilled the Indians who had drawn around in an eager circle as the recitation proceeded, their fervent indrawn exclamations of wonder and admiration supplying the most genuine applause.

But I must confess that the antics of the little man, and his evident pride in his own performance, struck me as irresistibly funny; and I could not help recalling a verse I hadlearned when a boy:

"Little man with the wild, wild eye,Man with the long, long hair,Why do you dance about the floor?Why do you beat the air?Why do you howl and mutter so?Why do you shake your fist?"Said the little man, in a deep, deep voice,"I'm an el-o-cu-tion-ist!"

But the Indians saw nothing funny in Sam's oratory—it thrilled them through and through. Even old Snook, the hero of the story, ceased his carving, fixing his eyes intently on the speaker, and rewarding him with a fervent "Kluh-yukeh!" To exactly translate that exclamation will require a paraphrase—"My, but that was good!"

But Tilly thought only of the glory of her granduncle. Her eyes shone with pride, and she whispered to me, "Isn't my gran'fader, Snook, just the bravest man you ever heard of? Why, he isn't afraid of anything."

The other Indians also yielded Snook the palm for courage and strength. They looked upon him as a sort of Indian superman, lauding him in their speeches, and being careful not to offend him. He was thehero of the Stickeens.

And, indeed, I was much of the same opinion. Certainly a man who would stand up, single-handed, to a grizzly and kill him with a spear, must have unqualified nerve and courage. Surely nothing on earth could frighten a mighty bear-hunter like that.

Well, listen. A few days after this visit to Snook's house I was sitting in my house, which was within the stockade of the old fort. The posts of this stockade, some twelve feet high and firmly spiked together, had been put in place about sixteen years before, when the fort was first established. Although many of the posts were rotting, the circle enclosing the parade ground, barracks, hospital and officers' quarters was still unbroken. Our house was one of the old officers' dwellings and not far from the gateway which led "up the beach" towards the Indian village of temporary houses in which the "foreign Indians"—those from distant tribes—encamped. On the other side of the fort another gateway led "down the beach," through the town with its stores and white man's houses, to the large community houses of the Stickeens. To go fromone Indian town to the other you had to pass through the fort.

It was a lovely, sunny day in midsummer. Everything was peaceful about the old fort. School was in session in the old hospital, our little children were playing on the grass, and our old cow, "Spot," was feeding in the gateway.

This cow was a little black and white Holstein which the ladies of Pennsylvania had purchased for Mrs. Young's training-school, and to supply our babies and the native babies with fresh milk. She was the first cow which had been brought to Fort Wrangell, and was a great curiosity and wonder to the Indians. The Thlingets had no name for cattle, because these animals were not known in Alaska; so they adopted the Chinook name—moosmoos—and, owing to the Thlingets' inability to pronounce any consonant that brings the lips together, they called it "wusoos."

Our little "wusoos" was gentle and tame as a kitten. Our children used to hang onto her tail, and feed her bunches of grass and leaves of cabbage. Once I came upon a group that made me laugh. "Spot" was lying down and placidly chewing her cud;Abby, aged five, was seated between the cow's horns; while Alaska (Lassie), who was three, with her little dog, Jettie, in her arms, was sprawling on Spot's back.

This peaceful summer's morning the cow was cropping the grass by the gate. Suddenly the silence was shattered by a strong Indian voice, pitched high through fear, calling to me: "Uh-eedydashee; uh-eedydashee, uh-Ankow; uh-eedydashee!" (Help me; help me, my chief; help me!)

I ran quickly out of the house and through the gateway in the direction of the cries, which were growing more agonizing. I thought somebody was being murdered. I rushed past "Spot," who was calmly munching grass, undisturbed by the hullabaloo. At first I could see nobody; then I discovered the huge bulk of old Snook, the hootz-hunter, crouching behind a stump. His face was as pale as its coating of smoke and grease would permit, and he was shaking like a leaf.

"Why, Snook!" I cried in Thlinget, "what's the matter? Is anything wrong in the Indian village?"

He pointed a trembling finger towards the cow and quavered, "Drive that thingaway!"

The thought of that famous old bear-hunter, scared to death at my gentle old cow, was too much for me, and I burst into a roar of laughter. When I had recovered my powers of speech and locomotion I walked to "Spot" and put my arm over her neck.

"This is ashawat wusoos" (a woman cow), I explained. "She will not hurt anybody. See how kind and gentle she is."

Snook was unconvinced. His eyes were fixed in fascinated terror upon "Spot," and he dodged at every motion of her head.

"Eehya-a-ah!" he answered in contempt, "she knows white man; she doesn't know Indian. See the sharp horns on her head!" and he refused to come away from the shelter of the stump until I had driven "Spot" away some distance; and even then he sidled past, eyeing her apprehensively and then hurrying through the gateway and across the parade ground with the air of one who has escaped deadly peril.

The memory of Snook and the cow has often braced me up when I was tempted to retreat from the path of duty, because I did not know what was in the gateway, or becauseof unfamiliar obstacles. It is the unknown that terrifies us. If we march right up to the bugaboos that stand across our way, we will find the terrible horned monster change into something no more harmful than a gentle old cow.

NINA AND THE BEARS

Allthese stories are true, in their essential points. In some of them, however, I have to change or suppress the names of persons and towns, because the characters introduced are still living, and might not like publicity. That is the case in this story.

Ever since the great gold stampede of 1897 into the Klondike, it has been my duty, as it certainly has been my pleasure, to follow the new gold stampedes into different parts of Alaska, and be at the beginning of most of the new gold camps and towns of the great Territory of the Northwest. Of course I began preaching as soon as I arrived at one of these camps, holding my first services on log piles, under the trees, in tents or saloons or lodging houses—wherever I could gather together a congregation.

Always, the next thing was to start a Sunday-school, if there were any children in thecamp, or at least a Bible class, if there were only grown people. I always had hymn-books and a baby-organ along, and was sure of finding people to play the organ and sing. The gold-seekers are not all roughs and toughs, as some people think, but just such people as may be seen in the States, and a large proportion of them are Christians.

One of the greatest of these gold stampedes occurred in the heart of Alaska—in the center of a great wilderness until then unexplored. A rich vein of gold was struck deep down in the frozen ground. The news spread, and soon thousands of eager gold-seekers from all parts of Alaska, from the Pacific States, from Canada, and later from all parts of the United States came over the mountains from the coast, down the Yukon from Dawson City, up the Yukon from Nome and from other directions; traveling by steamboat, poling boat and canoe on the rivers, and with dog-sled, horse-sled and hand-sled in the winter over the mountains, and with packs on their backs and guns in their hands in the summer.

Of course I was with the crowd. I never liked to miss the fun of a great scramble like that. When I got to the big new camp Iset up my tent and began to prepare a preaching-place and to advertise a meeting for the next Sunday by putting up posters on stumps and trees. I also called the children to come and be organized into a Sunday-school. About twenty children came the first Sunday.

Among them was a pretty little Swedish girl, named Nina. She had blue eyes, flaxen hair and rosy cheeks, and was about twelve years old. She won my heart at once, and soon we were great chums. She was so bright and pleasant and sweet, and such a fearless and intelligent outdoor girl, that one could not help loving her. She was always at Sunday-school and church, always knew her lessons, and sang so heartily and tunefully that people turned their heads to see her, and her sunny smile drew answering smiles even from care-worn faces.

I soon found that among Nina's accomplishments she was already a good shot with both rifle and shotgun; and when the snow began to fall in October I took her with me on a couple of rabbit-hunts, and her glee at getting the biggest bag of snow-shoe rabbits was very enjoyable. Rabbits formedour principal meat-supply that winter.

When the cold weather of November covered the rivers, creeks and lakes with ice and carpeted the hills and valleys with snow, a big stampede occurred away from the town of log houses into which the camp of tents had grown. Almost every one who had a dog-team and sled packed up an outfit of food, blankets, tent and sheet-iron stove, and "mushed" away into the mountains, prospecting for gold. If no dogs were available, two men, or sometimes a man and his wife, would harness themselves to a sled with their outfit aboard, and, depending upon their guns for their meat supply, would cheerily set forth into the trackless wild, following the water-courses until they found a likely-looking creek, when they would halt and build a snug log cabin, and spend the winter prospecting. To those who had courage, some knowledge of woodcraft and love of nature, this adventurous life was very enticing. Thousands of men in Alaska, to this day, spend their summers in the towns, working at their trades or professions, and then, on the approach of winter, invest the money they have earned in an outfit of provisions, tools and ammunition, and burythemselves in the wilderness again. It is a great life; and I have often felt strongly tempted to leave everything and join these brave spirits for a winter's stay in the McKinley range of mountains.

One day, about the middle of November of that year, little Nina came into our house and threw herself into our arms, crying as if her heart would break.

"Why, Nina dear," asked my wife, "what is the matter? Is any one sick or dead?"

"Oh, no," she sobbed, "but I can't come to Sunday-school any more. Papa and Mamma and I are going away off into the mountains to-morrow, and we'll never come back here again."

We petted and soothed her, the best comfort I could give her being the thought of the great hunting adventures that were before her. So the wilderness swallowed up my brave little friend, and for eight years I had no word of her. By that time I was at another large gold camp, in a distant part of the great Yukon Valley.

I was the only minister in a region larger than Pennsylvania. My parish extended from two to five hundred miles in differentdirections from the camp in which I wintered. That winter I traveled with my dogs between two and three thousand miles, in preaching and exploring trips. Magazines, papers and books sent me by churches, Sunday-schools, Boys' Scouts, and women's missionary societies, I found three hundred miles from my central reading room, in miners' and trappers' cabins and in roadhouses to which I had sent them.

About the middle of the winter I was delighted to get a letter from Nina. It was written from a point about two hundred and fifty miles distant, in that great game-stocked region which lies west of the Alaska Range, of which Mt. McKinley, "The Top of the Continent," is the highest peak. It was a cheery, girlish letter—just such an one as I might have expected from Nina—grown-up. It told me of her marriage, two years before, to a young man whom I had known—one who had loved her when she was a little girl, had followed her and her parents to the western wilderness, waited patiently for her to grow up, and, now that they were married, seemed to her all that was admirable and complete in manhood. It was her one romance and wasvery sweet and perfect.

Nina and her husband were living in a large cabin on one of the trails that led from the Interior to the Coast. Nina called it a roadhouse, and, though low and dark, with only poles for floor, and pole-bunks for beds, it was fitted for the accommodation of a dozen travelers. Nina was queen of a wide realm. Her cabin was a hundred and twenty-five miles from that of the nearest white woman. They were two hundred miles from the nearest store. They were in the heart of the richest game region of North America—the western foot-hills of the Alaska Range. They were prospectors for gold in the summer; farmers, raising their own potatoes and vegetables and wheat for their chickens; trappers during the winter; hunters all the time; and hotel-keepers during the six months when snow and frozen streams and lakes lured travelers along the lonely trail.

There was in Nina's letter, however, no hint of loneliness; rather a joyful tone of contentment, as one of God's favored creatures; and of comradeship with the things about her—the mountains, the forests and the myriads of animals, small and great.She invited me to come and make them a long visit and have a big hunt. Her letter also spoke of the one need in her life that I could supply—Bibles, books and magazines.

Very few travelers came my way who had passed Nina's that winter, but from most of them I heard of my little chum, and always in terms of enthusiastic praise.

"I am a city man," said a young lawyer from Seattle, "and am in this wild land just long enough to make my stake and get back to the rattle of the street-cars. The 'call of the wild' has no allurement for me. There is just one thing that could make me settle down in Alaska, and that is to find such a mate as that little woman."

"Know her?" repeated a rugged, black-eyed man of thirty whom I had met on the Chilcoot Pass in '97. "Who doesn't? Say; she's a great woman. Why, I'd go out of my way a hundred miles, any time, just to see her smile, and to taste her grouse-pie or roast sheep. Tell you what she did this last trip: As I swung into the edge of their clearin' a pair of sharp-tailed grouse flew up to the top of a dry spruce, a hundred yards from the cabin. Nina was complainin' that she had no makin's of grouse pie in thehouse, knowin' my likin' for the same. I told her about the two I'd scared up. 'Lend me a shotgun,' I said, 'and I'll go back and try for a shot at them.' We stepped to the door for a look. There set the two grouse on the spruce, lookin' like robins agin the sky. Nina took down a twenty-two rifle from the wall and put some 'extra-long' shells in the magazine. I thought she was goin' to give the gun to me, and I planned to sneak back till I got under the birds before riskin' a shot; but she stood in the doorway and swung the rifle up quick and easy. Crack, crack! and dogged if them chickens didn't come tumblin' right down. I never seen such shootin'. Then she slipped on her snow-shoes and went and got the grouse and made me my pie. She's sure a little bit of 'all right.'"

I asked him if he had seen the magazines and Bibles I had sent her. With a sheepish grin he took out of his pocket a little red Testament, and handed it to me. I saw his name on the fly-leaf with her initials under it.

"First I've carried since I was a kid," he confessed. "And she made me promise toreadit! A woman that can be a brightlittle Christian in a place like that, and a dead game sport, too, can make me do most anything. Joe [Nina's husband] is a lucky guy."

Naturally such reports as these made me all the more anxious to see this queen of the wilderness again. The necessity of taking a seven-hundred-mile trip to the Coast in March gave me the opportunity.

Oh, boys, you'll never know the real joy of living till you take a winter trip with dog-sled in Alaska. The keen, fine air, lung-filling, invigorating; your dogs yelping with eagerness, their feet twinkling, the sled screaming its delight; frost-diamonds sparkling from every branch, frost-symphonies played by the ice-harps under your feet; your own struggle, achievement, triumph, against and over the cold, the difficulties of the trail, the long miles.

Back to Index Next