VIII

"The morning breaks, the stars grow pale,Your huskies leap, shrill shrieks the sled;You follow free with flying tread;A joy to live! What joy! to threadThe fluted ribbon of the trail."

It was near the sunset of a beautiful, bright day that I swung into Joe's clearing.For three days I had been headed almost directly towards Dinali—The Great One, and Dinah's Wife (Mt. McKinley and Mt. Foraker). Higher and higher these majestic mountains heaved their mighty shoulders. The country became more broken and rugged. Lesser mountains raised their white heads all around me. Only a few inches of snow covered the ground instead of the six to ten feet that prevailed farther west. The character of the trees had changed—more birch, cottonwood and other deciduous timber; less tamarack, hemlock and swamp spruce.

Signs of abundant life were everywhere. Fox, wolf, lynx and wolverine tracks criss-crossed the snow in all directions; great moose tracks going in a straight line, and the imprint of thousands of caribou hoofs crossing and obliterating each other, but keeping in the same general direction showed the presence of abundance of big game; while grouse, ptarmigan and rabbit tracks were so numerous that my dogs were kept excited and on the "keen jump" every minute.

On the bank of a small river, in a clearing of a couple of acres cut out of a forestof great fir and cedar trees, stood Joe's log-cabin roadhouse. Enough of the big trees had been left standing to shade the house. In front of it were a dozen cozy log dog-kennels, and behind it was a garden enclosed in a picket and wire fence.

As soon as "Leader's" bells gave shrill notice of my arrival the door flew open, a bright little figure in gingham and moccasins, with yellow hair flying and blue eyes sparkling, rushed at me, and I received the first good hug that I had experienced since leaving my wife and daughters in the East a year before.

A cheery voice cried, "Oh, you dear old man, you. I've been watching for you every day for two weeks. I was so afraid you weren't coming!"

Joe's welcome, though not so demonstrative, was none the less hearty. It was worth dog-mushing two hundred and fifty miles to have such a reception. As soon as I stepped into the house I was made keenly aware that I was in the home of hunters and trappers. In all my wide experience of wilderness homes I had never seen one like this. The long, low cabin had two rooms. The smaller was kitchen anddining-room, having a sheet-iron range and home-made tables, shelves and chairs. The larger room had a good sized sheet-iron heating stove in the center, and was almost filled with bunks in tiers of three each, built in double rows the length of the room. A little chamber enclosed with snowy caribou buck-skin, the skins sewn together most skillfully with sinew thread, was Nina's bedroom. The poles which formed the floors had been hewn and laid so carefully that they looked like boards. The tables and shelves were of whipsawed lumber, every article showing painstaking skill.

"Joe and I made the cabin and everything in and about it, all ourselves," Nina boasted.

"What!" I exclaimed, "you two rolled up these heavy logs, without any help?"

"Yes, indeed. We used block-and-tackle. It isn't so hard when you know how; and it was great fun."

"But the lumber for the doors and tables and window-sash—it's so true and smooth and beautiful; how did you get that?" I asked.

"Whipsawed and hand-planed it all," she replied. "You see, we came here twoyears ago this month, just after we were married. The Government was surveying this trail, and we thought we'd build this roadhouse and pick up a few dollars taking care of travelers. But chiefly we chose this place because it was so beautiful and such a game country. Then it has never been prospected for gold.

"Joe and I each had a good dog-team and sled when we were married. We loaded the sleds with tools, hardware, stoves and dishes, glass for the windows, some flour, sugar, beans and a few other groceries, and brought our traps and plenty of ammunition for our guns. It was hard breaking trail through the deep snow on the east side of the Alaska Range, but nice going on this side. We mushed the two hundred and fifty miles from the coast in two weeks; and had some time for trapping before warm weather."

"How do you get 'outside' in the summer time?" I inquired.

"We can't, and we don't need to. We spent that first summer building this house, making garden, gathering berries, drying fish, hunting and getting ready for the winter. Almost all our wants are supplied righthere. From the middle of April till the middle of October we don't see a human being, except now and then an Indian, or a stray prospector."

"What a lonesome life!" I exclaimed.

"Now, Doctor, I know you don't mean that," protested Nina. "Why, this is the most companionable place in the world. It is full of friendly creatures. The winter before I was married I spent three months in San Francisco. I nearly died, I was so lonely and homesick. I'd meet thousands of people on the streets every day, and not get a word or smile from one of them. I wouldn't give my little 'Red' for the whole crowd."

"Who's Red?" I asked.

Nina leaned forward and made a squeaking noise with her lips. Instantly a little furry creature of a bright scarlet color, with a short tail, jumped out of a box in the corner, ran to her and up her hand and arm to her shoulder and then down to her knee, where he stood stiffly erect like a soldier at attention. He was so quick and comical in his motions and so full of tricks that he kept us laughing.

"I had three Reds," explained Nina, "but a weasel got two of them before I got the weasel. I have had many other pets besides the wood-mice. There isn't a creature in all the forest that would do me harm unless I hurt it first. And I don't have a grudge against any of them, except the hawks and owls that come after my chickens."

The most striking feature about the cabin, however, was the abundance and variety of furs and other trophies of the chase. Adorning and almost covering one end of the room was an enormous moose head. At the other end was a wonderful caribou head. Over the windows were beautiful heads of the white mountain sheep, the bighorn of the Northwest.

But the pelts! Great bunches of mink, marten, fisher, otter, muskrat and beaver; scores of red fox, with here and there a priceless black or silver fox; lynx, wolf, wolverine and black bear.

"We have four lines of traps, each five miles long," explained Nina; "and Joe and I each take two lines every other day, spending the alternate days caring for the skins. We are making bear traps now, getting ready for Bruin when he comes out of hisden. We have about four thousand dollars' worth of furs caught this winter, and we'll make it five before warm weather."

But the most imposing objects of all in the cabin were two tremendous rugs—the skins of theursus gigasor Kodiak bear—the largest of existing carnivorous mammals. Joe had learned something of taxidermy, and the heads were nicely preserved, the big teeth and claws showing, the skins being lined with red blankets. The largest of these rugs was over twelve feet long, the distance from nose to tail over ten feet, the lateral spread being almost as great. The fur was a rich brown in color, deep, thick and soft.

At my exclamation of wonder and admiration, Joe began eagerly to tell me the story of the rugs; but his wife stopped him.

"Better wait till after supper, Joe," she said.

Ah, that supper! The supreme physical pleasure of it lingers in my memory still. Moose soup with potatoes, turnips, carrots and onions from their garden in it; fresh grayling, caught in the fall and frozen; ruffed grouse pie; roast mountain sheep—the best meat that grows; omelet made ofeggs laid that day; moose-nose cheese, delicately pickled; fine sour-dough bread with raspberry jam and currant jelly; pie made of fresh blueberries, the berries having been picked in the fall and preserved by the simple process of pouring water on them and letting them freeze. All of these viands, except the bread, being the products of Nina's labor or marksmanship, made them doubly sweet. Where else in the world could you get a meal like that—or the appetite to devour it all?

"Well," began Joe, when, sated, I lay back in the easy-chair curiously fashioned of moose horns, while the young couple washed the dishes, "I'm mighty proud of them rugs. They're Nina's, both of 'em, and I reckon there's no other girl in the world would of tackled the job she did, and got away with it. It scares me every time I think of it, and I don't know whether I'd oughter scold her or pet her up."

"Nonsense!" protested his wife; "you know you'd have done exactly as I did if you'd been here."

"Maybe I would," he retorted, "but I wouldn't of letyoutake that risk."

Five Kodiak Bears

The bear to the right is twice the size of a Grizzly

"It was the first of last November," he resumed. "I'd taken the two sleds and all the dogs, as soon as I thought the ice was strong enough, and I'd gone two hundred miles to the store at Ophir to lay in our winter's outfit. The ice towards the coast wasn't strong enough to make safe mushin', and Nina was all alone here for more'n three weeks. I knowed she would make the reg'lar round of the traps and keep things goin' just as usual. She's never learned to be afraid—that girl.

"Well, one mornin' she was gettin' breakfast, when she heard a little noise outside. She opened the door, and there, within twenty-five feet of her, were three big Kodiak bears. Two of them stood up on their hin' feet when she opened the door, while the other kept smellin' around for grub."

"Goodness, Nina!" I exclaimed. "What was your first thought when you saw the big brutes so close?"

"Well," she answered, smiling, "my first thought was, 'What beautiful rugs those are on the backs of the bears! I want those rugs.'"

"Yes," Joe went on, "and so she stepped slowly back, inch by inch into the house,and softly closed the door so as not toscarethe bears—they as big as a house and her such a leetle mite of a thing. She took down that 30-40 Winchester, there, and filled the magazine full (it chambers ten); and then she done a plumb foolish thing. I know darned well what I'd 'a' done. I'd 'a' poked the moss out between the logs, there, and stuck my rifle through and had some 'vantage."

"What did Nina do?" I asked.

"Why, she threw the door wide open and stepped right out in front of it. Up came all three bears, this time, on their hind feet. Nina's lightnin' on the snap shot, and before the big he-bear was straightened up he got it right between the eyes. Down he tumbled, and the other two was out of sight around the kennel there before she could throw another shell into the gun and aim." Joe pointed to a log dog-house about two rods in front of the door.

"Nina raced pell-mell past the kennel to get another shot, and there she saw the big she-bear, standin' up behind the dog-house, awaitin' for her, not a gun's length away. Nina swung around and fired pointblank into the bear's breast. It went down onall-fours and came for her with open mouth. There was nothing for it but to keep on shootin'. She worked the lever of her gun mighty fast. She put five bullets into the beast before she quieted it. She never saw the third bear again."

"Why, Nina!" I cried, as soon as I could get my breath. "You foolish child! Your escape was miraculous! It frightens me to hear Joe tell of it. Weren't you dreadfully scared when you saw that great brute jump at you like that?"

"Oh, no," laughed the girl. "I was too busy to get scared. But I was awfully provoked because the other one got away."

Other details of Nina's great adventure followed—how it took her three days to skin the two bears, she having to climb a tree to adjust the block and tackle so as to move the heavy carcases; and how Joe "blubbered" when he got home and saw them, and knew the peril his beloved had encountered.

Nina is an exceptional woman, but still she is truly a type. There is something in "that great, big, broad land, way up yonder," that stiffens the moral fiber, enlarges the spirit and makes the people unafraid. The white settlers of Alaska, while by no meansall saints, are as a class the strongest, bravest and most resourceful people I know. I have not heard from my brave little chum for several years. I presume she is still living her joyous, fearless, Christian life in what John Muir used to call my "beautiful, fruitful wilderness." Here's to her; God bless her!

THE ABSURD WALRUS

LewisCaroll'sfamous lines about the Walrus and the Carpenter will always hold their place at the very top of humorous poems. For besides being funny they have a quality of truth which the careless reader little suspects:

"The time has come," the walrus said,"To talk of many things,Of shoes and ships and sealing wax,Of cabbages and kings;And why the sea is boiling hot,And whether pigs have wings."

The very few men who have been acquainted with the walrus in his native haunts know that the author of "Alice in Wonderland" in these verses "hits the nail on the head," and, perhaps unwittingly, gives an insight into the true character of the walrus as the most inconsistent, grotesque and absurd ofall beasts.

It was my good fortune the summer of 1913 to be one of a company of six hunters on board the three-masted power schooner,P. J. Abler, which sailed along the Alaskan and Siberian coasts for six thousand miles and pounded its way northward into the Arctic ice-pack to within sixteen degrees of the Pole.

The ship itself was of unusual pattern. Her owner called her theMudhen. Her three masts stood stiff and straight in a row and were the same height. Her lines were not particularly elegant, and her small engine could only push her through calm seas at the rate of five miles an hour. But she was a comfortable ship and had one quality in particular which overbalanced all the drawbacks and made her the boat for us—she was built for "bucking ice." She had extra heavy timbers, especially about her bow. In spite of her slowness, she was an ideal craft for venturing into Arctic ice-floes. She would come at a good speed, bow on, against a huge berg and bring up with a jar that would shake her as a rat shaken by a terrier, and send your plate of polar bear meat into your lap. Then she would recoverfrom her backward bounce and calmly proceed on her way undented and unharmed. Mr. Scull of Philadelphia, who has sailed the world over, could never get used to bumping the ice. He and I would be bent over the chess board, absorbed in a difficult situation, when—bang! would go the schooner against the ice, and recoil, trembling like a hound. I would grab for the tottering chessmen, while Scull would jump right into the air with his hair standing straight up on each side of his bald pate like the ears of a horned owl. He would rush frantically out of the cabin door, lean far over the vessel's side, train his big eye-glasses on the ship's bow and watch for signs of her filling. Then he would come back muttering strange words in any of the five or six languages of which he is the master, and resume his study of the game, only to repeat the performance at the next bump. "Oh!" he would say, "it hurts me more than it hurts the ship"; which was undoubtedly true. I always had better luck in chess with Scull when we were bucking ice.

The personnel of our party was like some landscapes, varied and interesting. The commander of the expedition and its manager,was Captain Kleinschmidt, sailor, miner, hunter, author and moving-picture man. He chartered theAblerand hired her crew, who were as cosmopolitan as it is possible for crew to be—the captain, a Swede; the mate, a Dane; the engineers (brothers) German-Americans; the cook, a "Jap"; the crew composed of one American, one Russian and five Eskimos. There were two taxidermists to take care of the birdskins, bugs, mammals, etc., collected.

Of the four hunters, who, with Captain Kleinschmidt, financed the expedition, three were from Philadelphia: Scull, our polyglot interpreter, a publisher of books; Collins, a manufacturer; and Lovering, a young man who had lived part of his life in Wyoming. The fourth, Dr. Elting, was a surgeon of reputation from Albany, N. Y. All were experienced hunters, Scull and Collins having followed trails in Africa and America, Dr. Elting in the Western States and Canada, and Lovering in the West. As for myself, the guest without responsibility or care, "taken along," as the captain said, "to lend dignity to the expedition," you can call me by my common names: "The Sour-dough Preacher," "The Mushing Parson," "TheAlaska Sky-Pilot," or any of half a dozen Northwestern cognomens, of all of which I am equally proud.

My object in joining this expedition was, first, to have a big hunt and a grand rest. But, more than the outing, I valued the privilege of exploring ground untrodden by the missionary, and, if possible, doing something towards bringing the Gospel to the heathen Eskimo of the Alaskan and Siberian shores.

We were all "out for a lark," glad beyond expression to be hundreds of miles from a telegram or newspaper, to be able to wear our dirty clothes and eat in our shirtsleeves without shame; to forget that such things existed as automobiles or stiff collars or dinner parties. We had four months of a royal good time—along the Asiatic Coast after Siberian sheep, on the Alaska Peninsula for caribou and brown bears, on Kenai Peninsula after moose, white sheep and black bear, among the islands of the Southern Alaska Coast and Bering Sea with the bird and seal rookeries, and pursuing polar bear amid the ice-floes of the Arctic Ocean.

We visited many Eskimo villages; we shot for the museums hundreds of varietiesof birds on the Siberian and Alaskan Coasts; we captured new species of beetles, moths, butterflies and other insects; the camera fiends and moving-picture man reveled in novel scenes, animate and inanimate. We buffeted storms, pounded ice and sailed sunny seas.

But the climax of our joyous outing was the three or four days we spent among the walrus herds off the Northern Siberian Coast. Scull and Collins, who had hunted everything in Africa from dikdik to rhinoceros, declared that none of their experiences in that continent approached in thrilling interest their days with the walrus herds.

For the walrus issui generis: there is no other mammal at all like him in appearance, habits, habitat or characteristics. He is the least known or written about of all the larger animals. No thorough study has ever been made of him. More is known of the habits of the extinct woolly elephant—the mammoth, whose bones, tusks, and even hair and skin we find on the Alaskan Coast—than the walrus. And what has been written and the common ideas concerning this animal are so erroneous as to be funny.

A century or so ago a naturalist-traveler, writing about the Eskimos and themorse, as the walrus was then called, said that the tusks of the animal are for the purpose of pulling himself up the icy mountains where he lives; that his habit is to thus work his way up to the top of the dizziest peak; that the Eskimos pursue him there and cut holes through the thick skin of his flippers unknown to the huge pachyderm, whose hide is impervious to sensation. Then, having passed strong ropes through these holes and tied them to the jutting crags, they raise a hullabaloo, and the walrus, alarmed, precipitating himself down the mountain, jerks off his skin, which the Eskimos then use in the construction of their boats and houses. The year before our hunt, a California gentleman, interested in Captain K.'s moving pictures, asked him whether the walrus brought forth their young alive or laid eggs and hatched them.

In May, 1913, when discussing my proposed outing with some of my ministerial brethren, at the General Assembly at Atlanta, a good Doctor of Divinity tried to deter me from undertaking it because of its dangerous character.

"Is it not true, Dr. Young," he asked with great solicitude, "that the walrus sometimes devours human flesh?"

I patiently explained that the walrus has no incisors, no teeth at all but flat grinders, level with the gums and far back in the jaws, "and therefore he cannot rend or eat anything so very tough as a missionary"; and that moreover his mouth is situated back of a narrow opening of three or four inches in width between his tusks, so that nothing bulky can enter it. "He might drown me but he couldn't eat me!"

The "D. D." listened with open skepticism and put this poser: "How then can he devour his prey?"

"What prey?" I asked.

"Why, the seals and salmon and other large sea animals on which he feeds."

Again I sternly suppressed my rising emotions: "But he doesn't eat these things. He couldn't catch them and doesn't want them. He is only a clam-eater. His tusks are not spears, but an admirably constructed clam-hoe. He could not live without them; and his stiff whiskers form a fine brush to clean the clams of mud before he dines off them."

The good brother glanced from one to another of the listening group with a look that plainly said: "How sad it is that such shameless prevaricators will even slip into the ministry;" and walked off muttering something about consulting "authorities."

Illustrating my own roving habits, while a pioneer missionary in Alaska, I have sometimes said, using a common simile, that I "had no more home than a jack-rabbit." I am changing this now to a stronger expression; "no more home than a walrus." He is the most constantly on the move of all the vagabonds. Even when sleeping he is moving, for the only home the poor fellow has is the ice-cakes which form in the Arctic Ocean and Bering Sea, entirely filling the former and in the winter crowding down the latter to about fifty-eight degrees, north latitude. The walrus herds, for the greater part of the year, keep on the borders of this great field of ice. In the summer when the Bering Sea ice melts and also that of the southern part of the Arctic Ocean, the walrus keeps on the flat ice-cakes which float over the great clam beds of these shallow seas. As the ice forms in the fall and the ice-floes extend southward he sets out on a long swim ahead of the fast freezing ice,resting occasionally on the Siberian shore, the Diomedes, St. Lawrence, St. Matthews and other islands. When the ice-field has extended to its southern limit he resumes his ice-house-boat habit and returns north in the spring.

So little is known of the life history of the walrus that I am unable to speak with confidence, but the young are evidently brought forth very early in the spring, April or May, and float with their mothers (the females and young herding together), up into the Arctic Ocean as far as the shoals off Wrangle Island, one hundred and fifty miles north of the Siberian Coast. There the little ones are guarded by the cows, which during the summer months are the only really dangerous walrus ever met with. Were the walrus the ferocious and combatant animal he is sometimes depicted, it would be a risky thing indeed to hunt him in skin boats or any other small craft. Imagine three or four tons of muscular fierceness, armed with strong, sharp, spearlike tusks, charging at you. The front part of his head is a solid mass of tough bone more than a foot thick. He could strike his tusks through your boat and sink it in an instant,or hook them over the edge and upset you, spearing you one by one in the water.

But the huge pachyderm is the most timid and good-natured of animals. It is only when the female fears for the safety of her young that she shows anything like ferocity. In 1911 Captain Kleinschmidt was taking moving pictures of the walrus herds. He had two catamarans, made by lashing two kyaks together with firm cross pieces. In the foremost craft two Eskimo hunters with their spears were paddling ahead, to slip up on the herds and harpoon them at the proper time, while the moving-picture man was in the other craft to take pictures of the herds and of the whole performance.

A herd of cows and their young had been frightened from an ice-cake into the water. Suddenly one of these cows thrust her tusks forward, the sign of a charge: "Look out!" cried K. to the Eskimo as the cow dived. They made frantic efforts to paddle their kyaks to the nearest berg, but the cow came up under the craft and slashed with her tusks one of the kyaks, ripping the bottom and filling it with water. The other kyak of the catamaran tilted dangerously, the Eskimo in the sinking one throwing himselfupon it, and the two frightened natives made their escape to the ice-cake. Coming to the surface again the cow sighted Captain K.'s catamaran, thrust her tusks forward again and dived; he saw her body deep in the water coming toward him and thought his time had come; but luckily when she struck the canoe had veered and received only a glancing blow. She came to the surface within a yard of the picture man, who had his rifle ready and thrust it against her brain and pulled the trigger, which ended that affair. But it was a perilous adventure, and one is liable to meet with such if he is so rash as to venture among the herds of the cows with their young.

During this hunt of ours, although we saw great herds aggregating hundreds of walrus, we did not see a cow or calf among them; only the big bulls herded together and occasionally a solitary one.

After passing Cape Prince of Wales into the Arctic Ocean we had a week of battling with winds and tide before we got into the ice-pack well up towards Wrangell and Herald Islands. We had another week of pounding ice, poking through the narrow "leads," constantly turning and running theother way in our effort to get to the shores where the walrus herds would feed.

We had fun with the polar bears, but, with one exception, saw no walrus for nearly two weeks of this strenuous fight. This one exception was a big old bull that we sighted reposing in solitary dignity on an ice-cake in the midst of this vast white solitude.

Captain K. took Dr. Elting with him in the kyaks which we manufactured into a catamaran, and while theAblerlay "off and on" the two hunters whom we watched through our field-glasses made their sinuous way behind ice hummocks through the narrow "leads" and around the jamming cakes of the ice-field. We saw them at last seemingly right upon the walrus, on the same cake. The big fellow was fast asleep in the uneasy fashion that all walrus and seal have of sleeping; that is, every two or three minutes they will raise their heads and move them back and forth, during which time the hunters must keep perfectly still and if possible behind the ice-cakes. The walrus, however, has not the keen sight of the seal, and is more easily approached.

Our hunters moored their skin boat on the ice-cake close to the walrus, crept up behind a hummock right upon him, and Dr. Elting put his bullet into the brain of the beast, which is situated in his neck, and not in what appears to be his head. It was an easy and not very exciting triumph. What possessed this old bull to lie there alone scores of miles from his companions, I do not know. He may have been there two or three weeks on that one ice-cake, as the Eskimos tell us this is sometimes their habit.

It was not until August eighteenth that we got sight of our first walrus herd, and then for three days we were right in the midst of them. We had been driven by buffeting winds and threatening ice-packs away from the vicinity of the islands far westward along the Siberian coast and were perhaps thirty or forty miles from land. The cry was raised from the "crow's nest": "Walrus!"

The appearance of the herd as we approached it was very unlike anything imagined by those who had not hitherto seen these animals. All sorts of comparisons crowd upon one's imagination when trying to describe them. Some of themlook like huge caterpillars and have an exactly similar motion, except that their antennæ are bent downward instead of upward. Sometimes when bunched up they look like immense squirrels. Sometimes when scratching themselves with their flippers they have the languid movements of a fashionable lady fanning herself; and again, when two are sparring at each other, they have the fierce mien of gladiators. But always there is that particularly comical edge about them that impels to irresistible laughter, as when one approaches a cage of monkeys. Their attitudes and motions are so unexpected and ridiculous.

I did little hunting myself but went with the other hunters in theoomiakor large skin boat; and I believe I got more enjoyment than any one else of the party; for I was not doing the killing, and was enjoying equally the misses and the hits of the others and, above all, the study of these huge and interesting brutes. Many of my preconceived notions, obtained by reading and by hearsay, were put to flight during those three or four days.

Only a few years ago a report to the Smithsonian Institute was published inwhich it was stated that the walrus were very watchful and wary, and that when reposing on the ice-cake they selected a large bull to climb the highest pinnacle and keep watch for foes, and that when he grew weary of his vigil and wished to sleep he would prod the bull next to him with his tusks and let him take his turn while the former watchman took a nap. It was thus inferred that the walrus scanned the region of ice with eagle eyes and had a system of signalling similar to the organized human gunboats or armies.

But this is all nonsense. The fact is that the walrus cannot see more than ten or twelve feet at the most, and even at that distance I doubt whether he can distinguish more than the mere outlines of any object. His eyes are the eyes of a fish, small and rudely constructed and exceptionally nearsighted. They are made for use in the dim depths of the sea. When the sun shines the walrus shut their eyes and apparently cannot open them. When alarmed they rush into the water and then come up and will crowd within five or six feet of the moving-picture man or hunter, bulging their eyes like those of a crab in frantic attempts tosee their foe.

We clad ourselves in white muslin parkas, and got ouroomiaksorkyaksboldly up under the noses of these great beasts with them staring down upon us. The only thing we had to guard against was their getting our wind. If we kept to leeward of them we were always out of their sight. The strange bulging of the eyes when excited gives a most grotesque appearance to the countenance of these walrus, as ordinarily their eyes are deep sunken in their heads.

Let me sketch a picture from life: It is the twentieth of August. We are in the vicinity of Cape North on the Northern Siberian coast. We are twenty or thirty miles offshore. The day is warm, sunny, still. The ship is tied to a large iceberg; a wilderness of floating ice-cakes stretches in every direction to the horizon. In some places these are massed together; again there will be little open places, and ragged leads, but everywhere ice, ice, ice. And it is all in motion; a slow heaving and grinding of the floe, and the tidal currents moving in different directions and with varied rapidity, but all trending northwest, the landscape—or seascape—changing every minute. Thereare herds of walrus all around us, some numerous, containing two or three hundred on one cake of ice, others small; here a group of four or five big bulls on a cake just large enough to hold them; then fifteen or twenty on a wider berg with little hummocks, up the slopes of which the big brutes crowd.

Scull and Lovering have taken the kyak-catamaran and are paddling to the nearest bunch of walrus not five hundred yards from the ship. Captain K. has launched the big skin boat, oroomiak, and is perched on the high stern, steering. His aeroscope moving-picture machine and graphlex camera, his field-glass and rifle are by him. "Eskimo Prank" and I are in front of him with our paddles; while Dr. Elting and Collins are in the bow, with paddles in their hands and their big Ross and Mannlicher rifles close by. We corkscrew our way through the ice, steering past a bunch of walrus on a small cake. "Small ice—lose um quick," says Prank. We are heading to a herd of twenty or thirty, with some big tuskers among them. We keep to the leeward of them, for the sense of smell seems to be their one keen sense, and even that doesnot compare in acuteness with the nose of the polar bear or the caribou.

Captain K. and "Eskimo Prank" are the only ones in our party who are perfectly calm and unexcited, and they seem to the rest of us rash and careless. The boat is steered right in sight of the herd, and we are getting close to them. Now the big, ugly heads of five or six which have been digging clams come up right alongside of us. Suddenly their heads rise high out of the water and their sunken eyes bulge out as they stare up into our faces. It takes a whole minute's scrutiny to satisfy them that we are enemies, and they go down with great splashing and blowing to come up again almost in the same place and stare at us again. So we are escorted up to the edge of the ice-cake on which the herd reposes. As a precaution against discovery we list theoomiakso that its side protects us from their sight.

We range alongside the cake; "Prank" and I hold it steady by clutching spurs of ice. The captain with his picture machines, and the hunters with their guns crawl out on the ice. They are clad in white parkas—but there is plenty to see about them in allconscience, and they make plenty of noise. We are only twenty or thirty feet from the nearest walrus. Two or three big bulls are on the hummock right above us. The captain and the hunters maneuver about, cautiously but sometimes in plain sight, and discuss, in voices clearly audible three times the distance, the question as to which have the best tusks, which lie most favorably for a good shot, in which hump of the neck the brain lies and just where to shoot. The captain gets his bulky aeroscope placed and sets the engine to buzzing and clacking. The hunters are waiting for the beasts to turn just right so as to expose the brain. For the brain of a walrus is as small as that of a rhinoceros in proportion to its size—about as big as one's two fists,—and you must know just where it is, and place your ball right through it, or your game will flop and flounder in his dying struggles and roll into the sea and you'll lose him. Hence the nervous care and uncertainty of the hunters. For ten or fifteen minutes we wait for the chance, the favorable moment.

But about that foolish sentinel story: A beast that cannot tell anoomiakfull of bipeds, or these same bipeds with guns or camerasfrom a fellow walrus at the distance of ten yards, doesn't plan and place a relay of watchmen. We learned from close and long observation that the walrus couldn't see us in the sunshine—their eyes were shut, or nearly so, and dim when open. Neither can they hear well. They have no external ear at all, only a tiny hole which requires close observation to discover. Even the near roar of a heavy rifle does not always alarm them, and hunters with smaller rifles have killed one after another of a whole herd until all were slain, without causing a stampede. Of course the repeated shots of two or three rifles close at hand will generally cause them to rush into the water, but even that does not always scare them. A heavy shot near by will bring all heads up, but if it is not repeated they will soon go to sleep again.

But what a thrilling time it was for me as I sat in the boat or on the ice-cake and watched the drama! It was far more comedy than tragedy. The great beasts, as heavy as elephants, were lying in bunches or rolling around like a lot of huge, fat hogs. Here a great bull with long tusks was lying on his back and scratching himself againstan ice hummock, wriggling and squirming like a Newfoundland dog. Another was curled up in an impossible heap and scratching the top of his head with his hind flipper. Another was making his way through a bunch of sleeping comrades, rolling them around or scrambling over them and fighting those that resented his intrusion. Some were swimming about the landing place of low ice and trying to scramble onto the cake, and these would disturb a whole bunch of the lazy animals and there would be trouble.

And the noises they made were as various and interesting as their positions. One huge fellow, so close to me that I could have punched him with a bamboo fishing-rod, shook his head slowly from side to side with shut eyes and groaned with a dismal falling cadence, for all the world like a fat old man with the rheumatism: "O-o-o-h: D-e-a-r me, d-e-a-r me; this world's a wilderness of woe!"

Another was optimistic, and his was a sigh of infinite content. "A-a-h-h!" he said, "what a nice, soft, warm bed this ice-cake is! How fat and delicious those clams were! And I don't believe there is one of those horrible, malodorous little human bipedswith his deadly bang-stick within a hundred miles of us." And there we were within twenty feet of him, trying to locate his brain-pan!

Some grunted like pigs in sheer laziness. Others barked sharply as they prodded each other with their strong, sharp tusks: "Get off my stomach, you lazy son of a clam-digger! Wow! Wow!"

Two of them were sparring like gladiators, raising their heads high and roaring defiance; but it was all good nature, for in a minute they were lying asleep, one with his head across the other's neck.

All their movements, attitudes and voices had such a droll element; all were so irresistibly funny that I wanted to lie down on my back and roar with laughter.

But our hunters wanted big heads and tusks as trophies; our Eskimos desired some hides to make theiroomiaksand to cover their houses; and we wanted tons of meat for the women and children of the Siberian villages. And so after a while the rifles roared and roared again and again, and the hunters moved close up, working their levers fast. The mad scramble of the walrus for the water was a most grotesque sight.They charged blindly ahead whichever way they happened to be lying, humping up their backs as they drew their hind flippers under them and stretching out again, just like the "woolly bear" caterpillars I used to tease when a boy. Those that escaped the volley splashed heavily into the water and dived deep, but presently they were all at the surface again, blowing and coughing, bunching in masses, crowding close to the feet of the moving-picture man, stretching their heads six feet out of the water, popping and rolling their ochre-colored eyes in frantic efforts to see. Then one would get a whiff of the dreaded man-scent and would go down with a mighty splash and snort, and the whole crowd would follow suit, soon to come up and repeat the performance five or six times before they could finally get it into their slow brains that this was a dangerous neighborhood.

We had four most interesting days among the walrus, and the hunters were sated with sport and trophies. My wishes were more modest. I had announced to Dr. John Timothy Stone, the Moderator of the Atlanta General Assembly, 1913, that my grand object in going on this hunt was tokill a walrus myself, get his tusks and have a couple of ivory gavels made out of them, that I might present them to the outgoing and incoming moderators of the next General Assembly, which was to meet in Chicago, 1914.

I got my walrus in this fashion: Captain K., Dr. Elting and I were in theoomiakwith "Eskimo Prank." Dr. E. had got a fine head, and we were cruising about, when we spied a bunch of seven or eight big walrus on a hummocky berg near the edge of the ice-floe. The swell of the open ocean came in here with considerable force, and long, smooth topped billows heaved among the ice-floes, washing far up on the shelving bergs. We pushed our boat into a narrow passage and the swell took it and landed the bow on the ice right in the midst of the walrus. The captain and the doctor took the hazardous chance and leaped on the ice, placing the muzzles of their rifles almost against the heads of their selection. I was not quick enough to make the jump, but as theoomiaksurged back with the receding wave I saw a walrus charging down the sloping ice diagonally from me. Both he and I were moving rapidly and in oppositedirections and I could only take a hasty "wing" shot. It was the most difficult shot of all my experience. I was standing uncertainly in the plungingoomiak, swaying and tottering as the light craft shot down the receding wave away from the iceberg; while the frightened walrus was humping himself for all he was worth, trying frantically to get off the ice-floe into the ocean, his head bobbing up and down with his rapid motion. I was wobbling in one direction and he in another, and the space between us was widening fast. There was no time to be lost. Balancing most unsteadily, I swung up my rifle for a snap shot. It was a great moment. I had little hope of hitting the mark; but my walrus fell to the crack of the rifle, with his nose in the water. A delay of one-tenth of a second and I would have lost him. I had my gavels.

The closing scene of our walrus drama was a comedy scene, and possessed what every drama ought to have—human interest. We had pounded our way southeast again through the fast thickening ice-floe driven upon us by a strong northwest wind. At one time to the least experienced of the party it seemed as if there was no possibleway out, as if we must spend the winter on the bleak shore of Northern Siberia. But always the narrow leads opened before us, and after two or three days of slow and careful work through the ice we emerged from it, and before a strong, fair wind we bowled along towards Bering Strait. The early morning of August twenty-fifth found us anchored in the harbor of East Cape, after a hard struggle against wind and tide.

Here is a large Eskimo village. The Tchukchees, or reindeer-herding Eskimos do not roam as far north as this, and these were the seal and walrus hunters. They depend almost entirely for their food upon the sea, and a shortage of these animals sometimes causes starvation.

This village is situated behind a high bluff, but it is not well sheltered, and a fierce wind offshore caused the ship to tug violently at her anchor, and made landing difficult. Captain K. and the Eskimos got a boat ashore and secured a stout line to the ship. Then the eight or nine great carcases on our deck were heaved by the donkey engine into the sea. They would float by this time. They were not spoiled at all in the estimation of the Eskimo, only "ripe."They were tied to the line and then a large crowd of Eskimos took hold, ran up the beach and so towed the meat ashore.

Then, what a scene! Out from every one of those large balloon-framed, skin-covered houses poured the men, women and children, shouting, screaming, hurrying in joy and excitement. The men with high waterproof mukluks were cutting up the carcases, and men and women would seize the hunks of meat and rush away to their houses, pursued by scores of wolfish dogs which leaped and snapped at the meat. Occasionally the dogs would succeed in getting away with a large chunk, when instantly there would be a general mix-up from which some of the dogs would emerge limping and howling. There was a dog-fight every five minutes.

The moving-picture man and the camera fiends moved about "taking" the crowd. The men with old ivory ornaments, white ivory implements, and other curios to sell besieged the white men. In all the houses cooking was going on, and many were chewing on the raw blubber. It was a day of days to these poor people, and for the first time on our voyage of pleasure we feltourselves benefactors to the human race. "The calendar of these Eskimos will date from to-day," said the only American white man who lives in East Cape village. "They will count time all winter from the day of the big feed of walrus meat."

But better than the meat for their bodies which we procured for these poor people of the Arctic shore, was the Bread of Life that I was able to direct to several Eskimo towns, from the knowledge gained in this great walrus hunt.

Printed in the United States of America

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