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's Inlet. 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 mournful
howls 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.
V
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 of _tseek_ (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--the _hootz_. 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.
[Illustration: 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 the other 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 task was 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; and their 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 he could 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! You _shawat-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 two man; 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 Buck house.
"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 was full 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!_"
VI
OLD SNOOK AND THE COW
In the 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 the best
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, with _ursus 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-bear came 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 his stopping 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 guv
me 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
toim th' 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 a pair of crutches and then
with a cane. He was never a man again, after his encounter with the
hootz.
[Illustration: 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
crabapple wood 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 very vividly 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.