TWO

What you dreaming ’bout here in the middle of the
channel ? ‘ The pilot of the ship had rolled up along-
side me. Yle hooked his big arm through mine and
began towing me along Governor’s Walk, vivid with
hues of fantastic Indian handiwork.
There were pliable baskets made of spruce roots,
which recorded, in designs of chrome and rust and
green, the mysticism of a dying race ; beaded moccasins
of deerskin, of moose-hide, and of mottled hair-seal
skin. There were miniature totems and canoes painted
in red and turquoise and black. Carved paddles and
wooden bowls. Bracelets beaten from copper and
silver and gold. And string after string of trading
beads, sparkling and translucent in the sun.
‘ Now, these old Russian beads,’ explained the pilot,
who believed me to be a tourist, ‘ are each one cut by
hand. They are getting very rare, and you must be
careful you don’t get them mixed with the Hudson’s
Bay trading beads, which look something like them,
only they’re duller and less valuable.’
Trading beads ! The adventurer’s first medium of
exchange with primitive peoples! In Alaska, as in
other lands, they have purchased everything from furs
and ivory to slaves and goodwill. ‘ You shall,’ Baranov
directed one of his underlings in 1796, present the
Chief of the Chilcats with a frieze coat with ermine
trimmings and from six to ten fathoms of blue
beads.’
We stopped before a patched tent yellowed by the
rains of many summers. Back of the low counter
within sat a tiny Indian woman on a chair that had
been shorn of all but four inches of its legs. Her face,
the hue of old ivory, showed scarcely a line, but the
thick hair that escaped from her head-kerchief was
white as lime. About her shoulders lay a fawn-coloured
shawl as clean as if she had that day taken it from the
trading-post shelf.
She smiled up at us, eager and winning as a child.
G-o-o-d ! Hiyu good bowl ! ‘ she cried in long drawn
syllables, her little brown finger indicating two black
one shaped Aike a frog, one like a bear.
My Stepan—he make-um so —’ Her hands moved
quickly as if carving. ‘ You see dis one ? ‘ Her voice
took on a gay note and her dark eyes glowed as she
caught up a tom-tom and began tapping it.
The savage oom oom oom oom floated out along the
commercial row of tents.
‘ Dance ! Dance ! ‘ she urged, her small body sway-
ing to the rhythm.
I held the drum and struck it, but my hand had
forgotten the way of wielding the padded stick.
N-o-o-o good ! ‘ With laughing scorn she took the
instrument from me and, much to the amusement of
the other squaws, proceeded to give me a lesson.
I bought the tom-tom, and the bowl made like a frog.
‘ You come back maybe af-teer by and by ! ‘ She
waved to us as we continued along the gravelled walk.
‘ That’s Woman-Always-Wondering,’ the pilot said.
Cute little cuss, isn’t she? Her husband, Stepan, is
the greatest carver and artist among the Kog-wantans.
In fact, he’s about the only one left now. It won’t be
long before the old Indian arts are forgotten, for the
young bucks of to-day have no time for them. They’d
rather run gas-boats for the canneries.’
We had come to a place where a wide wooden stair-
way climbed up through a thicket of flowering elder-
berries and wild roses that grew on the steep slope of
the Keekor. On top, half hidden in greenery, was the
semi-colonial building which now occupies the site of
Baranov Castle. The American flag hung from the
roof-pole, and off to one side a shaft of white marble
rose above a hedge of Shasta daisies.
‘ That monument marks the spot where the Alaska
Transfer was made in 1867. Right there is where the
Stars and Stripes first floated over the country.’ The
pilot squinted up at the diminutive shaft which, it
must be confessed, looks rather like a gravestone.
‘ Yah,’ he said dryly, ‘ our Government gave the Rus-
sians seven million two hundred thousand dollars for
Alaska. Since then, the country has produced nearly
a billion and a half in fur and fish and gold and timber.
Why, from the surplus timber to be cut under contracts
made this year alone, the United States Treasury will
receive eight million seven hundred thousand dollars ! ‘
He spat in the roadway and jerked his thumb toward
the monument. ‘ Know how much it cost — that thing
which commemorates the best bargain Uncle Sam ever
made? Seven hundred and fifty dollars! Huh! I’d
erect a better headstone over my dog! But excuse
me. No use of my getting boiled up again over that.
The house up there is the headquarters of the
Agricultural Department of the Territory.
The pilot’s face resumed its usual lines of good
nature and, nodding toward the long flight of steps, he
verandah. Its white paint had a look of having been
applied over many a peeling layer.
‘ Elotel Millmore,’ the pilot read the sign. ‘ That’s
where poor Lady Franklin stayed along in the 1870’s,
when she was awaiting news of her husband who’d
gone up into the Arctic looking for the North-west
Passage. In one of the rooms they still have the big,
dark bed she slept in, all put together with wooden
pegs. A brave and proper sailor’s wife she was, too,
my dear, for all she wore a title. Her husband never
came back, and they say sometimes on stormy nights
you can hear her sighing in that old house. .
Governor’s Walk now made a semi-circular turn to
avoid the Russian Church of Saint Michael. A group
of tourists were surging up the steps at the heels of a
young cassocked priest who was swinging an enormous,
medieval-looking key in his hand. We passed, and
came to another of the great houses of hewn logs that
marked Sitka’s Golden Age. The quaint, -fan-shaped
window in the gable was still unbroken, but the walls
were settling to ruin. Indian celery held its blooms,
like creamy parasols, six fret high against the rotting
sides. The sea breeze stirred the scent of sun-warmed
briar roses about its base logs.
I took a deep breath of the perfume — and the next
instant choked on an overpowering blast of nicotine.
It rose from the edge of the sidewalk almost at our
feet. A stubby little old man sat there all but con-
cealed beneath a broad, black hat. Between his hands
he was rubbing a mink pelt, puffing furiously the while
on his pipe.
Well, I swan! If it isn’t Israel, the fur-buyer !
exclaimed the pilot. ‘ Hello, old-timer! How goes
the skin game this year ? ‘
The hat shifted, disclosing a strong, kindly face.
‘ Ach ! ‘ retorted Israel, with a wave of the mink skin,
‘ It hass my ‘ And he burst dramatically into a
recital of woes.
‘ Let me tell you ! ‘ he shouted, oblivious to the eye-
ing of curious tourists. ‘ Let me tell you ! Dat Rosen-
baum of the Douglas Fur Com-pan-ee, he calls me a
kike-Jew — a cheater of Indians ! Me, Israel, who hass
in dis country bought furs since 1889 ! He tries to buy
from the Indians the furs cheap. And vatiss it he does
now ? Israel glared into myfice. He tell dem dat
Israel iss dead ! Dead! No odder vay vill dey sell to
him — only if dey think old Israel iss dead and vill not
come. Dey lofe me because I always speak dem the
truth. It makes me strong wit deme Don’t 1 bust the
fur trust for dem in Sitka twenty years ago? Don’t
dey a chief make off me in the tribe? But dat Rosen-
baum — Ach, Gott, he iss the skunk behind my back,
He would poke the eye out off a man for five cents !
But I get even! I tell him ‘ — Israel shook his fist
I tell him : ” You get one skin next
under my nose —
year, Rosenbaum, one pelt, and by Himmel, I vill=eat
it raw I
The pilot patted the old fur-buyer’s knee. ‘ Yes,
yes. We all know Rosenbaum, Israel,’ he said sooth-
ingly. ‘ Never mind him now. Tell me how your
daughter is getting along since she married in the
States.’
Swiftly the fur-buyer’s face changed. His expressive
brown eyes beamed paternal love and pride. He smiled
SITKA
as he extended both upturned palms. Ah-a-a, dat
Rosie,’ he crooned. ‘ My leetle one. Right away ven
she comes back from her honey-trip, for her I haff
bought a chicken establishment in Bend, Oregon, for
ten t’ousand dollar. Dose fresh eggs! You should
ought to see dem in t’ousands! And now she hass
a grandfadder made off me ! Always she writes me :
” Papa, come to us.” But I write her : ” Nein, liebchen,
nein. Not till my moving picture it iss done.” ‘
‘ Moving picture, Israel ? ‘ The pilot was plainly
surprised. ‘ What moving picture ? ‘
‘ Ach ! You haff not heard ? ‘ Tremendous astonish-
ment shrilled in the old man’s voice. ‘ You haff not
heard dat Israel makes off Alaska a moving picture ? ‘
When he learned that neither of us had heard, he
rushed into an explanation.
‘ Ah-a-a, but you haff seen dem — dose silliness of
Alaska movies dey are making in California? Yes ?
Vell, ven I am in Seattle, always I get the heartsick for
my Alaska — the lonesome. I go to see dose pictures.
he spread his upturned palms and with
But, ach—-—
head on one side drew up his chin in distaste. Vat iss
it ? It iss snowing. It is blizzard. And dat damn hero
he iss staggering t’rough the forest of the eucalyptus
tree on the foolishness of snowshoes from Montgomery
Ward and Com-pan-ee. And — Gott in Himmel — he
hass on hiss shoulder the gunny-sack full of nuggets t
Bah! Dose pictures are to me disgust ! Dey are not
true ! So I, Israel, now I write one of my own, vat you
call scenario. Ah-a-a, you should ought to read it !
Such an elegant lofe story — such a sweet lofe story !
You got a heart like stone — you cry ! ‘
Israel went on to tell of his scenario in which an
Indian maiden, Song-of-a-Bird, and her lover, Eye-
of-a-Deer, figured prominently. The plot was historical
and astonishingly good. He was now, he informed us,
on his way to the famous Indian village of Kluckwan,
up in the Valley of the Chilcat, where he had arranged
with eight Thlinget chiefs to put on a real Potlatch
once more before the old ways vanish before the march
of civilization.
‘ The Crows, the Ravens, the Eagles, the Wolfs —
dey vill do diss for Israel’s moving picture, because dey
lofe him ! ‘ continued the old man. ‘ All der wonderful
blankets vill dey bring out for Israel ; der war-bonnets,
der drums, der rattles, der masks! And haff you
heard ‘ — his voice sank to a whisper as he darted a
cautious glance to either side — ‘ haff you heard off the
Worm, the great Potlatch dish twenty feet long? I-Iaff
you heard off the Mother Basket? Ah-a-a ! Dey are
the secret no white man but Israel knows. He vill haff
dem in hiss moving picture. And old Heavy-wings,
chief of the Ravens, he hass a scalp off a white man he
vill wear at my Potlatch. Ach, the money I haff offer
dat savage for dat scalp ! But nuh, nuh. He vill not
sell. It iss the scalp off hiss enemy who a great wrong
hass done him. Heavy-wings hass affection for it be-
cause he killed him. But you shall see it in my moving
picture. You shall see dis scalp dance ! ‘
For several minutes I had been aware that some one
was calling Israel from a shop near by. He answered
now, and, leaving me still wanting to hear more of his
moving picture, he moved off waving his mink pelt in
friendly farewell.
There goes one of the most lovable old characters
in Alaska,’ said the pilot, as we strolled onward. ‘ In
addition to being as rich as a gold king, he’s got a heart
in him as big as Mount McKinley.’