JAN. 23, 2 p. m.—I went out to look at the thermometer, when I heard the cackling of ptarmigan the other side of the river. Harry Reynolds and I armed ourselves and started out for game. We spotted the flock in a willow thicket where the sun, which nowadays is just at the horizon, had probably attracted them. Several of the birds were perched on top of the bushes, and were very conspicuous against the dark sky. We sneaked up to them and got a shot. Harry's gun got choked with snow and missed fire. We followed up the birds and, after two hours of hard tramping, I had four shots, securing three ptarmigan. The walking was extremely difficult. The snow from the tundras northward was deeply drifted along the willow thickets. It was packed just hard enough on top so that at about every other step it would sustain one's weight, but the alternate steps would break through nearly to one's waist. In some places we fell and floundered, and we considered our sport rather too well earned One of my cheeks was frosted, but Harry brought it out all right by a vigorous rubbing with snow.
Grave Decorations.
It is too cold for hunting. I cannot shoot with gloves on, and my bare fingers get burned by the cold steel of the hammers and triggers. Harry had the doctor's Winchester repeating shot-gun Although a fine gun in warm weather, it seems to get out of gear now. My plain double-barreled Remington is the stand-by. I look at it and it seems to say. "Wait till spring comes, Joe, and we'll get in our work."
The literary society is as interesting as at first. Last Wednesday Joe Jury talked on the "Art of Printing." He is a printer by trade and has quite a business in San Jose. The week before Jack Messing told us about the Hawaiian Islands. He was there for two mouths a year ago. Nearly all of us are in favor of sailing around and visiting our new islands on the way home. It is only about two thousand miles out of our way. Personally I would like to make a long cruise and visit the Philippines and Ladrones. Several of the boys are growing desperately homesick. Time drags for them, and they are counting the days to next July when they can get out of the Kowak Valley and start for home. I have overheard a couple of them planning how they might even now go across country to St. Michaels, so as to be ready for the first steamer in the spring. Enthusiasm is a myth. It was less than a year ago that, "No matter what happens, we will push on into the interior and explore the unknown mountains until we strike gold." Now it is. "How soon can we get home?" Such is human nature.
Everyone is making snowshoes or getting the natives to make them. I must get a pair as curiosities to send home. The natives do nice work, and are improving their opportunities to get a good price. They get three to five dollars worth of food or clothes for a pair of muckluks. Snowshoes bring ten dollars. Indian Charley has made the doctor a nice miniature sled and pair of snowshoes for treating him when he was sick. Charley shows more gratitude and good-will than any other of the natives. But he has some great ideas. Last week he worked hard from daylight till dark in a cold wind clearing away the trees and brush from his little child's grave. He cut down everything clean between the grave and the river, saying this was so "the Kowak-mitts traveling up and down the river" could see his "mickaninie's" burial-place. He took the tree trunks and poles and leaned them together over the grave, tepee fashion, so the dogs and wolves cannot dig in. He left several of the taller trees immediately surrounding the grave, and climbed to their tops, trimming off the brandies as he came down. He then fastened flags to these poles until he had fourteen up, with every prospect of more. He used everything, such as sail-cloth, handkerchiefs and sacks. We thought if he kept on he might have all the clothes he possessed fluttering in the wind like a Monday morning wash, only the clothes lines were perpendicular instead of horizontal. We remonstrated with him, telling him the "cabloonas" never put flags over their graves; but he Insisted that he wanted to make this spot conspicuous so that everyone would notice it. The doctor thought of a scheme and Clyde put it into operation. He made a windmill about four feet in diameter and with a big fan. It was well made, and took Clyde two whole days to finish. Charley was very much pleased with it, and it was promptly lashed to the top of the tallest tree, whence resound its mournful creaks whenever the wind blows. Charley wanted to know if all cabloonas put wind-mills over the graves of their dead. Charley is very ambitious to do exactly like a white man and yet, like many another, he seems to think a disregard of native superstitions would be disastrous. He asked us yesterday if he would die if he should take some little pills the doctor gave him for some trifling ailment. He said that some Kowak-mitts told him so. There is an old woman in the middle igloo of the village who keeps these natives in such ideas. The sooner she goes "mucky" (dead) the better it will be for her people. About New Year's an old man at her igloo was very sick and was expected to die. For fear of having him die in her igloo, and thus, as she believed, render the house uninhabitable, she turned him out into the extreme cold. His son stayed with him and made a big fire. As soon as we found it out the nearest cabin took the sick man in, and did all they could for him, although he died in a short time. Women here have a harder life than can be imagined. A child is never born in an igloo, but, no matter how cold the weather is, the mother is driven out, not to return with her child until it is five days old. There have been three such cases so far near us. The last was during a ten-days' windstorm. The woman went alone back into as sheltered a place as she could find in the woods, and made a screen of spruce boughs to protect her from the storm. In front of this she kept a small fire burning and there she remained with but little clothing all the bitter days of her allotted time. An old woman occasionally visited her and brought her food and wood. The baby froze to death.
Native Sweethearts.
Superstitious Old Woman.