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 AN ADVENTURE 
 IN ALASKA 
 
 By Bruce Gotten 
 
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AN ADVENTURE IN ALASKA 
 
 DURING THE GOLD EXCITEMENT 
 
 OF 
 1897-1898 
 
 (i4 PERSONAL EXPERIENCE) 
 
 By 
 
 Bruce Gotten. 
 
 BALTIMORE. 
 
 1922. 
 
 The San Printing Office 
 Baltimore. 
 
Copyright, 1922. 
 
i'Jlt nt. ko£a.n 
 
 Slietch of 
 
 •YaKut^ 
 
 aTidjy/iciruty 
 
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Cylburn 
 Baltimore - Maryland. 
 
 March 14, 1922. 
 Col. and Mrs. Robert R. Gotten, 
 Cottendnle, N. C. 
 
 My dear Father and Mother : — 
 
 You have both several times expressed to me a wish 
 that I would, sometime, write up for you some of my 
 experiences which you think in some cases have been 
 unusual. 
 
 You have especially desired that I should tell of three 
 particular events — my trip to Alasks in 1897, my experi- 
 ences in China during the Boxer War of 1900, and my 
 two years in Luzon during the Tagalog Insurrection, 
 1901-1902. 
 
 As my trip to Alaska was the first of these occurrences, 
 naturally it should be first related, leaving the other two 
 to follow when time and circumstances permit. 
 
 Recently I found a manuscript and some extensive 
 notes of this Alaska trip, made immediately upon my 
 return and finished later while I was stationed at Fort 
 Flagler in 1904. These I have gone over and put together 
 in this little book. 
 
 It is written in a conversational way, rather in the 
 American language than the English, I should say, and 
 of course, makes no pretence to any literary merit. 
 
 Whatever it is, it is a true and intimate relation, and 
 I take great pleasure in presenting it to you, for your 
 amusement and entertainment, and for the entertainment 
 of such of our friends as may be interested. 
 
 Your devoted son. 
 
 /J^OiAX.<^^\0 I 
 
 0^ A/^^^/C^-^^^C?^:*^^^^-^-^. 
 
 (A 
 
TO MY WIFE, WHO, AFTER ALL, WAS 
 HERSELF THE LITTLE NUGGET AND 
 GREAT POSSESSION THAT THIS 
 AND MY OTHER EFFORTS WERE 
 LEADING TO. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Pages 
 Chapter I — From Cottendale to Seattle i- 15 
 
 Chapter II — The Organization of the Party. . . 16- 26 
 
 Chapter III — From Seattle to Sitka 27- 39 
 
 Chapter IV — Sitka and Yakutat 40- 54 
 
 Chapter V — In the Woods 55- 71 
 
 Chapter VI — The Retreat 72- 92 
 
 Chapter VII — Back to Seattle 93-107 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 From Cottendale to Seattle. 
 
 In May, 1897, the Alaska Commercial Company's 
 steamship Portland arrived at Seattle from St. Michael's, 
 Alaska, and, proceeding to her dock, unloaded, among 
 other things from her cargo, one ton of gold nuggets. 
 
 This remarkable consignment belonged to some half 
 dozen individuals who reported the discovery of a won- 
 derfully rich, new placer country known as the Klondike. 
 Such a cargo from a hitherto unknown land would at any 
 time have caused a tremendous excitement. There were, 
 however, some additional reasons and temporary condi- 
 tions which greatly increased the excitement and interest 
 that followed. 
 
 In the first place, all the great commercial and real 
 estate interest in the Northwest were at that time suffer- 
 ing very severe depression, and this discovery, with all 
 its accompanying glamor, was immediately heralded and 
 attractively advertised with the hope that in this discov- 
 ery impending ruin would be stayed. 
 
 In the second place, there was universal business de- 
 pression throughout the country, especially in the agri- 
 cultural States, so that the discovery was announced at 
 a time when public attention was particularly receptive 
 and many thousands were either dissatisfied with or en- 
 tirely out of their usual occupations. 
 
 The excitement and rush that followed was really one 
 of the greatest in the history of the world, though the 
 Spanish-American War, following as it did in a few 
 
AN ADVENTURE IN ALASKA 
 
 months, diverted public interest, and the Klondike rush 
 will not be so well remembered in history as the days of 
 '49 in California or the later excitement in Australia. 
 Some idea of the magnitude of the movement can be 
 gathered, however, from the statement that 25,000 
 farmers in Iowa alone quitted the plow shaft and betook 
 themselves in search of the bag of gold that in this case 
 hung at the end of the aurora borealis. 
 
 Almost as many went from several other central States, 
 and altogether it is conservative to estimate that 350,000 
 people left their homes between the months of June and 
 December and turned their faces to the midnight sun. 
 These people, almost without exception, had no knowl- 
 edge whatever of mining, or conception of the conditions 
 they would have to encounter. A surprisingly large per- 
 centage were farmers, who had sold or mortgaged their 
 farms for the purpose of undertaking this adventure, and 
 this class were particularly unfortunate and unsuccessful, 
 for they had left real homes behind, had no understanding 
 whatever of what they were trying to do and are as a class 
 most difficult to adjust to radical changes. Thousands 
 got no further than San Francisco, Seattle or Portland, 
 where they became stranded through different causes, 
 very many through the operations of confidence men. 
 Other thousands got as far as Juneau, Diea or Skagway. 
 Very many were turned back at the Canadian custom 
 house because they did not possess the requisite amount 
 of provisions to go on to the interior. 
 
 These people would then offer their supplies and out- 
 fits for sale, so that for some time all supplies and articles 
 of equipment could be bought on the trail below and above 
 
FROM COTTENDALE TO SEATTLE 
 
 Lake Bennette for a small fraction of their cost in Seat- 
 tle. A new town — Skagway — was established at the foot 
 of the White Pass, and in a few months had a population 
 of 25,000. 
 
 There were still other thousands who scattered them- 
 selves in all the bays and inlets on the coast, particu- 
 larly in Prince William's Sound, Cook's Inlet, Bristol' 
 Bay, Norton and Kotzebue Sounds. It is curious to 
 note that some of these places are fully a thousand miles 
 from the Klondike. Think of a man stampeding to Texas 
 or Mexico upon the announcement of a gold strike at 
 Cripple Creek! Yet that is, in distance and effect, ex- 
 actly what many hundreds did. I remember distinctly 
 that in Seattle in those early days the names Klondike and 
 Alaska were synonymous ; they meant one and the same 
 thing to the would-be gold hunter, and he entirely failed 
 to note that the Klondike was not even in Alaska at all, 
 and that Alaska itself is a country of huge proportions, 
 being three times the size of France and greatly exceeding 
 in area all the thirteen original States combined. 
 
 A person remarking to a friend in Seattle today that 
 he is going to Alaska would probably be asked "outside 
 or in," by which would be meant "are you going to the 
 interior or will you remain on the coast?" Alaska "in- 
 side" and Alaska "outside" are indeed two very different 
 countries, as different as North Carolina and Newfound- 
 land, and as far apart in places. 
 
 There were no such terms in the days of the rush, for 
 no one knew anything at all about Alaska, either "inside" 
 or "out," even the government maps being merely out- 
 lines of the coast and entirely inaccurate. 
 
AN ADVENTURE IN ALASKA 
 
 This indifference or ignorance of the geography of the 
 great Northwest is still very prevalent, and the story goes 
 that one of our Postmaster-Generals in recent years 
 caused a letter to be written to the Postmaster at Dawson 
 City, inquiring why certain reports had not been ren- 
 dered as required by Department regulations. The Post- 
 master replied that the regulation in question had indeed 
 been received, but since his office was fully one hundred 
 miles within British territory, he had thought it more 
 advisable to make his reports to Ottawa. 
 
 It is difficult to explain how I came to be attracted to 
 and finally drawn into this motley mass that was surging 
 toward the north. There are periods, I presume, in every 
 person's life when they are possessed by some mysterious 
 force that compels them to some certain action, though 
 that action may not be well reasoned and is often the 
 opposite of what we would ordinarily expect that par- 
 ticular person to do. Certainly in my own life I have had 
 several such experiences when I have determined upon 
 courses apparently not based upon good reasoning, but 
 have been compelled to them notwithstanding. 
 
 This is the force, I presume, that some criminologists 
 claim is responsible for most of our criminals. However 
 that may be, in my case at least, it has never taken that 
 form, but has served rather as stepping-stones, so to speak, 
 to my present high state of contentment and happiness. 
 
 When the riches of the Klondike were first heralded 
 to the world, I was at Cottendale, my father's plantation 
 home in North Carolina. This home was as pleasant and 
 as happy, I presume, as could be found. We were a close 
 
FROM COTTENDALE TO SEATTLE 
 
 and devoted family, not rich, but possessing every essen- 
 tial of life and happiness. Our community, though rural, 
 was wholesome and conservative. Some sleepy remnants 
 of ante-bellum days still lingered on the countryside; 
 many old slaves were in a way companions of my boy- 
 hood days and constant reminders of the vanished pomps 
 of yesterday. Older people sometimes spoke of Yankee 
 raids and Reconstruction, but these things had been set- 
 tled, I supposed, though it was some years before I under- 
 stood how father had lost that war, so big and strong and 
 right he seemed to me. In short, my surroundings had 
 always been comfortable and sweet, and there was noth- 
 ing further desired, perhaps, unless it was opportunity 
 for some more active future than anything here afforded. 
 
 Anyway, it is certain that I was deeply restive at that 
 time. I was just of age, and the first great change had 
 to take place in my affairs. Most fortunately, my father 
 and mother seemed, in some mysterious way, to know 
 this, without understanding it, perhaps, any more than I 
 did. They knew then that it takes a boy a long time to 
 become a man, and they knew also many other things 
 obscure to me for some years yet. This was indeed for- 
 tunate, for a crisis was at hand within me. They seemed 
 to know this, too, and certainly they knew how to meet it. 
 
 I became completely obsessed with the idea of going to 
 the Klondike, though, so far as I was able to learn, no 
 single other person in that entire country was in any way 
 impressed as I was. All seemed to regard my intention 
 as a singular idea and somewhat dangerous lark, which 
 in reality of course it was. The difficulty of properly 
 financing myself upon such an undertaking was indeed 
 
AN ADVENTURE IN ALASKA 
 
 real, and I offered to organize myself into a kind of 
 stock company and permit a few friends to take stock in 
 the adventure. This flotation, however, was not a suc- 
 cess, and I started with a very small capital indeed, though 
 unincumbered by any fear of stockholders' meetings or 
 crooked manipulation of myself while away. 
 
 I left about the first of October for Seattle. My ulti- 
 mate destination was the Klondike, which I knew was 
 somewhere in the vicinity of Alaska. I had never seen 
 a gold mine, or a mine of any description in my life, not 
 even a miner; in fact, gold dust and brass filings all 
 looked alike to me. 
 
 The sum total of my knowledge of life was indeed 
 small and far too provincial to be of any service in an 
 undertaking of this nature. And let me say here that it 
 was my rearing, environs and background that were both 
 my weakness and strength at that time. They had in no 
 way prepared me for the sort of world that I was about 
 to meet, yet in this same process they had laid a foun- 
 dation of something that saved me absolutely in the end. 
 The first I was painfully conscious of early in this strug- 
 gle; the second I was not conscious of until some years 
 afterwards. It is well to remember this in connection 
 with some positions in which I am found later on in this 
 paper. 
 
 I went west by way of Nashville, Tenn., where I stopped 
 for a day or two and visited a Centennial then going on. 
 I found here in my hotel a young lady who had often 
 visited my sister at Cottendale. She was the last of the 
 old crowd that I saw for eight years to come, and my 
 heart was sad and very, very full when I said good-bye. 
 
FROM COTTENDALE TO SEATTLE 
 
 I spent a night in St. Louis, part of a day at Colorado 
 Springs, and, passing over the Rockies, skirted the shores 
 of the great Salt Lake. I was fully mindful of the great- 
 ness of the trip, the first that I had ever taken ; was aston- 
 ished at the plains and amazed at the great Rocky Moun- 
 tains. 
 
 I met and conversed with many curious people, and 
 had traveled from St. Louis in an emigrant car. These 
 cars, I believe, are not used in the West now ; at least I 
 have not seen one for many years. They were provided 
 with cooking stoves in one end whereon passengers could 
 prepare their food, and the chairs were great tilting 
 things, much like barber chairs, which when tilted served 
 as beds by night. 
 
 From Ogden I went by way of the Oregon Short Line 
 through Portland and on to Seattle, having made the 
 entire trip for about $70. 
 
 At some place in Missouri two young men, brothers, 
 boarded my train. They were going to Seattle, and from 
 there to Whatcom, where an uncle lived. They were 
 about my age, and were mechanics. They were respecta- 
 ble young fellows, and we made the trip together. In 
 some way they had heard of the Globe Hotel in Seattle, 
 so we decided to go there. This proved quite fortunate, 
 for the Globe was just the place we should have been. It 
 proved to be a rather large and roomy place on First 
 Avenue. It was not by any means a fashionable hotel, 
 but it was clean and well run for what it was, and was 
 conducted by a German (Krous) and his wife, who were 
 so kind to me and took such an interest in me that I have 
 a regard for them to this day, Kaiser and Crown Prince 
 notwithstanding. 
 
 7 
 
AN ADVENTURE IN ALASKA 
 
 Living in Seattle was amazingly cheap in those days. 
 I got a good room here for $2.50 per week, and in many 
 places a good meal could be had for 50 cents. 
 
 This seemed strange to me, seeing that the town was 
 crowded and packed with people, but Seattle then knew 
 something that I did not know for some time to come. 
 That was that this crowd, in the venacular of the street, 
 was "dead broke." Nine-tenths of these people who were 
 incessantly talking of their millions would come around 
 quietly and borrow a "two-bit" piece. 
 
 I found Seattle a seething mass of excited humanity. 
 Everybody was either already a millionaire or expected 
 to be one right away. As for myself, I do not recall at 
 this writing exactly how much I considered myself worth 
 at that time; however, I know I felt very comfortable 
 and well off so far as my future financial condition was 
 concerned. 
 
 It is impossible for one who has never participated in 
 a rush of this kind to understand how completely the 
 excitement can possess you. It amounts to a frenzy; it is 
 epidemic and sweeps over a community like the measles. 
 It respects neither age, experience or wisdom, but is a 
 form of reciprocal insanity which completely upsets the 
 throne of reason, and you follow at the heels of the 
 jackass of folly as complacently as if you had always be- 
 longed there. 
 
 There were here young girls of good raising from the 
 East, old women in bloomers, ministers of the Gospel, 
 gamblers, criminals and gentlemen adventurers of every 
 nationality. The streets were crowded night and day, 
 
FROM COTTENDALE TO SEATTLE 
 
 and a multitude almost foug-ht for transportation on the 
 docks and at the ticket offices. 
 
 Every conceivable form of floating craft had been im- 
 pressed for this service, and some indeed that had been 
 condemned and idle for years. Once I saw a man on the 
 dock push his cane far up into the rotten side of a ship 
 that was about to sail. This ship sailed with more than 
 a hundred aboard, and was never heard of again. A 
 number of other incidents of this kind could be cited. 
 
 Very many novel and absurd devices for packing and 
 traveling, chemicals that would keep you warm in winter 
 and free from mosquitoes in summer, were sold in large 
 quantities by street peddlers and afterwards scattered on 
 all the trails of the north. 
 
 And then there was, too, always on hand the man who 
 had been all over that country before, and who, for the 
 price of a drink, was anxious to take you aside and give 
 you valuable and very confidential information. Clairvoy- 
 ants and other classes of future readers were doing a 
 thriving business. The town was simply teeming with 
 schemers and confidence men of every description and 
 degree of crookedness and dissipation. 
 
 Dogs were in great demand, and I remember seeing a 
 carload brought in from the East, and they were of every 
 known species, yet undoubtedly disposed of at good profit. 
 
 All this made life very curious in Seattle in those days. 
 Most of this crowd were very rough and a bankrupt lot, 
 who had in some way got themselves thus far and were 
 now, like myself, hoping by hook or crook to find some 
 means to continue on. Many of them lived in a very pre- 
 carious and uncertain way, mostly in saloons and gam- 
 
AN ADVENTURE IN ALASKA 
 
 bling dens that were very plentiful and never closed night 
 or day, Sundays included. 
 
 Seattle was what you call a wide-open town, which 
 means that it had been made safe for every conceivable 
 form of crookedness, vice and crime. These conditions, 
 in some respects, were indeed indescribable. 
 
 Such an assemblage under such conditions will prob- 
 ably never occur again, and the opportunity for the study 
 of crowd psychology was marvelous. However, I was 
 too young and inexperienced at the time to be conscious of 
 this side of the picture, and too absorbed myself in being a 
 part of it. 
 
 I had letters to a number of well-known people in 
 Seattle, but as these were social, I decided not to present 
 myself, since my abode and most of my associates were 
 of a kind calculated to embarrass, I thought, rather than 
 please any people I had access to in this way. 
 
 Nevertheless, I met a few respectable people, among 
 them a Mr. and Mrs. Francisco, who were on their honey- 
 moon. She was the daughter of an Episcopal clergy- 
 man, and through her I met Mr. and Mrs. Charles Mc- 
 Allester and their charming young daughter, Grace. These 
 people I afterwards got to know well, and they have al- 
 ways been my devoted friends. Grace was indeed lovely, 
 and would have been an ideal heroine for this story. But 
 this is the tale of a failure, and in these heroines do not 
 enter. She is a married woman now and the mother of 
 several grown children, I believe. 
 
 Another person that I saw much of at that time was 
 old Mr. Wikeoflf, one of those sweet old derelicts that 
 you often meet in life, just drifting around with the cur- 
 
 io 
 
FROM COTTENDALE TO SEATTLE 
 
 rent, living- no one knows how, but always with the boys 
 and hopeful still. His faith in me never wavered, and I 
 wrote him often for years, until one day no answer came. 
 
 Quite by accident I met Mr. Gilbert Kidder of Wil- 
 mington, North Carolina. Mr. Kidder was much older 
 than I was and a gentleman of refined taste and ideas. He 
 was shocked to find me living at the Globe Hotel, and 
 more shocked still when I told him that I was going 
 north with some of that yellow, smelly mob that seethed 
 around us. 
 
 He endeavored to dissuade me, and even threatened to 
 telegraph my mother, but finding me determined he be- 
 came quite interested and did everything he could for my 
 pleasure, taking me to see people in the evening, among 
 them many that I have known well since. 
 
 It is a long way along the social scale from Mr. Kidder 
 to Jesse Lang, the next character I must introduce here. 
 Mr. Kidder and Jesse Lang would have mutually re- 
 pelled each other on sight. They were of different clay, 
 yet both my friends. 
 
 Very shortly after my arrival in Seattle I met, or rather 
 ran into, as we did in those days, Jesse Lang. He was 
 at my hotel. Jesse was a Tar Heel from Buncombe 
 County. That was enough to make us close friends un- 
 der the circumstances. Otherwise Jess was a powerful 
 fellow, of plain stock, about 36 years of age, and a bar- 
 tender by trade. With him was a Pole named Romeo, 
 which I assume to be Romesesky Americanized. Romeo 
 was about 55 years of age. He told me that his people 
 were of splendid class in Poland, but that his entire fam- 
 ily, father, mother, sisters and brothers, along with their 
 
 II 
 
AN ADVENTURE IN ALASKA 
 
 village, had been exiled to Siberia back in the sixties, 
 and that he had never heard a word from any of them 
 since. He himself had escaped this fate by being at 
 school in France at the time. He had come to America 
 as a young man, had served five years in the army and 
 had for many years now been a bartender in Ashville, 
 North Carolina. 
 
 These two men had been attracted to Seattle exactly 
 as I had, and, like myself, were now looking for some 
 opportunity to go on to the magnetic North. Naturally 
 we were drawn together under these circumstances, and a 
 kind of "triple entente" sprang up between us which 
 seemed very excellent to me, especially whenever I looked 
 at Jesse's great back, his powerful arms and his 225 
 pounds of solid weight. Such an ally, I thought, might 
 be very good, and so it was. 
 
 Poor Jess, he was ever faithful to the "entente," but 
 his trip to the north seemed to unbalance him, and he 
 committed suicide in Butte, Montana, during the fall of 
 1898. 
 
 One day Jess came to me and said that he thought that 
 he had found the thing that we wanted, and asked me to 
 go with him to see the head man. He took me to see a 
 man called George Stinson. Stinson was very myste- 
 rious about the matter, would tell us very little about it, 
 except in a vague way ; that his party was to leave soon ; 
 that they wanted just three more men ; that they were 
 going up on their own boat, and that the affair was being 
 backed by the Standard Oil Company — this latter very 
 confidentially, after Jess had paid for the drinks, for we 
 were in a saloon. Indeed, the entire business of Seattle, in 
 
 12 
 
FROM COTTENDALE TO SEATTLE 
 
 those days, seemed to be conducted in saloons, and only 
 very minor details considered far from the bar. He prom- 
 ised to come in the morning and take us to see the real 
 boss, whose name he said was Rennick. Jess and I de- 
 cided that if we could go with this party we would do so. 
 The name Standard Oil sounded very good and substan- 
 tial to me, besides it was getting very late and we had to 
 do something shortly. 
 
 The next morning Stinson took us to the Great North- 
 ern Hotel and into a luxurious room, wherein sat the 
 man known as George Rennick. This man's appearance 
 and manner was the most peculiar and bewildering that I 
 have ever seen, and he had a curious effect upon me. He 
 was dressed in a suit of orange-colored "mackinaw,"*blue 
 shirt and boots. His hat, which he did not remove, was 
 a slouchy cross between that of a Mexican cowboy and a 
 Montana rancher. A bottle of whiskey sat on the table, 
 and a few gold nuggets lay carelessly by. But more of 
 him later. Rennick looked us over keenly, asked no ques- 
 tions and then, talking very rapidly, said, as nearly as I 
 can recall : "Yes, you will do. There is only one thing — 
 keep your damn mouths shut and ask no questions. Sign 
 this contract and get to hell out of here. George will 
 explain to you. Hurry up!" 
 
 I was completely dumfounded, and had no resistance 
 of any kind in me. We all signed and got out, not even 
 having a copy for ourselves. 
 
 * Mackinaw — A heavy, thick, plaid material, the design of which 
 is large and striking; in a local, U. S. sense, a blanket or short 
 double-breasted coat. 
 
 13 
 
AN ADVENTURE IN ALASKA 
 
 Stinson, who from now on will be referred to as 
 George, then explained that we had signed a contract to 
 go to Alaska for a period of two years, the company to 
 pay all expenses of every description, and in addition 
 thereto we were to be allowed the sum of $i per day, 
 which could accumulate in one of the banks here or would 
 be paid to any relative desired monthly. George was 
 careful to explain here that this was done because one 
 member of the party was married and his wife had some 
 need of support while he was away ; otherwise, of course, 
 the company would not have bothered about paying a 
 paltry dollar a day to a lot of men who would so soon be 
 well off in their own right. But having to do it for one, 
 it was best to treat all alike, even in small things of this 
 kind. 
 
 In addition to this, the contract gave us a one-half 
 ownership in all claims staked and all metal brought out. 
 I will say here that this contract was, I think, a very fair 
 one, and was honestly lived up to by the company besides. 
 Before leaving Seattle I called upon a Mr. Gray, who 
 was president of a national bank on Second Avenue, and 
 he assured me that the money was there and would be 
 paid as directed monthly. 
 
 Shortly after this we were taken with the other men 
 of the party to an outfitter and told to purchase anything 
 at all that we wanted for the trip. This we did in a very 
 lavish way, getting far more than we could use and 
 everything of the best quality. Certainly the company, 
 whoever they were, spent a considerable sum in this mat- 
 ter, for our provisions also w^ere most plentiful and ex- 
 cellent in quality, besides being especially packed. No 
 
 14 
 
FROM COTTENDALE TO SEATTLE 
 
 party ever left better equipped or more completely out- 
 fitted than we were. 
 
 We also visited the steam schooner Augusta, lying in 
 the harbor, which had been purchased by the company for 
 the purpose of taking us up. She was a trim-looking little 
 ship of 70 tons burden, and her forecastle was being 
 made ready to receive us aboard. 
 
 I have now arrived at a stage in this narrative where 
 the reader, in order to at all understand the movements 
 that follow, must know a number of things that were 
 entirely unknown to me at that time. That is, the reader 
 must know now, how and why this party was organized. 
 Otherwise, the narrative would be entirely unintelligible, I 
 fear, in places; besides, the organization of this party 
 is in itself a most interesting study. The work of a mas- 
 ter mind, the mind of a man so clever in crookedness that 
 you are dazzled by his performance and so admire his 
 cleverness that you forget that he is a crook. 
 
 "5 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 The Organization of the Party. 
 
 The prime mover and master mind in the organization 
 of this party of which I was now a member was a Mr. 
 Homer Pennick. I have never seen this Mr. Pennick, 
 but during my stay in Alaska and upon my return I 
 learned much of him and his extraordinary career. What- 
 ever can be said against Mr. Pennick, it is admitted by all 
 that he is no ordinary crook, and I have failed to discover 
 a single individual who seemed to harbor the slightest 
 bitterness or ill-will toward him. Gen. W, G. Le Due of 
 Minnesota is said to have known more about him than 
 anyone else, and I regret that I could not have seen Gen- 
 eral Le Due before his death and told him of this expe- 
 rience, for General Le Due was a friend of my family and 
 was sometimes at Cottendale when I was a young man, 
 and was himself a man of very extraordinary knowledge 
 and experiences in life. 
 
 However, Mr. Pennick is remembered by a large num- 
 ber of other prominent men in this country, who pro- 
 nounce him the most talented confidence man that ever 
 operated on this continent. His genius in crookedness 
 amounted to greatness, it is said, and even after you know 
 this, it is difficult to withhold your confidence and respect. 
 
 He is described as a faultlessly groomed man with 
 irresistible manners, whose occupation has always been 
 separating American millionaires from some of their hard- 
 
 i6 
 
THE ORGANIZATION OF THE PARTY 
 
 earned cash, for be it remembered that Pennick always 
 went for big game. The man with a few thousand was 
 always safe in his hands, and he is ever ready to help a 
 fellow who is down on his luck. 
 
 The last I heard of him he was said to be residing on 
 a beautiful estate on the Rhine, where he could enjoy that 
 quiet and freedom of action that might be to some degree 
 interfered with here. 
 
 It seems that Mr. Pennick first came into some notoriety 
 back in the seventies. At that time there was quite a 
 prosperous little mining district around Port Arthur, on 
 the Canadian side of Lake Superior. Mr. Pennick came 
 into this district and purchased from the Canadian Gov- 
 ernment some 24,000 acres of land, paying therefor $1 
 per acre. He had this land surveyed and laid off into 
 sections and had some maps and blueprints prepared. 
 He then smuggled in eleven barrels of tin ore from Eng- 
 land, and salted it down on this property. The following 
 year he sent out a prospecting party, who returned with 
 magnificent specimens of tin ore. With this ore, his 
 maps and deeds for the property he organized a company 
 in New York City and sold some $800,000 worth of 
 stock. Early the next summer the stock owners, for 
 some reason, became suspicious and sent out an explor- 
 ing party on their own responsibility. The whole fraud 
 was then exposed, even the empty barrels from the Corn- 
 wall Tin Mines found and brought down to New York. 
 It is not known exactly how Mr. Pennick got out of this 
 affair. It is known that he was in prison for awhile, and 
 some say he bribed a judge. Anyway, he shortly after- 
 
 17 
 
AN ADVENTURE IN ALASKA 
 
 wards appeared in the mining districts of the West, where 
 he became known as the most successful swindler in the 
 trade. 
 
 After being connected with various big and shady 
 transactions, he finally, by accident it is said, got control 
 of one of the best properties in Colorado. This was a 
 mine called the Robert E. Lee, and this he sold to an 
 English syndicate for something like a million dollars. 
 We next hear of him as a plunger on the Chicago Ex- 
 change, where he became bankrupt in a short time. He 
 then returned to the mining business, but, being too well 
 known in the West now for success along his lines, he 
 went to Cook's Inlet, in Alaska, a district which had for 
 years been yielding placer gold in modest quantities. Here 
 he selected a site for a town which he named Homer for 
 himself, and staked off a certain amount of the adjoining 
 country as mining claims. 
 
 It seems that he was here when he heard of the dis- 
 covery of the Klondike. He at once started out, and on 
 the way down met the man who was to be his assistant 
 and partner in carrying out some of his future opera- 
 tions. This man was George Rennick, the same that I 
 saw first at the Great Northern Hotel, and whose dis- 
 patch in business matters had so amazed me. 
 
 Rennick was himself a swindler of some note, having 
 served a term in a Federal prison for his connection with 
 a mining swindle known as "The Little Bear's Nest." 
 Rennick was a much commoner type of criminal than 
 Pennick. Nothing was too small for him to steal or too 
 dirty for his undertaking. He was a man of extraordi- 
 nary cunning and knowledge of human nature, but his 
 
THE ORGANIZATION OF THE PARTY 
 
 most valuable qualities to Pennick were his manners, 
 appearance and dress, which were exactly what the East- 
 ern imagination had pictured that of a prosperous Klon- 
 diker to be. This pair, having arrived in Seattle on the 
 same steamer, at once began to lay plans for a wholesale 
 robbery of Eastern people. Pennick's genius was for 
 working big game and his power lay in his ability to 
 meet and interest big financiers in his enterprises. He 
 used Rennick just as he chose, gave him so much of the 
 spoils as he cared to, and permitted him to fleece and 
 blackmail any small fish that happened to be drawn into 
 the net. 
 
 The first move was to borrow $20,000 worth of gold 
 nuggets. This they succeeded in doing from a prominent 
 banker in Seattle, whose name I withhold because of the 
 respect and friendship I in after years had for his wife 
 and daughter. In a few days this remarkable pair were 
 registered at the Palmer House, in Chicago. Rennick 
 was dressed as a Klondiker — blue shirt, slouch hat and 
 mackinaw. He said he had just come out from the Klon- 
 dike, had been working very hard and had just come over 
 to see the town and have a little fun. He spent money 
 very freely, and on opportune occasions would show a few 
 handfuls of nuggets. He was quite reluctant in talking 
 about Alaska, but he let the boys know that he had a hole 
 in the ground up there somewhere which he was in the 
 habit of visiting after his profligate trips east. 
 
 In the meantime, Pennick, who was elegantly dressed 
 and entertaining lavishly, was pointing him out and in- 
 troducing him as a Klondiker who had just come out from 
 the interior with a fortune. He said that he had taken 
 
 19 
 
AN ADVENTURE IN ALASKA 
 
 him down to San Francisco, where they had wined him 
 and dined him, but had been unable to get anything out 
 of him as to what or where his properties were. Being 
 convinced, however, that this man had something very 
 splendid, he had brought him over to Chicago to see if 
 a company could not be organized that would make it 
 profitable to all concerned. 
 
 After much persuasion and work in each case on the 
 part of Pennick and others, this poor, ignorant Klondiker 
 Rennick was finally persuaded to sell certain interests in 
 his claims in Alaska. A number of companies were 
 organized here, in each case Rennick receiving from 
 $5,000 to $20,000 in cash upon the passing of the papers. 
 Philadelphia, being a good town, was worked in the same 
 way, as well as several other places, and some big silk 
 manufacturers at Paterson, New Jersey, to my own 
 knowledge, can bear witness that that town also was not 
 overlooked. 
 
 Finally, New York was reached and the whole thing 
 repeated there even on a larger scale. Among the com- 
 panies large and small that were organized in New York 
 there was one at 26 Broadway. This being the head- 
 quarters of the Standard Oil Company, illustrates in a 
 way the ability of Mr. Pennick to reach and interest the 
 most important financiers. 
 
 This company was backed and undertaken, as I after- 
 wards understood from Mr. Edwards, by three perfectly 
 legitimate business men who were connected officially 
 with the Standard Oil Company. It was a private un- 
 dertaking of these gentlemen, however, and was in no 
 way whatever connected with the affairs of the Standard 
 
 20 
 
THE ORGANIZATION OF THE PARTY 
 
 Oil Company. In this particular case Rennick received 
 five $i,ooo bills before any of the papers were signed. 
 He then signed a paper obligating himself to take into 
 Alaska a party of ten men, prospectors, and to stake them 
 on "pay dirt." As to the exact geographic position of 
 this "pay dirt" Mr. Rennick said nothing. Indeed, it 
 was especially stipulated that he would not be required 
 to do so. It might be in the totem pole forest of Wrangle, 
 or it might be a few thousand miles around the corner at 
 the mouth of the frozen Mackenzie. However, this did 
 not matter. "Pay dirt" was what was wanted, and you 
 could not expect a man to disclose the exact whereabouts 
 of so much wealth for a pittance like $5,000. 
 
 Everything was very speedily and satisfactorily ar- 
 ranged. A Mr. Edwards was selected to represent the 
 company. He and Rennick were at once to go to Seattle 
 and organize the party. Rennick was to have complete 
 control until the party was properly located, according to 
 his contract; then Mr. Edwards, the representative of the 
 company, was to take charge. 
 
 This Mr. Edwards was a cool, calculating man, a good 
 New York type. He was about fifty years of age, had 
 some considerable mechanical knowledge, and had been 
 connected, I believe, with The Acme Works in Brooklyn. 
 He had spent a year or two in South America for the 
 Standard Oil people and was in this matter receiving a 
 salary of $5,000 a year, in addition to some interest he 
 had in the undertaking. Edwards was a man of splendid 
 determination and stuck to Rennick like a leech, so that 
 Rennick could not shake him and finally had to go to 
 Seattle with him, much as he disliked to do so. 
 
 21 
 
AN ADVENTURE IN ALASKA 
 
 Mr. Edwards and Rennick had arrived in Seattle some 
 weeks before myself, where Rennick at once began to 
 invent all manner of excuses for delay and for forcing- 
 further money out of the company. Something had been 
 done, however, in the way of organization. A steam 
 schooner had been purchased in Astoria, Oregon, and 
 brought around to Seattle, and some members of the 
 party also had been engaged. 
 
 After Rennick had exhausted his ingenuity in delaying 
 the party, he pretended at last to be ill and procured a 
 doctor to say that he must at once go to Hot Springs, 
 Arkansas. In order to make this more certainly work, 
 he was pronounced to have contracted a loathsome dis- 
 ease which was sure to disqualify him for so intimate per- 
 sonal association as this trip required. He insisted, how- 
 ever, that he had a partner who was just as familiar 
 with that "pay dirt" as he himself was; that he did not 
 then know where his partner was, but was expecting him 
 in Seattle every day, and as soon as he came he would 
 have him take his place and go with Edwards, carrying 
 out his (Rennick's) part of the contract. 
 
 As some thousands of dollars had already been spent 
 and the tale seemed very plausible, especially as Rennick 
 'had often referred to this partner in New York and other 
 places, there was nothing for Edwards to do but to wait. 
 
 In the meantime, Rennick began a search among the 
 cosmopolitan mass of bums and blacklegs then in Seattle 
 for some man that he could pass off for his partner. The 
 man that he finally introduced as his partner was named 
 George Stinson, and how he came to be his partner I will 
 let Stinson himself relate in his own way. 
 
 22 
 
THE ORGANIZATION OF THE PARTY 
 
 Four years after these occurrences I was driving one 
 afternoon on the Lunetta in the City of Manila. I saw 
 Stinson on the sidewalk. I recognized him instantly. 
 There was no mistaking him — the same red beard and 
 small blue eyes, the same massive form and wobbling 
 gate. I sprang from the "Carremetta" and going toward 
 him called him by his first name — George. He turned 
 around and seeing me in the uniform of an artillery officer 
 saluted and said: "I beg your pardon, sir. I thought 
 you spoke to me." He then recognized me, and seemed 
 to be pleased at seeing me again. I asked him to drive 
 with me. which he did. 
 
 We went to the Hotel Oriente and had a long chat. I 
 told him that I would like to know his part of that Alaska 
 trip of ours ; that the trip was a thing of the past now, 
 and could not in any way hurt or concern anyone. In 
 that peculiarly positive and short-sentenced manner of his 
 he very readily told me his connection with the trip, and 
 I reproduce his words here as nearly verbatim as pos- 
 sible, I having written them down immediately afterwards 
 in my quarters at Fort Santiago : 
 
 "I never saw Rennick until he came to see me in 
 Seattle about two weeks before I met you. I am a 
 sailor most of my life, though I have prospected some, 
 too, most everywhere, in Africa, South America and in 
 Australia, in the United States, too, and about ten years 
 ago I was Prospecting down here on this island in Ben- 
 quet Province. For the last several years I have gone in 
 whaling ships, and, as you know, I am familiar with the 
 coast from California up to the Arctic. I know, too, 
 most all the Indian tribes and many of the squaw men 
 and traders along the coast. Well, I came down to Seat- 
 tle that year after spending the winter in the Arctic 
 Ocean near Cape Barrow. I had about $500, but I 
 
 23 
 
AN ADVENTURE IN ALASKA 
 
 spent this in two or three weeks. I thought I would go 
 to the Klondike, but this fellow Rennick came to me 
 when I was about broke. He said that he had a good 
 thing up in Alaska and wanted a man to take a party 
 up there for him. I thought he was on the square ; he 
 loaned me a hundred dollars and asked me to wait a 
 few days. I saw him every day, and after a few 
 days he took me to a room and told me his plans. He 
 said that he had signed a contract in New York to 
 take a party up to Alaska and stake them, but that he 
 was sick and could not go; besides, they had treated 
 him very badly, and he was going to shake them. He 
 said he could fix it so that I could make some money 
 out of it, and after a few days it was agreed that I was 
 to represent myself as his partner. He gave me $500, 
 and I was to work Edwards for whatever I could get 
 before we started. He thought Edwards would stand 
 for $2,000. If Edwards ponied up, I was to take the 
 party to the most inaccessible place I could find, some- 
 where where they could neither get in or out. It was 
 important that Edwards be placed somewhere for the 
 winter where he could not communicate with his 
 friends. 
 
 "That was my part — to keep Edwards and you fel- 
 lows from civilization until the following spring. This 
 would enable Rennick to carry on his plans in Seat- 
 tle during the winter and spring, when a big rush 
 would certainly take place. All these things were very 
 carefully gone over and understood by Rennick and my- 
 self, and after a few days we were ready to spring 
 it on Edwards. 
 
 "It was arranged that Rennick was to go to Ed- 
 ward's room at the Great Northern Hotel and engage 
 him in a rather despondent conversation over the non- 
 appearance of his partner. After a little while I was 
 to appear. Rennick was to recognize me as his old 
 partner, whom he had been expecting for some days 
 and after a greeting the whole thing was to be sprung. 
 
 ''Well, I went to the Great Northern and sat down 
 
 24 
 
THE ORGANIZATION OF THE PARTY 
 
 in a chair. I saw Rennick come through and go into 
 the elevator. If he did not return in ten minutes, I was 
 to follow. After ten minutes I went up and knocked 
 on Edwards' door. The door was opened and Ren- 
 nick jumped up and, grabbing me by the hand, said: 
 'You damn old scoundrel ! Where in the hell have you 
 been? I have been looking for you everywhere.' After 
 we had exchanged greetings I told him I had just 
 come out and had been down in San Francisco for a 
 few weeks. He then introduced me to Edwards. We 
 all sat down, and Rennick asked some questions about 
 the mines, how were the claims on Wild Goose Creek 
 panning, had I gone over to Dead Horse Canyon 
 before I left, and some other questions about ficti- 
 tious places. 
 
 "It was certainly funny. He then said, 'Well, George, 
 you have got to go right back,' and then told me about 
 Edwards' party, how he himself had to go to Hot 
 Springs, and all that bunk. I kind of laughed this off, 
 and told him that I could not think of going back to 
 Alaska now. After a few days, when both Rennick 
 and myself were satisfied that Edwards was com- 
 pletely deceived, I consented to take the party off his 
 hands, provided Edwards would pay me $2,000 cash. 
 This rather staggered Edwards, and after some tele- 
 graphing to New York I accepted $1,500, which Ed- 
 wards paid me at once. I think you know the balance. 
 Gotten, and how well I carried out my agreement with 
 Rennick. Rennick robbed me before I left Seattle, 
 and I hope he is in hell by now. I did not know where 
 to take you fellows, besides it was not too late for 
 you to get out if we went up at once, so we invented 
 that yarn about the schooner which you remember we 
 wasted so much time in hunting. Well, when we got to 
 Sitka I saw Steve McGee and told him this business. 
 Steve said that Yakutat was the place to lose the 
 damn scoundrels. So I went to Yakutat. That was 
 a hard winter on me. I was afraid you fellows would 
 hang me. I was not afraid of you, but I thought Jess 
 or Brooks might kill me." 
 
 25 
 
AN ADVENTURE IN ALASKA 
 
 George would tell me nothing as to how the party 
 finally broke up, except in a general way that they had 
 all got out, he believed, and I purposely avoided asking 
 him what had become of our dogs. Stinson then 
 told me that he had been prospecting up in Benguet Prov- 
 ince, but had gone broke and asked me if I could not see 
 Captain Harding, the Chief of Police of Manila, and have 
 him appointed on the Municipal Police Force. I knew 
 Jack Harding, having been a non-commissioned officer 
 with him in the same regiment. However, I also knew 
 Stinson, and I could not possibly recommend him for a 
 position of this kind. I knew him too well for that, and 
 could not inflict him on the small Chinese merchants and 
 other helpless people who might be on his post. As 
 Manila was at that time, George would have made such a 
 position much more profitable than prospecting. 
 
 Thus it was that Stinson came to be in charge of this 
 party. H Rennick has searched the world over he could 
 not have found a man better fitted to carry out this part 
 of the plan. 
 
 Stinson was the most perplexing study I have ever 
 found in human nature. At times it would seem that he 
 just missed being a fine man. He had a splendid prac- 
 tical knowledge of the world, some considerable education 
 and fine natural abilities. 
 
 But with all this he was the most debased, cruel and 
 inhuman creature I have ever known. He had, I believe, 
 some considerable criminal record, including murder, and 
 his passions and habits were the most violent and uncon- 
 trolled imaginable. He had, too, a most extraordinary 
 cunning, and was a very dangerous man with it all, be- 
 cause he knew no fear. 
 
 26 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 From Seattle to Sitka. 
 
 Thus it is seen that we had no prospects whatever from 
 the beginning. We were merely to be ditched and aban- 
 doned in some inaccessible place a thousand miles from 
 civilization and left to die or get out the best we could. 
 
 The men that Rennick and Stinson selected to compose 
 this party were all chosen on account of their lack of expe- 
 rience, their simplicity of mind and because they appeared 
 little likely to cause future trouble. I seemed to fulfill 
 these requirements without difficulty. 
 
 They were, for the most part, very rough and unde- 
 sirable companions, Lang and Romeo being, to some ex- 
 tent, exceptions in this respect. Lang remained with the 
 party to the end, and shortly after returning to the States 
 committed suicide, as has been stated. Romeo came out 
 with me, as will appear later. 
 
 Jack Rhyne was a young Irishman, much nearer my 
 own age than the others, and came from the Barbary 
 Coast of San Francisco. He was what is called a water- 
 front tough and barroom loafer, though not a very vicious 
 type. He had a fine wit and could be attractive in a way. 
 I met him several years afterwards on Market Street, in 
 San Francisco. He was a sign painter then, and told me 
 that Jimmy Landon, another member of our party, had 
 contracted the habit of going prospecting in other peo- 
 ple's pockets, and in consequence thereof was at that 
 time a member of the city street builders' association, that 
 
 27 
 
AN ADVENTURE IN ALASKA 
 
 uniformed organization that used to be distinguished by a 
 very large ball and chain worn on the ankles. This Jimmy 
 was a very disgusting little person, and I hardly know 
 how to class him, since his kind is rarely found except in. 
 the slums proper. 
 
 Tom Bull had spent his entire life as a woodsman and 
 hunter, and in this field he had certain expert knowledge 
 of a crude nature that would have delighted Mr. Roose- 
 velt. However, had Mr. Roosevelt lived with him as 
 intimately as I did for several months, he would have 
 seen a larger side of him not so interesting or attractive. 
 Tom had taken up a ranch near Cape Flatery, where he 
 lived entirely by hunting, and his nearest neighbor was 
 a man named Wells, who was from my native county in 
 North Carolina. Tom was a widower, and from his own 
 description of his married life and his treatment of his 
 wife I should say that he was also a murderer. 
 
 Brooks was a lumberjack from Minnesota, quiet and 
 very ignorant. He was also suspicious and moody, and 
 spent all his spare time whittling on a stick with a pocket 
 knife. He was a type that has since been organized into the 
 I. W. W.'s, and, excepting George, was the most treach- 
 erous and dangerous man in the party. Two other mem- 
 bers of the party deserted us before we really got under 
 way, so we numbered only eight instead of ten, as in- 
 tended. One of these deserters was a mild-appearing man 
 who had spent his life prospecting with a Burro in the 
 deserts of Arizona ; the other was a Swede and a sailor, 
 I believe. 
 
 The organization of our party had excited considerable 
 interest in Seattle — the supposed backing of the Stand- 
 
 28 
 
FROM SEATTLE TO SITKA 
 
 ard Oil Company, the excellency of our equipment, the 
 special boat and, above all, perhaps, the mystery of our 
 destination, this latter secret being all the easier guarded 
 because no one at all knew at that time where we were 
 going, George himself having not yet decided. The pa- 
 pers had given us considerable notice, and on the day of 
 our departure six or seven hundred people assembled to 
 see us off, the crowd being greatly augmented, I sup- 
 pose, by the presence of a brass band that had been sent 
 down by one of the outfitting establishments. 
 
 All of my newly made friends were on hand and wished 
 me much success. My last act of gallantry was to re- 
 move my new silk necktie and present it to sweet Grace 
 McAllester, for I would need it no more in the land of 
 the Polar Bear. It was a loud and rough crowd that stood 
 about to see us off, and several would-be stowaways had 
 to be thrown ashore. We had proceeded only a few hun- 
 dred yards from the dock when a fight took place on the 
 ship that came near developing into a free-for-all fight 
 between the crew and several members of our party. It 
 seems that George and Tom, who were quite drunk at 
 this time, made an entirely unprovoked attack upon the 
 cook, who called to his assistance a sailor. Both sides 
 were well battered up before the matter was quieted, and 
 to make matters worse, some of our dogs just at that 
 time got loose on deck and began to chew each other up 
 in a vigorous way, so that the deck was for some minutes 
 very animated and excited by brute man and brute dog, 
 each trying to destroy his own particular kind. 
 
 We stopped at the beautiful little city of Port Town- 
 send, which is the clearance port of Puget Sound, and 
 
 29 
 
AN ADVENTURE IN ALASKA 
 
 here two members of the party quietly stole away and 
 were seen no more. This place is beautifully situated 
 almost at the foot of the Olympic Mountains, and here I 
 afterwards spent two very happy years as an army officer. 
 We passed from here across the straits and entered what 
 is known as the inside passage. This passage may prop- 
 erly be said to commence at Olympia, Washington, and, 
 extending for about 1,300 miles, terminates in what is 
 known as The Lynn Cannel, Alaska. 
 
 From a scenic standpoint, it is one of the most beau- 
 tiful waterways in the world, and in formation and ap- 
 pearance is very similar to the "fjords" of Norway, only 
 here there are no habitations. It is simply a network of 
 islands and waterways. It narrows in places to a few 
 hundred feet, then widens and branches in all directions. 
 You find your way abruptly stopped by a gigantic moun- 
 tain, and just when you are sure that there is no way 
 through, a hole appears to the right or left ; you wonder 
 will the ship pass through — yes, it is just large enough, 
 and you enter a bay or a fine estuary. 
 
 Occasionally you get a glimpse of the open sea through 
 some pass or a hole in the wall, but you hasten back to 
 your covered way and continue on in the shadows and 
 under the hills. 
 
 Some of the mountains are black and covered with 
 giant forests, while others are tall and mirror their daz- 
 zling white tops in your path. Here a mighty waterfall 
 pours over a precipice, and there a little white glacier 
 sparkles far up in the valley. No habitation of man is on 
 these shores; it is lonely, and an awful stillness is on the 
 face of the earth. 
 
 30 
 
FROM SEATTLE TO SITKA 
 
 We traveled through this mystic way for several days, 
 and made our first stop at a place called Bella-Bella. This 
 was a place of no importance, being an Indian village of 
 about twenty huts and the station of a Hudson Bay 
 trader. We purchased some "uclous" (dried fish) for 
 our dogs here and proceeded at once. 
 
 Our ship turned out to be very comfortable and a 
 good sea boat, but her machinery was old and out of 
 repair, so that when we had to depend upon steam alone, 
 which was practically all the time, we were very slow, 
 not being able to do better than five knots an hour. 
 
 We were all by now quite well acquainted and were 
 quartered in the forecastle along with the ship's cook and 
 three sailors. We slept on rough wooden berths in our 
 own blankets, and slept exceedingly well at that. Ed- 
 wards was quartered aft with the ship's officers, and we 
 saw nothing whatever of him during the voyage, and it 
 was not until after we landed that we got at all acquainted 
 with him. 
 
 The captain, who took orders only from George, ap- 
 peared to know these waters perfectly. He was said to 
 have been the most successful smuggler of Chinese and 
 opium on the coast, which is the finest possible compli- 
 ment to his ability as a navigator and a scamp. 
 
 We visited a number of "out-of-the-way" inlets and 
 bays in search of a mysterious schooner that was sup- 
 posed to belong to Mr. Rennick, and for which George 
 had some very important orders, this being a device de- 
 signed to delay us en route so that we would not arrive 
 somewhere too early to be held in over the winter. 
 
 In this way we visited old Metlakhatla, which deserves 
 
 31 
 
AN ADVENTURE IN ALASKA 
 
 more than a passing notice. Here we found a regularly 
 laid-out town with well-constructed two-story houses, a 
 very handsome and large church, a salmon cannery, a sash 
 and door factory, a sawmill and brickyard. Yet there 
 was not a single human being in all this town, or within 
 fifty miles of it. The place had been absolutely abandoned 
 since 1887. No man, woman or child greets you as you 
 walk through these silent streets; all is quiet, dead and 
 sad at old Metlakhatla. 
 
 Here was once the home of quite a large tribe of 
 Chimesyan Indians. They were said to have been the 
 most fierce and warlike of all the Northwestern tribes, 
 and at times were cannibals. In 1857 a Rev, Mr. Duncan, 
 a Scotch missionary, went among them and in a few 
 months the entire tribe joined him almost en masse. Mr. 
 Duncan labored with splendid judgment for their mate- 
 rial and spiritual advancement, and with very pronounced 
 success, especially when compared with the rather sorry 
 achievements of missionaries in general on this continent. 
 
 Our missionaries do not seem to be selected on account 
 of any particular fitness for the work undertaken, but 
 rather for entire unfitness to do anything at home. 
 
 Mr. Duncan's idea was not to teach them religion 
 alone, but to instruct them in crafts and occupations which 
 would make of them a self-supporting and self-respecting 
 community. With this idea in mind, he went back to 
 England and perfected himself in such things as black- 
 smithing, rope making, carpentering and brickmaking. 
 He learned to construct and operate a sawmill, and even 
 learned the gamut on each of twenty band instruments in 
 order that he could teach them music and organize a 
 
 32 
 
FROM SEATTLE TO SITKA 
 
 band. His success was splendid, and by 1886 these 
 Indians were living upon a very high plain of civilization 
 in the town which I have just described as abandoned. 
 About this time Mr. Duncan became greatly annoyed by 
 threats of the Canadian Government to put these Indians 
 on a reservation status, as well as by a narrow ecclesias- 
 ticism which was endeavoring to force the high church 
 services upon him. He finally went to Washington and 
 procured from Mr. Cleveland Annette Island, a fine, rich 
 island in southeastern Alaska. Here he took the entire 
 tribe in 1887. 
 
 The migration was made in canoes, the colony taking 
 with them such of their property as was readily remov- 
 able. A new town was established named Metlakhatla, 
 after the old, and here, under the Stars and Stripes, they 
 have prospered exceedingly, and are a most unique and 
 interesting community. 
 
 We next stopped at Port Simpson. This is the most 
 northerly port on the Pacific side of the English posses- 
 sions. The inland passage here opens into a fine road- 
 stead as large as Hampton Roads, which, in turn, opens 
 directly into the high sea. This place is now the thriving 
 little city of Rupert, and is destined to become one of 
 the important cities of the West. It is six hundred miles 
 nearer Hongkong and Yokohama than Seattle or any 
 American port, and with the railroad connections with 
 Winnepeg which it now has, is bound to become a city 
 of great importance. 
 
 The American Territory of Alaska extends to within 
 sight of Rupert, a fact that is very irritating to the 
 Canadians, and two islands adjudged American territory 
 
 33 
 
AN ADVENTURE IN ALASKA 
 
 by a decision of the German Emperor are so located as to 
 command the entrance to the harbor. This especially 
 causes the Canadians concern. 
 
 Port Simpson, on this my first visit, was a very small 
 place, containing a mission and a Hudson Bay Post. The 
 Hudson Bay Company was the agency by which the whole 
 of this country was saved to the British. What the East 
 Indian Company did in India, the Hudson Bay Company 
 repeated in North America in a somewhat smaller way. 
 The history of the British Northwest for two hundred 
 years is the history of the Hudson Bay Company, and 
 now that we are to leave English territory it is well to 
 speak of it for a moment as one of the great agencies 
 that have given to this whole country its present charac- 
 teristics and atmosphere of life. 
 
 The Hudson Bay Company was chartered by Charles 
 II in 1670, and is therefore the oldest concern now doing 
 business in America. The charter was granted to certain 
 persons, who styled themselves "Gentlemen adventurers 
 with Prince Rupert at their head." The charter con- 
 veyed the sole right to "trade with the natives, to estab- 
 lish law and impose penalties, to erect forts, maintain 
 ships of war and to make peace or war with any prince 
 or people not Christian." 
 
 After the English obtained control of Canada the com- 
 pany spread rapidly across the continent and became a 
 powerful monopoly. It saved the whole of western Can- 
 ada to the English and made a hard fight for "The Ore- 
 gon," that magnificent domain now known as Washing- 
 ton and Oregon. 
 
 They established a strong fort and trading post on the 
 
 34 
 
FROM SEATTLE TO SITKA 
 
 site whereon is now situated the Military Post of Van- 
 couver Barracks on the Columbia River, and would have 
 no doubt established the English in control of this entire 
 country but for Old Whitman's wagon. 
 
 Perhaps no apparently trivial occurrence since the loss 
 of the proverbial horseshoe nail has had so important re- 
 sults as the fact that old Whitman's wagon was a good 
 one. The Hudson Bay people were well established in 
 this magnificent domain on the Columbia, when one day 
 a very peculiar cracking and bumping noise was heard 
 far up the valley and across the river. This was old Whit- 
 man's wagon, the first wagon that ever crossed the Rocky 
 Mountains, and it arrived on the Columbia River May 
 2 1 St, 1836. 
 
 The Hudson Bay people were not slow to realize the 
 full import of this accomplishment. It was not old Whit- 
 man that they objected to — he was only an old frontiers- 
 man — but in the wagon they saw their undoing. If one 
 wagon could drive from Indiana to Oregon, why not two, 
 and if two, why not a thousand, and that is just what 
 happened. A thousand followed in old Whitman's wake, 
 and The Oregon was saved to the Union. 
 
 Whitman himself, after making a trip to Washington 
 to protest against the proposed trading of Oregon for a 
 cod fishing privilege in Newfoundland, was massacred by 
 Indians, but his old wagon is in the State Museum at 
 Portland and its image is on the great seal of the State of 
 Oregon. 
 
 The "Gentlemen with Prince Rupert at their head" 
 thus having been blocked in the south by old Whitman's 
 wagon were also checked to the north by the Russian- 
 
 35 
 
AN ADVENTURE IN ALASKA 
 
 American Fur Company, which, hke itself, was a pow- 
 erful monopoly. The influence of the English company 
 on the Pacific, therefore, extended from Oregon to Alaska. 
 Over this country they exerted a tremendous influence, 
 many effects of which are apparent even to the present 
 day. They devised and introduced a dialect called 
 Chanooke, which is today spoken almost entirely by all 
 the Indians on the coast from Cook's Inlet to the Colum- 
 bia River. This dialect consists only of about 200 words 
 and is quite easy to learn. It is sometimes referred to as 
 the Court Language of the Northwest. Many white peo- 
 ple speak it more or less, and a number of prominent peo- 
 ple in Seattle and elsewhere take great pride in the purity 
 of their Chanooke. It is a combination of several Indian 
 dialects, with an occasional English and French word 
 corrupted and woven in. It has recently, strangely 
 enough, given to the English language a word that will 
 probably remain. That is "hooch," which is derived 
 from the Chanooke word "Hoochenue," which is an in- 
 toxicating drink illegally made by the Indians. 
 
 To the north the Hudson Bay Company was met by 
 the Russian-American Fur Company, with whom they 
 waged fierce war for almost a hundred years. The Rus- 
 sians first reached America by way of the Aleutian 
 Islands, which, like a line of stepping-stones, extend from 
 the American coast almost to Siberia. The Russian trade 
 was at first carried on by independent bands of roving 
 sea dogs. These bands of adventurers often engaged in 
 desperate wars among themselves, and the loss of life 
 among the natives and Russians alike during this period 
 was very large. Finally, in 1780, a merchant, Gregor 
 
 36 
 
FROM SEATTLE TO SITKA 
 
 Shelikof, organized a company of some financial strength, 
 which in 1799 was chartered by Catherine II as the Rus- 
 sian-American Fur Company. This company was par- 
 ticularly fortunate in the selection of its first governor, 
 George Baronofif, who was a man of tremendous organiz- 
 ing power and very great administrative ability. Baron- 
 off moved the seat of his government further south and 
 founded the city of Sitka. 
 
 He also established the strong Fort of Wrangle, still 
 further south, and made deadly war on the Hudson Bay 
 Company. Under his administration and that of his suc- 
 cessor, Captain Hayunusta, the company became rich and 
 powerful, and undertook many bold enterprises, among 
 them the annexation of Hawaii and a war on Japan. 
 
 The company also established a colony in California at 
 a place called New Albion, on the Russian River. This 
 colony was established for the purpose of raising supplies 
 for the town of Sitka, but was not very successful in this 
 respect. The principal difficulty seems to have been in 
 the personnel selected to conduct this enterprise, who, be- 
 ing for the most part Aleutian Indians and half-breeds 
 transported from Alaska, had no particular taste for 
 agricultural pursuits, but rather betook themselves off in 
 a body on long hunting trips when they should have been 
 attending to their grain and cattle. 
 
 They did quite a business here, however, in the manu- 
 facture of plows and other utensils which they sold to the 
 lazy Spanish ranchers who lived to the south. This col- 
 ony was abandoned and sold in 1844 to a Swiss named 
 Sutter, the same who five years afterwards was so promi- 
 nently connected with the first discovery of gold in Cali- 
 
 37 
 
AN ADVENTURE IN ALASKA 
 
 fornia. In 1899 I camped for a month on the Russian 
 River, and there are still many evidences of this Russian 
 occupation. 
 
 Thus is was that these powerful monopolies fought 
 among themselves for greed and power and for the skins 
 of little animals until civilization came and put an end 
 to it. Nor must it be forgotten that into these affairs 
 there also came the far-reaching hand of John Jacob 
 Astor, a man with a vision and a genius, too, all his 
 own. 
 
 These ships and traders of Astor's were a different 
 type from the Russians and from the English, and pros- 
 pered rather by their shrewdness than by force and by 
 the attractiveness of their New England goods. Though 
 the English drove Astor out of Astoria in 1812, he was 
 still able to maintain his fleet in the Pacific, and was an 
 important factor in the Northwest and in Southeastern 
 Alaska for fifty years or more. 
 
 From Port Simpson we passed into Alaskan waters and 
 stopped at Mary Island. There is nothing here but the 
 custom house, but here we had the misfortune of losing 
 our big seven hundred pound anchor. This was the fault 
 of the mate, who ordered it let go without seeing that 
 the cable was made fast, so the anchor, cable and all went 
 to the bottom of the bay. The mate, however, passed 
 the blame on to the sailor who let go, and gave him a 
 dreadful beating, accompanied by great explosions of 
 oaths. 
 
 We next stopped at New Metlakhatla, where some of 
 us called upon the venerable Mr. Duncan, and then passed 
 on to Ketchakan. This place is on Prince of Wales 
 
 38 
 
FROM SEATTLE TO SITKA 
 
 Island, a very rich island, forty miles by one hundred 
 and forty miles long and destined some day to be well 
 populated. We spent a day and night at this p ace and 
 visited the Indian huts and the one white man that ived 
 there There were many very handsome totem poles here, 
 especially across the narrow strait in front of the 
 settlement. These totems are usually the trunks of trees, 
 carved to represent fish, animals or birds, placed one 
 above the other. Very much that is confusing and con- 
 tradictory has been written about them and some writers 
 profess to have discovered a great variety of meanings 
 and causes for their construction. They are usually found 
 at the graves of the dead, but are sometimes at the en- 
 trance of huts, and even at times on the inside. They 
 represent the ^otem" or family to which the owner be- 
 longs, and the animal is the ancestor or progenitor from 
 whkh the family is descended. Some of them are very 
 extraordinary looking, and often stand from twenty to 
 
 forty feet high. 
 
 I was again at Ketchakan in 1904 and found a pros- 
 perous little town of 800 white people. It is now a con- 
 siderable city, and will undoubtedly continue to grow. 
 As yet fishing is the principal industry, and last year there 
 was shipped from here twenty million pounds of halibut. 
 
 From here we passed on to Shecan, a small Indian 
 village also on Prince of Wales Island. Here I saw the 
 only really pretty Indian maiden that I have ever seen. 
 She had been a cripple from childhood and was entirely 
 
 unable to walk. 
 
 From here we proceeded without further stop to bitka. 
 
 which was then the capital of Alaska. 
 
 39 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Sitka and Yakutat. 
 
 As you approach Sitka the oriental dome of the Greek 
 Cathedral, the court house, Marine Barracks and other 
 Government buildings, all coming in view at once, you 
 get the impression that it is a much larger place than it 
 really is. 
 
 As the administrative seat and centre of Russian cul- 
 ture in America, Sitka has a most interesting history. It 
 was a place of much importance a hundred years ago. 
 From here the Russian did a considerable trade with 
 China and with the Spaniards to the south, and most of 
 the bells in the old missions of California were cast in this 
 little city on Baronoff Island. However, long before the 
 time of my visit it had much declined in importance, but 
 was still by far the most interesting place in all Alaska. 
 
 If you have ever been penned up on a little coastwise 
 schooner for twenty days and are a reasonably decent 
 person, it is not hard to guess what your first performance 
 was upon going ashore. I accordingly made inquiry at 
 once as to where those celebrated Russian baths were that 
 I had heard so much about in connection with Sitka. 
 This inquiry was the more diligently made by reason of 
 the prospects that this would be my winter's bath, which 
 was in fact true, though I do not know that any other 
 member of the party profited by this last opportunity. 
 Indeed, later when speaking of this matter in the woods, 
 George seriously maintained that bathing was a symptom 
 
 40 
 
SITKA AND YAKUTAT 
 
 of degeneracy ; that it took certain oils and animal matter 
 out of the skin, very necessary for vigor and endurance; 
 that the Roman Empire never commenced to decline until 
 luxurious baths were provided and the people became 
 addicted to this altogether useless and destructive cus- 
 tom. However that may be, I took this bath in Sitka, 
 and have never felt that I was in any way injured. In 
 fact, I liked it so well that I actually took another one in 
 June of the following year. 
 
 These baths in Sitka are connected with private resi- 
 dences, especially with the residences of the Colonial Citi- 
 zens, so-called, who are a class of half-breeds left in 
 America by the Russians. These people and their de- 
 scendants are found in small numbers at several places 
 on the coast, especially at Cook's Inlet. The bath that 
 1 used on this occasion and afterwards in June consisted 
 of two small rooms, and was entirely separated from the 
 residence. One room is a dressing room, and in here you 
 also finish the bath with a tub of water. In the floor of 
 the second room is built a large rock furnace, which is 
 heated by logs of wood from the outside. When this is 
 sufficiently hot you throw basins of water upon it until 
 the room becomes packed with steam, and in this way 
 you get a very crude but quite a good steam bath. 
 
 In Sitka there is a Presbyterian Mission which main- 
 tains a large school for Indian girls. What to do with 
 these girls when they finish school is a problem not yet 
 solved, and their fate is often a tragic one in that rough 
 country. Here, too, is the Shelton Jackson Museum, 
 with a fine collection of Alaskan curios. The ruins of 
 BaronofiB's Castle are still to be seen, and I noticed sev- 
 
 41 
 
AN ADVENTURE IN ALASKA 
 
 eral pieces of ancient artillery that formerly mounted its 
 parapets. There is a very attractive park and driveway, 
 or rather walk, I should say, for there is only one horse 
 on the island, and that turned out upon investigation to 
 be a government mule. 
 
 On the beach in front of the Mission is pointed out a 
 large boulder, whereon it is said the beautiful Countess 
 
 , spouse of the last Russian Governor, sat and 
 
 wept when she heard that Alaska had in reality been ceded 
 to the United States. Strangely enough, this rock is 
 called "The Blarney Stone," and good Americans are 
 supposed to kick it as they pass, which is rather an ugly 
 and ungallant custom, I must say. 
 
 Sitka otherwise has two small hotels, a court house and 
 Federal prison. There is also the Greek Orthodox Cathe- 
 dral and several very large and ancient log buildings, 
 curious and interesting in style. The Greek Orthodox 
 Cathedral is a most interesting building, and has, besides 
 a wealth of jeweled "icons," some ancient Russian lamps, 
 very valuable, and several paintings, one of which I was 
 told the late Mr. J. P. Morgan offered $25,000 for. Nor 
 must I fail to note Mt. Edgecombe, which is an extinct 
 volcano of extraordinary beauty, that adds much to the 
 view around Sitka. 
 
 During the Russian control Indians were not per- 
 mitted to reside within the city proper, so there grew up 
 and developed alongside an exclusive Indian quarter, 
 which is, I think, one of the most unique and picturesque 
 spots in America. Baranoff Island is itself a large and 
 valuable island, and besides being well watered and tim- 
 bered, has a very mild climate. It is also well stocked 
 
 42 
 
SITKA AND YAKUTAT 
 
 with deer, and is the most northerly point in the world 
 where this splendid little animal is found. 
 
 The first evening I was here several men came running 
 past me down the street in a great hurry, almost running 
 over me in their haste. I turned and followed at a lively 
 pace, thinking that something exciting was transpiring. 
 Much to my surprise, I discovered that these men were 
 prisoners running to get in jail. Sitka, being on an 
 island, the prisoners are turned out during the day, and if 
 they are not back by 9 o'clock they are locked out, which 
 is, in that climate, a very serious thing in winter. So it 
 happens that in Sitka about 9 o'clock in the evening a^ 
 number of people excuse themselves and hasten to get in 
 jail. 
 
 One morning George announced that he had discov- 
 ered a large anchor in an old wreck that lay across the 
 bay ; that it was the property of Governor Brady, and that 
 he was going to borrow it if possible to take the place of 
 the one we had lost at Mary Island. I volunteered to go 
 with him and call upon his Excellency the Governor of all 
 Alaska. We both primped ourselves up somewhat for 
 this occasion, and I shall always remember my feelings 
 as I stepped ashore that morning. I was dressed, for the 
 first time, in my real Alaska clothing. A suit of orange- 
 colored mackinaw, blouse belted and buttoned to the 
 throat in military style. My moose skin moccasins came 
 to the ankles, and were ornamented around the top with 
 heavy red stitching. Heavy German socks came up on 
 the outside of the trousers almost to the knees ; a fur 
 cap and gauntlets completed the outfit, and I was careful 
 to let the cuflFs and collar of my dark blue shirt protrude 
 
 43 
 
AN ADVENTURE IN ALASKA 
 
 in a careless, d la Rcnnick manner. Certainly no one 
 would ever take me for a tenderfoot now. 
 
 It is curious what a terror this word tenderfoot has 
 to young men of the East when they first arrive in the 
 West. They affect many airs designed to give the im- 
 pression that they are at home, and generally make them- 
 selves appear much rougher and more uncivilized than 
 they really are in an effort to avoid its application. 
 
 We called at the Governor's residence and were told 
 that he was down at the mill. We went to the mill 
 nearby, and found His Excellency dressed in a blue suit 
 of overalls and shoveling snow from a pile of lumber. 
 This rather surprised me, for I had not thought of that 
 as a dignified dress or seemly exercise for the Governor 
 of so great a Territory, 
 
 The Governor received us most kindly and not only 
 consented to loan us the anchor, but actually went along 
 himself and helped us remove it to the ship, which was no 
 small undertaking. 
 
 I don't think the Governor ever saw such a dandy as 
 I was that morning. He kept eyeing me, and finally 
 walked over to me and asked what part of the South 
 I was from. This completely staggered me, for I had 
 supposed myself quite effectively disguised. When I told 
 him North Carolina, he said, "I knew you were a long 
 way from home." 
 
 While in Sitka, as has been stated before, George met 
 an acquaintance, Steve McGee, and it was Steve who 
 selected the place where we were to be interned for the 
 winter, George up until now having made no decision at 
 all as to where he would take us. This Steve was a squaw 
 
 44 
 
SITKA AND YAKUTAT 
 
 man, and had for a year or two lived in Yakutat, where 
 he had made a living by washing the beach sands in dif- 
 ferent places around the bay. I might explain here that 
 there are a number of such men scattered along the coast 
 of Alaska who are able with a pan during the summer 
 to take out enough gold dust from the sands on the beach 
 to support themselves in idleness during the winter. These 
 men are always squaw men, and often live in little 
 schooners, in which they float from place to place. Steve, 
 however, had a little house in Yakutat, and his squaw 
 was a graduate of the Mission School at Sitka. 
 
 Steve, as of course can be understood, was an outcast 
 from society, and was very much like George in his 
 taste and desires in life. He joined us at Sitka, and 
 during the following spring went up on the Valdez 
 glacier, where he shot a woman and was himself promptly 
 hanged by a band of infuriated miners. 
 
 We left Sitka November 24th, and that night George 
 volunteered us the first information we had as to where 
 we were going. He produced a small map of Alaska and 
 pointed out a spot between the headwaters of the Copper 
 and Alsek rivers. Here, he said, was the promised land. 
 He explained that from Yakutat his route extended over 
 a dead glacier into the Alsek Valley, thence up the frozen 
 stream to the property in question. George was very 
 friendly and communicative that night, and we all went 
 to bed in high spirits and very confident of our success. 
 Jack and I even began to make some plans as to how we 
 ought to live now in this changed state. 
 
 The next morning we were off what is known as the 
 Fairweather Sealing Grounds, this being the locality 
 
 45 
 
AN ADVENTURE IN ALASKA 
 
 where the Russians used to make their greatest catch of 
 seals and sea otter in the early days before the discovery 
 of the wonderful Seal Islands by Prelylon in 1786. A 
 strong gale was blowing, and our little ship labored 
 heavily all day. The coast line had taken on a much more 
 decided Arctic appearance, and the Fairweather range of 
 mountains remained on our starboard side all day, Mt. 
 Fairweather itself, 15.000 feet high, standing out like a 
 giant statue and glorious in a new mantle of dazzling 
 snow. 
 
 On the morning of the third day we entered Yakutat 
 Bay, which is a very large and comfortable harbor, with 
 numerous islands and smaller bays, and after rounding a 
 second cape came up to the town of Yakutat, some two 
 hundred and fifty miles from Sitka. 
 
 Here we lay for several days, while George perfected 
 his plans for our internment. Finally he decided to go up 
 to the head of the glacier over which we were to cross 
 and to examine the locality himself before putting us 
 ashore, which seemed wise, since George had never been 
 in that locality before. He explained that he wanted to 
 select the best place to unload our supplies, and especially 
 wanted to see the condition of the glacier and if any 
 crevasses had appeared on its surface since he crossed it 
 last. He made this trip in a whaleboat, and was accom- 
 panied by Tom and Steve. While George is away on this 
 trip I will describe Yakutat and its locality, for in this 
 vicinity transpired most of the unrelated portion of this 
 narrative. 
 
 Few people, I suppose, have ever heard of Yakutat; 
 certainly I never did until George mentioned it the night 
 
 46 
 
SITKA AND YAKUTAT 
 
 after leaving Sitka. If a person has to be buried alive, 
 there is no more majestic place in the world for that pur- 
 pose than here. Across the bay and in front of the town, 
 though some fifteen miles away, is the great Malaspina 
 Glacier, the largest glacier on the American continent. It 
 contains about two hundred and fifty square miles of solid 
 ice, and is larger in area than the land surface of the 
 State of Rhode Island. 
 
 A glacier is one of the great wonders of nature, and a 
 large portion of the topography and present geographic 
 arrangements of this world can be traced to their work. 
 To us ordinary people ice is a solid ; to the scientists, how- 
 ever, it is a fluid, and to this fact is due the action of 
 glaciers in grinding down great mountain systems and 
 building up great areas of bench lands. Here in these 
 mountains you can actually see them at work. The 
 Malaspina glacier is fed by an extensive network of 
 tributaries or glacier arms that extend through all the 
 valleys for many miles. The pressure of these immense 
 volumes accelerates the flow, which is irregular and af- 
 fected by many things, so that a bench glacier like the 
 Malaspina may be flowing in many directions at the same 
 time, forming at times ranges of hills and valleys on its 
 own surface of great extent. This motion is often accom- 
 panied by deep subterranean rumblings and noises, and 
 sometimes by violent breaks and great noises on the sur- 
 face that are terrifying and sound like artillery practice. 
 
 When a glacier or one of its branches becomes de- 
 prived through some change in topography or climate of 
 its source of supply, it is said to be dead — that is, inactive. 
 Such a glacier then slowly melts away and recedes in the 
 
 47 
 
AN ADVENTURE IN ALASKA 
 
 direction of its summit or active part. As it recedes or 
 melts away it drops whatever it contains in its bosom, 
 and this path, if above the surface of the water, becomes 
 what is known as a moraine. These moraines are im- 
 mensely curious as well as of great interest to geologists. 
 On the north side of the Malaspina stands Mt. St. Elias, 
 1 8, 1 00 feet high, and, at the time I was there, it was sup- 
 posed to be the highest point in America. However, a 
 more recent survey has given that honor to Mt. McKinley, 
 which is more than 20,000 feet high. 
 
 St. Elias is shaped much like a sharp pyramid, only it 
 has a great piece broken out of it near the top. As to who 
 broke it, I cannot for a certainty say, but the Indians say 
 that Tanhow, a turbulent spirit that once lived there- 
 abouts, broke it out and threw it at his wife. I should 
 say that it was a dangerous thing to throw even at one's 
 wife, for that little handful must have been several thou- 
 sand acres. Tanhow is also held to be responsible for a 
 number of other freakish things that are seen in this 
 locality. 
 
 St. Elias is, of course, always covered with snow, is 
 dazzling white, and in clear weather can be seen for two 
 hundred and fifty miles at sea. 
 
 Extending east from St. Elias is the St. Elias range 
 of mountains, which extends to Fairweather. It con- 
 sists of a number of ranges, parallel to each other, and 
 contains many fine peaks, such as Mt. Vancouver, 15.000 
 feet high, and Mt. Hobbard, 10,000 feet high. This is 
 the frame in which Yakutat sits, the town itself being 
 on the bench land that extends along the coast, and is 
 surrounded by dense forests of spruce fir and hemlock. 
 
 48 
 
SITKA AND YAKUTAT 
 
 Yakutat has never been a place of any importance, 
 though now I beHeve one of the largest canneries in the 
 country is there. The Indians of this locality were 
 always of very low order and almost entirely fish 
 eaters. The Russians found them troublesome and not 
 worth while to subdue. In 1802 the Russian garrison of 
 one hundred men was massacred, and about the same 
 time a large party of Russians traveling in three hun- 
 dred canoes was attacked off Yiakutat Bay and destroyed 
 to a man. The Russians then destroyed the place and 
 abandoned it after erecting a great cross over the graves 
 of their comrades, which can be seen to this day as you 
 enter the harbor. 
 
 Yakutat, as I found it, consisted of about fifty shacks 
 and buildings, very irregularly placed along the beach. 
 The natives number, I believe, about 250 and are quite 
 far from being civilized. 
 
 Though there has been a Swedish Mission here for 
 about ten years, these Indians still tie up their witches, 
 keep certain of their young girls in sweat boxes and 
 practise all manner of barbarities, some hideous and re- 
 volting. They still cling mostly to their own laws and 
 customs, are a poor lot physically, very superstitious and 
 all covered with insects. The first night we were here I 
 was awakened in the early morn by the screams and cries 
 of many children. I was so disturbed and curious that I 
 slipped on some clothes and went on deck. It was barely 
 dawn, but I could discern through the light many chil- 
 dren bathing and splashing in the water along the shore. 
 Their screams were dreadful, and I wondered what they 
 were doing there, for the thermometer was about ten de- 
 
 49 
 
AN ADVENTURE IN ALASKA 
 
 grees above zero. I learned that it is customary to often 
 subject the small children to this treatment, the men driv- 
 ing them into the water with sticks and standing on the 
 shore to see that they remained out for an allotted time, 
 the idea being to toughen them to hardships and exposure, 
 thus making stronger men and women of them. As can 
 be imagined, the result is many deaths from pneumonia 
 and other pulmonary troubles. Their houses are mostly 
 made of slabs or poles. In the centre of the dirt floor 
 is a wood fire, the smoke of which is supposed to go out 
 an opening in the top. This, however, is only a supposi- 
 tion, for the smoke never goes out this opening, but all 
 remains below to torture you, and often you cannot rec- 
 ognize a person quite near you for the smoke. 
 
 The occupants sleep and eat around this fire on piles 
 of skins or filthy rags, while the floor is littered with 
 bones and garbage of every description. These houses 
 are called "bribaris," and some of them are very large. 
 
 One evening a "potlatch" was given in honor of our 
 arrival. A "potlatch" is an entertainment, the word also 
 being used in other sense, as "to give" or "compliment." 
 This particular affair was given in quite a large hut or 
 "bribary," and was attended, I suppose, by all the belles 
 and matrons of the place. Certainly a goodly number 
 arrived, and all seemed to have one or more "papoose," 
 tightly bandaged up in rags, which they carelessly tossed 
 in a heap in one corner of the room, like so many bun- 
 dles of trash and all on top of each other. I wondered 
 how they could breathe. 
 
 These little things, however, never uttered a sound dur- 
 ing the entertainment. A girl with a stick was stationed 
 
 50 
 
SITKA AND YAKUTAT 
 
 over them to prevent any being devoured by dogs, a 
 shocking horror not infrequently occurring, I was told. 
 
 "Papoose" deposited, the squaws then mingled very 
 freely with the men, and some kind of a mournful dance 
 was started. 
 
 There was nothing whatever attractive about any of 
 this, so I left early, being, in fact, afraid to sit down or 
 to touch anything at all. 
 
 These Indians are expert fishermen, and dig out the 
 most beautiful canoes on the coast. This seems to be 
 their only real art, for their totems are much inferior to 
 what I saw at Sitka and Ketchekan. They commit all 
 manner of crimes among themselves, and while I was 
 there a young Indian killed his father without any provo- 
 cation whatever, and, cutting his stomach open, filled it 
 with rocks and sank the body in a lake. For this he had 
 most of his canoes and blankets taken from him and had 
 to work for the chief for a length of time. 
 
 The chief, who is called King George, does not appear 
 much superior to his subjects, but his son, who is called 
 the Duke of York, seems to be a very strong and athletic 
 man. 
 
 King George, who is recognized by our government and 
 receives an annuity of $120 a year, was once taken to 
 Portland at the expense of the government and forced to 
 witness the hanging of some of his subjects who had 
 committed some barbarous murders, the idea being that 
 it would have a wholesome effect upon him and the others 
 of his tribe if he actually saw what the "Great Boston 
 Con"* in Washington would do when angry. George 
 
 ♦American white man. 
 
 51 
 
AN ADVENTURE IN ALASKA 
 
 never tires of telling strangers of this trip. The hanging 
 apparently did not impress him at all, but what interested 
 him most was an elevator, and I was told that it was 
 almost impossible to get him out of one. 
 
 Among other happenings on this marvelous trip 
 George was made the subject of a cruel joke. He was 
 told to take down the receiver of a telephone and put it 
 to his ear, that he could talk to the old chief who had 
 been dead for many years. He did so, and so well did' 
 the person at the other end act his part that the scene 
 became most pathetic, and I was told that those present 
 were really overcome at George's earnestness and the 
 effect it had upon him. 
 
 Of the white people here, we found a Swedish Mission 
 conducted by a Mr. Johnson and his wife, assisted by a 
 young Swedish woman. There are also two other white 
 men who reside here, both traders. One, a Mr. Beasley, I 
 saw very little of, but the other, Mr. Johnson, I saw a 
 good deal of at this time, and upon my return here in the 
 spring. Mr. Johnson was a very jovial and big-hearted 
 fellow and had the capacity of making you laugh and 
 keeping you in good spirits all the time. He had been 
 here for about twenty years, and of course knew all about 
 this place, but to my .surprise knew nothing whatever 
 about the surrounding country. 
 
 There was also here at this time a Mr. and Mrs. Krow- 
 ley, who were on their honeymoon. Mrs. Krowley was 
 about fifty years of age, an aggressive, self-opinionated, 
 stupid person, possessed of almost everything that men dis- 
 like in women — of the poison ivy rather than the clinging 
 vine stock. She had been directed here by a clairvoyant, 
 
 52 
 
SITKA AND YAKUTAT 
 
 who had imparted to her the exact spot near Mt. St. EHas 
 where her fortune awaited her. Her husband, a most 
 insignificant httle mouse of a man, had been required to 
 sell his belongings and trail along with her. With them 
 was a man named Brooks, a Missouri farmhand, who had 
 drifted into Yakutat in some way and, being stranded, 
 had taken up with this pair. The three had been working 
 some of the beach sands around the bay, hoping in this 
 way to secure enough to go up to where Mrs. Krowley's 
 fortune lay. In this, however, they had not been success- 
 ful, and were all now practically stranded. 
 
 We took our dogs ashore here and gave them some 
 exercise, and thereby was precipitated one of the greatest 
 dog fights I suppose that ever occurred. They were no 
 sooner turned loose on the beach than the Indian dogs 
 came down upon them in swarms and attacked them sav- 
 agely. I am sure that more than a hundred Indian dogs 
 participated in this fight. Our dogs were very strong, 
 especially two mastiffs and a St. Bernard. These were 
 equal to any number of the little, half-starved Indian 
 dogs, that appeared to be mostly fox. For some time the 
 battle raged terribly, and the whole village was aroused 
 by the uproar and turned out in an effort to put a stop to 
 it. At times some of our dogs would be entirely covered 
 up by the Indian dogs, and would look like a big ball of 
 mad dogs rolling along the beach. After some time we 
 separated them and, securing our dogs, took them back 
 to the ship. The casualties among the Indian dogs were 
 large. The Indians demanded pay for these dead dogs, 
 which we refused, and the matter caused some bad feeling 
 between the Indians and ourselves. In every Indian vil- 
 
 53 
 
AN ADVENTURE IN ALASKA 
 
 lage there is a swarm of half-starved dogs. These dogs 
 belong to no one, but if you kill one, an owner soon ap- 
 pears and demands pay. Our own dogs suffered very 
 little in this battle, and the large ones not at all. 
 
 There is one other thing that I must refer to in con- 
 nection with Yakutat — that is the vast quantities of fish 
 that are to be found and taken in these waters. It is 
 practically impossible to exaggerate the quantity of sal- 
 mon, smelts and herring that can be taken during the 
 season. This is not only true of Yakutat Bay, but of all 
 the bays and streams of the north Pacific. In the little 
 lagoons and inlets at certain stages of the tide they can 
 be raked out with a rake, just as many as you desire, and 
 they form a very important part of the food of the bear 
 and fox, who have no trouble in catching them. Several 
 times Jack and I went over to the little lagoon near Yaku- 
 tat when the tide was low and raked out in a minute as 
 many as we wished. We also saw numbers of Indian 
 dogs catching them and devouring them on the beach. 
 
 54 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 In the Woods. 
 
 Upon George's return, he reported everything in fine 
 condition ; the glacier had been visited and found entirely 
 free from crevasses. Accordingly, we got under way and 
 proceeded up Enchantment Bay. This is a "fjord" or 
 arm of the sea that extends up into the mountains and 
 foothills for about forty miles. It empties into Yakutat 
 Bay over by the Malaspina, and, while it is forty or fifty 
 miles long, it bends in a direction so that its head is only 
 about twenty-five miles overland from Yakutat. It is 
 one of the hundreds of similar bays or canals, as they are 
 called, that are characteristic of this entire coast, and 
 also of the coast of Norway. Enchantment Bay is a gem 
 and lovely beyond description. It is from one-quarter to 
 one-half mile in width, with occasional small islands or 
 rocks, and with banks so high and vertical that there are 
 no landing places. On the left bank ascending glaciers 
 break in occasionally. The banks and mountains on each 
 side are so steep and the place so narrow that we had 
 hardly any light at this season of the year, and the entire 
 day was like twilight, which gave everything a curious 
 but lovely appearance. 
 
 At night we tied up to some trees that hung over a 
 cliff, for no steamer had ever been in this place before. 
 We were the first that ever burst upon that silent sea, and 
 had to proceed with caution. 
 
 About noon of the second day we arrived at the head of 
 
 55 
 
AN ADVENTURE IN ALASKA 
 
 the bay, where the banks are low and comfortable for 
 landing-. Here we unloaded our supplies in the forest 
 and on the banks of a giant moraine. We were assisted 
 in this by a number of Indians brought along from Yaku- 
 tat for that purpose, among whom I recall was "His 
 Grace," the Duke of York. 
 
 The Augusta then turned her heels, gave us three loud 
 whistles and started on her long trip back to Seattle. It 
 was a queer feeling that came over us then, at least over 
 me, for this little ship was our last tie to civilization and 
 the great world behind. All, I suppose, sent letters back 
 by the Augusta, and certainly George made a report to 
 Rennick as to the progress of the matter and enclosed a 
 rough chart of Enchantment Bay and the environs of our 
 tomb. We retained, from the Augusta, a good boat and 
 two pairs of oars for the benefit of the corps and for use 
 on the River Styx perhaps, should the ferryman be indis- 
 posed or be otherwise engaged. 
 
 We at once started to arrange our camp, which we did 
 very speedily. We had three tents, one for ourselves, 
 one for the kitchen and one for the dogs. Romeo was 
 appointed cook, and an excellent one he was, too, having 
 been a cook in the Army. Tents pitched and stoves up, 
 we then covered the floor with hemlock bows. On these 
 we placed our sleeping bags and blankets in two rows, 
 feet to the centre. 
 
 We were entirely comfortable, and had an abundance of 
 everything. Indeed, we had so much food and so many 
 extra tools of every description that we very soon took 
 no pains to economize in anything. 
 
 Edwards was now one of us, and placed his sleeping 
 
 56 
 
IN THE WOODS 
 
 bag opposite George. George, however, was entirely in 
 charge, and Edwards, in a way, a guest until George 
 performed Rennick's part of the contract and located us 
 on that "pay dirt." However, Edwards worked just as 
 any of us, though I understood he was not required to do 
 so. He proved to be one of the best workers in the camp. 
 
 As soon as the Augusta was out of sight, George 
 seemed to lose his energy. We spent several days making 
 ourselves more comfortable, and explored a bit of the for- 
 est that surrounded us, in which no white man had ever 
 been before. Finally George went forward and selected a 
 sight for our second camp. This camp was about five 
 miles away, and was at the foot of a glacier. In order to 
 reach it, however, we had to cross the moraine, which 
 added immensely to our labor. 
 
 We all worked like slaves on this move, and after some 
 trouble succeeded in breaking in our dogs to harness very 
 well indeed ; and it is surprising what they can do. Since 
 then I have loved dogs better than men, I fear ; certainly 
 better than some of the men I was with. 
 
 The companionship of dogs is one of the finest things 
 given to man, and my dog Prince certainly excelled this 
 man George in all the finer traits of character, and was 
 in truth much more of a Christian and gentleman besides. 
 
 We found our ten tons of supplies such an immense 
 burden and the trail over the moraine so very rough that 
 it was after Christmas before we had entirely moved up 
 to the Glacier camp. Here we spent most of January, 
 entirely inactive. We had become suspicious and were 
 now finally convinced while here that George, for some 
 reason, was playing a part. We could not understand it. 
 
 57 
 
AN ADVENTURE IN ALASKA 
 
 but it was quite plain that George had no real intention of 
 taking us forward and knew nothing whatever about the 
 country. 
 
 The party, too, was by now quite plainly divided into 
 groups or alliances that made our situation more hope- 
 less, besides very unpleasant and dangerous as well. From 
 the beginning Romeo, Jess and I stood together, not in an 
 aggressive way, but plain enough to be seen. Tom had 
 attached himself to George, and we all knew that he could 
 be depended upon to do George's bidding in anything. 
 
 Brooks remained neutral, alone and sullen, with more 
 friendship for Jess, we thought, than for any other mem- 
 ber of the party. Jimmy appeared also to be neutral, but, 
 being entirely worthless and without decision of any kind, 
 could not be depended upon. Edwards was entirely neu- 
 tral, held himself somewhat aloof from all of us, as was 
 proper under the circumstances. He was indeed in a 
 most difficult and trying position — in fact, in a position 
 of real danger, and he conducted himself like a man all 
 through. 
 
 Jack had shown a fondness for me, but, having had 
 some words with George shortly after we landed, he 
 walked of¥ and abandoned the party. He endeavored to 
 reach Yakutat overland, but became lost and snow-blind 
 in the forest, as we learned afterwards, and would have 
 perished but for the fact that some Indians on a hunting 
 trip chanced upon him and took him in. He recovered 
 and was taken down to San Francisco on a little fishing 
 schooner that happened to come in to secure some water. 
 If he had remained with the party, he would have be- 
 longed to my group. 
 
 58 
 
IN THJE WOODS 
 
 George made every effort to break into our "entente." 
 He would talk to us individually and cunningly, try to 
 arouse us against Edwards or against each other. It did 
 not work, and this alignment remained throughout the. 
 winter, and very well it did, for otherwise there would 
 have been murder in our camp that winter. As it was, 
 the situation was dangerous enough; everyone realized 
 that. No one spoke or said a word about any member of 
 the party, especially nothing was said about our pros- 
 pects or where we were going. Nothing had been agreed 
 to on this point, but it was in the atmosphere and every- 
 one felt it as distinctly as they could see the mountains 
 around us. Any trouble started in that camp would have 
 been most serious. We had at least three of the most 
 desperate and dangerous men that could be found — men 
 that thought nothing of murder, and we were hundreds of 
 miles from any civilization or law of any kind. This was 
 perfectly well understood by all of us, and it was felt 
 to be an excellent time to mind your own business, "speak 
 with a soft voice and carry a big stick." 
 
 I have always believed that if George could have at- 
 tached Jess or Brooks to himself, Edwards would have 
 certainly been "accidentally" killed, or would have mys- 
 teriously disappeared, and I am sure that nothing but this 
 nice balance of power prevented some such horrible trag- 
 edy. In fact, George even approached me, in a vague 
 way, about the advisability of something of this kind hap- 
 pening to Edwards. Thank God, young as I was. he in- 
 stantly saw my resentment and concern. I never men- 
 tioned this to a soul, for the situation would not have 
 stood any discussion at all. Edwards, too, I am quite 
 
 59 
 
AN ADVENTURE IN ALASKA 
 
 sure, understood and felt his situation accurately, and in 
 anything like fair play would have rendered a good ac- 
 count of himself. He knew, too, that the slightest inter- 
 ference or assumption of authority on his part would have 
 caused an immediate explosion. 
 
 There was one other thing that I thought at the time 
 had some effect on this ticklish situation, and, trifling as 
 it may appear, there were some indications that Brooks, 
 at least, was affected by it. This seemed to have been 
 caused by my having been seen with Mr. Kidder several 
 times in Seattle. Mr. Kidder was a strikingly handsome 
 and distinguished-looking man; he was "biled shirt" all 
 over to these men, and the impression prevailed that I 
 was not at all what I pretended to be. The inference was 
 that I was a son of a millionaire, or of some nota- 
 ble, out on a lark, and if anything ugly happened, there 
 would be no limit of means and influence available to 
 show the thing up. I do not know to what extent this 
 idea prevailed, but I do know it was there, and that Jess, 
 without speaking to me, encouraged it, and that I, under 
 the circumstances, was too modest for anything. 
 
 Under these conditions, the atmosphere in the tent was 
 always charged. Sometimes for days George would lie 
 on his blankets and speak not a word to anyone. At such 
 times he was a most dreadful-looking person. At other 
 times he would talk very friendly, and sometimes we all 
 would talk amiably together, but never about the object 
 of our trip. 
 
 On one occasion, I recall, we were all talking in the 
 tent in one of our friendly moods. George was telling 
 us about Alaska, the Indians, the animal life and the 
 
 60 
 
IN THE WOODS 
 
 great resources, and, though he knew nothing whatever 
 about these things, neither did we, so he did not mind 
 talking. Finally I asked him if there were any toads in 
 Alaska. No, there were no toads in Alaska. None what- 
 ever. Queen Charlotte Island was the highest point on 
 the coast where anything at all like a toad had ever been 
 found, and these were in fact not toads at all, but a 
 curious kind of rock frog. Just then I raised the foot of 
 my sleeping bag, and out jumped a fine big toad frog. 
 Everybody laughed, even George, and this was the only 
 laugh heard in that camp during that long, long winter, 
 George never knew that I had been thawing out that toad 
 and feeding him for a week in order to get him in good 
 hopping trim. 
 
 Returning to Camp No. 2, this was the most uncom- 
 fortable camp we had. It was pitched on a thinly wooded 
 gravel bed, exactly at the foot of a great mountain and 
 at the head, of the moraine I have mentioned. The face 
 of a huge glacier was about two hundred yards away. 
 For three weeks the wind blew a violent gale, so violent 
 and cold as it came from the glacier that nothing could be 
 done. We were confined entirely to camp during this 
 time, and often had to turn out at night and restrap our 
 tent down. 
 
 On the first quiet day George, Edwards and I went 
 out to explore the glacier over which we were to pass. Be 
 it remembered that this glacier was supposed to run over 
 the mountains here and to lead into the valley of the 
 Alsek River, and George himself was supposed to have 
 crossed over this glacier the previous fall. This, how- 
 ever, it was best not to recall for reasons before stated. 
 
 61 
 
AN ADVENTURE IN ALASKA 
 
 This glacier was a dead glacier. Its face was smooth 
 and a steep slope of about three hundred feet high and 
 one-half mile wide. The ice was of many colors, which was 
 caused, I supposed, by the different elements it had been 
 in contact with and by the various degrees of pressure it 
 had been subjected to during the thousands of years it had 
 been frozen. 
 
 Once over the face, the ascent was more gradual and 
 good for sleds. There were no crevasses either, but many 
 gentle slopes and hollows. The mountains on each side 
 were entirely barren of vegetation of any description. 
 
 We proceeded on about eight miles around a bend and 
 came to the summit, which was about three thousand feet 
 above sea level. Here this glacier merged with others 
 and spread to the east and west and joined with still others 
 as far as you could see. But it did not extend in the 
 direction of the Alsek, for in the way stood a great moun- 
 tain range and beyond them other ranges, close up, as far 
 as the eye could see. Among them all was a great net- 
 work of glaciers, all active and very different in appear- 
 ance from the little one we had ascended. 
 
 The surface of these glaciers was indescribably rough 
 and impossible to travel on. One glance was enough to 
 convince us that there was no passing here. Steve had 
 selected well. We would never cross this range of moun- 
 tains, that much was perfectly sure. They never had been 
 crossed, and have not to this day, I suppose, and they 
 were certainly impassable to us with our equipment and 
 morale. 
 
 The scene on this glacier was wonderful beyond de- 
 scription, and dreadful, too. Nothing was suggestive of 
 
 62 
 
IN THE WOODS 
 
 the world that we know, and I had a frightful feeling that 
 something inhuman and supernatural was about. 
 
 Upon our return from the glacier it became understood 
 in some way that the glacier was impassable, though no 
 one ever mentioned it. George went into a sulk for some 
 days and the whole party became morose. The atmos- 
 phere in the tent was very tense. When I left Seattle 
 Mrs. Francisco gave me a book. I took it merely be- 
 cause she offered it to me, for I expected to be very busy 
 with my nuggets and mining property during the winter 
 and, of course, would have no time to read. However, I 
 still had it, so I began to read. It was "The White Com- 
 pany," by Doyle, and an excellent book it is. I suppose 
 I read that book through twenty times during the winter, 
 and practically knew it by heart. I have always regretted 
 that I did not have a volume or two of Shakespeare or a 
 Bible in which I could have become well versed, since 
 there was nothing to do during these long seventeen-hour 
 nights except read, and we had any abundance of candles. 
 
 During the day I explored the moraine, which was ever 
 a place of absorbing interest. This moraine was about 
 one-half mile in width and five miles long. It was the 
 trail of the receding glacier that I have spoken of, and 
 resembled nothing so much as the bed of a great river 
 that had suddenly gone dry. To call it a moraine was not, 
 I believe, entirely correct, for this word is used in a 
 somewhat broader and even at times different sense. 
 However, we called it "The Moraine," and there seems 
 to be no other word so suitable. I have never seen any 
 place in the world like it. 
 
 With well-defined steep banks, its bottom was covered 
 
 63 
 
AN ADVENTURE IN ALASKA 
 
 with great and small boulders, stone and pebble of every 
 conceivable shape and color, all dumped and piled in a 
 heterogeneous and most fascinating way. 
 
 After a while, when things appeared somewhat more 
 amiable in the tent, I suggested to George that I should 
 make a trip to the eastward in the direction of the Alsek 
 River and explore the flat, wooded country in that direc- 
 tion. Just east of us the mountains seemed to stop 
 abruptly; either that or they turned sharply to the north. 
 I explained to him that it might be entirely possible to 
 follow these mountains around until we reached the Alsek 
 River, which was supposed to break through them about 
 fifty miles to the east. Once in the river bottom, we 
 might find a way through the mountains along its banks 
 and thus gain the interior after all. 
 
 He told me to go ahead. Accordingly, I left at day- 
 break. I had an axe, a rifle, blanket and some provisions 
 and was accompanied by my dog Prince, now called 
 Precious. I was by this time quite expert on snow shoes. 
 and otherwise hard as a rock. I crossed the moraine and 
 tramped all day through a dense forest of fir, hemlock and 
 spruce. The snow was very deep (twenty or thirty feet 
 in places), but well frozen and hard on top. There is 
 something indescribably thrilling about exploring a coun- 
 try in which no white man has ever been. I had this 
 joy, in a small way, several times while in Alaska, but 
 felt it more particularly on this trip. Who could tell what 
 strange objects I might discover? A ruined city maybe, 
 or some great tombs of ancient people. 
 
 About dusk I emerged from the forest and came into a 
 prairie section where there were large fields, clear of tim- 
 
 64 
 
IN THE WOODS 
 
 ber, for six or seven miles. From here I got a good view 
 of the country further east and a glorious view of Mt. 
 Fairweather, its top like blazing fire in the setting sun and 
 a long stream of snow blowing from its top also lighted 
 and ablaze like the tail of a great comet. I was fascinated 
 and gazed at it until it faded away. 
 
 I otherwise discovered that the mountains here did turn 
 to the north, but not so sharply as I had hoped, but they 
 were of much lower altitude than those in front of our 
 camp. I then dropped back into the forest and built a fire 
 of logs next to a great stone, and cut some boughs to lie 
 on, and cut a water hole in a stream at hand and prepared 
 with Precious to spend the long winter night. 
 
 It was a glorious thing, this night in the forest with 
 Precious. Just Precious, me and my soul. I thought of 
 many, many things that night, the dear ones at home and 
 how this thing would ever end. I slept a little, wrapped 
 in my blanket, but Precious not at all. He spent the 
 whole night with his ears cocked over me, perfectly will- 
 ing to give his life in my defence if called upon. It was 
 a long night, sixteen hours of darkness, but the happiest 
 I spent in Alaska, I believe. 
 
 The next day I tramped back to camp, having seen no 
 signs of animal life of any description. I might add here 
 that on this strip of bench land between the St. Elias range 
 of mountains and the coast there is very little game of 
 any kind. Occasionally we heard wolves howling in the 
 distance; there were also some foxes, a few bears and 
 more wolverines. But game is very scarce. A few birds 
 winter here, mostly eagles and ducks, also a few magpies 
 and ravens on the coast. 
 
 65 
 
AN ADVENTURE IN ALASKA 
 
 Upon my report of conditions to the east, George de- 
 cided to move toward the Alsek by this route. Accord- 
 ingly, our Camp No. 3 was pitched about halfway through 
 the forest that I had visited. 
 
 This was a most comfortable camp, and we were here 
 for some time. We had by now lost track of the days of 
 the week, and were, in fact, not sure of the week. Some 
 claimed it was the first Tuesday in February ; others that 
 it was the last Friday in January, and so on. Romeo 
 proved some help in this matter. He had a very heavy 
 beard, and for thirty years had shaved on Saturdays and 
 Tuesdays. Now, since he was not shaving, his face 
 itched severely on these days. If it was two days be- 
 tween itches, we knew it was Tuesday; if three days, it 
 was Saturday, so that he became a kind of human calen- 
 dar, which we accepted and he proved in the end to be 
 correct as to the days of the week. None of us had 
 shaved since we left Seattle. Our beards were, of course, 
 all over our faces, and we were rather frightful things to 
 look at, especially on the trail, for the moisture of the 
 breath condensing on the beard formed icicles and frost 
 all around the mouth, w'hich was not only hideous to look 
 at, but most uncomfortable as well. 
 
 The temperature was never so low as I had expected. 
 We had no thermometer, but I do not think it was often 
 below zero, and mostly just above that point. We never 
 suffered at all at any time from cold, nor did any of us 
 have a cold or a cough throughout the winter. 
 
 While at Camp No. 3 Jess and I sank a little hole near 
 a ravine that came down from the mountains and which 
 conformed to our idea of a gold-bearing creek. We were 
 
 66 
 
IN THE WOODS 
 
 much surprised after getting down several feet to strike 
 solid ice. I afterwards understood that this was a very 
 common formation, both on the coast and on the inside 
 of Alaska, where large areas covered with thick forest 
 are underneath solid ice of an undetemiined depth. 
 
 Camp No. 4 was out on the prairie section that I have 
 mentioned, in a grove of spruce. This place looked ex- 
 actly like an abandoned farm. From here we followed 
 the mountains and crossed a beautiful little lake about 
 three miles across, and established Camp No. 4 at a spot 
 very much resembling Camp No. 3. 
 
 It was now about the middle of March, I think. We 
 had worked so leisurely and shown so little energy and 
 spirit that we had advanced only about fifty miles in about 
 sixty days. All knew perfectly well that the expedition 
 was a fraud, yet no one dared say so or refer in any way 
 to any future plans. From Camp No. 4 George and Tom 
 went forward a day's march to see if they could locate 
 the Alsek River. They returned and reported the river 
 about fifteen miles away. A great river, they said. The 
 ice was breaking up and going out in great floes. 
 
 The plan now was to build a boat and ascend this 
 river, a feat about as easy as paddling a canoe up Mt. St. 
 Elias. We could, of course, have built a boat, and of 
 large size, for we had a number of cross-cut saws, and 
 could have got out the timber very rapidly. How- 
 ever, this river is not navigable for any craft on earth, for 
 it flows through and under a series of glaciers. 
 
 From Camp No. 4 we advanced about twelve miles and 
 came to a deep and swift-running little river about fifty 
 yards across. Earlier in the season we would have 
 
 67 
 
AN ADVENTURE IN ALASKA 
 
 sledded over this stream without even knowing of its 
 existence. However, it was beginning to thaw out now 
 in the lowlands and along the coast, and many streams 
 and lakes were appearing that had been until now en- 
 tirely concealed from us. 
 
 We established Camp No. 5 on the banks of this stream. 
 There is nothing in nature so companionable as a river, 
 and Precious and I were delighted to be on its banks and 
 to be able to get away from that beastly crowd in the tent 
 and stroll along its peaceful shores. Besides, there were 
 many signs of coming spring now. Geese and swan were 
 appearing in great numbers, and then one day a little 
 robin redbreast came and sang to me his song of home 
 and far away, and whispered back into my memory many 
 things that made me sad. 
 
 While we were in the tent one day a rifle shot was 
 heard. We all jumped, startled. It was perfectly plain 
 what was in everyone's mind for a moment, and a great 
 relief came over us when it was seen that all were present. 
 George went outside and answered this shot, which was 
 propter and good manners in the woods, for be it under- 
 stood that whenever you approach a habitation in the 
 woods of the North, you must fire a shot, which is like 
 sending in your card, so to speak. 
 
 If the shot is answered, your host is in, otherwise you 
 must not approach. If you wish to enter, you fire a sec- 
 ond shot, which, if answered, means "come in, old fellow; 
 I am glad to see you." George answered the second shot, 
 and we all stood around to see who would appear. After 
 some moments two men walked up, who proved to be that 
 
 68 
 
IN THE WOODS 
 
 Mr. Krowley and his man Brooks, or vice versa, as it 
 may have been, the same we had met at Yakutat. 
 
 We all crowded around for talk and for any news of 
 the outside world. It seems that these people, supposing 
 that we had something good up in the woods, had started 
 about the first of March to find us. In this they had no 
 trouble, since, having landed at the head of Enchantment 
 Bay, they had found our trail and camping places and had 
 simply followed us here. 
 
 Their camp was about a mile away, and was presided 
 over by the charming Mrs. Krowley in person. They in- 
 formed us how Jack had been taken into Yakutat by a 
 band of Indians and had gone down to "Frisco" on a fish- 
 ing schooner. But what excited us most was the infor- 
 mation that Spain and the United States were at war. 
 Nothing as to the progress of the war was known, except 
 that at the time of the declaration of war there was a 
 Spanish fleet anchored in New York harbor, which had 
 immediately turned its guns on the city, which was en- 
 tirely destroyed, our informants said. 
 
 This information, though incorrect, for war had not 
 yet been declared, caused me to become very restless, and 
 I at once began to plan some escape from my situation 
 and to entertain hopes of entering the army. 
 
 The Kro'wleys moved their camp up very near us, 
 which was not pleasing to me, for I felt that the presence 
 of that woman rrteant trouble. I was, therefore, more 
 determined than ever to find some way to quit the party. 
 I knew that the first steamer going south would arrive 
 at Yakutat about the first of June, and I determined to 
 catch that steamer if possible. 
 
 69 
 
AN ADVENTURE IN ALASKA 
 
 Romeo had been very unwell — in fact, had broken 
 down so that he could practically do nothing. I therefore 
 decided to approach him on the subject of going out. My 
 plans were to take him down this little river into the 
 Alsek, then down the Alsek to its mouth. From there we 
 planned to walk the beach to Yakutat, a supposed dis- 
 tance of about sixty miles. I went over the proposition 
 with Jess, and invited him to join us. He entirely ap- 
 proved of my plans as to Romeo, but decided himself to 
 remain with the party, as he expressed it, "until hell 
 freezes over." 
 
 I was waiting to catch George in an amiable mood to 
 suggest this plan to him, when an incident occurred that 
 I have always thought assisted me very much in this 
 matter. 
 
 One day we were all lying in our tent, comfortable 
 after supper, when suddenly Mrs. Krowley, accompanied 
 by Mr. Krowley and Brooks, burst through the flap. Her 
 hair was disheveled, one eye was black as from a blow 
 and her face was white with rage. She advanced rap- 
 idly and, pointing a finger at George, said, "That's the 
 man!" George was already on his feet and with a re- 
 volver leveled said, "Get out of this tent, damn you!" 
 Tom also was on his feet with rifle clasped. It was a 
 dramatic moment, and I felt my blood chill. George, as 
 he stood in that pose, was the most dreadful-looking 
 thing I have ever seen. Certainly the thing we had 
 dreaded all winter would break here now. I glanced at 
 Jess for a cue. His eyes were ablaze, but he made no 
 move. Fortunately, the Krowleys immediately withdrew, 
 without speaking a word. Nothing whatever was ever said 
 
 70 
 
IN THE WOODS 
 
 by anyone, so far as I know, about this incident. It would, 
 indeed, have been dangerous to have done so, for the feel- 
 ing in our camp had been growing worse all the time. 
 Personally, of course, I believe that George had committed 
 an assault upon that woman, who had come over there 
 expecting that the camp would take her side, drive George 
 out and take her in. However, she was not the type that 
 men wage war over. She was no Helen of Troy, and 
 there was no knighthood in our camp, anyway. So we 
 all ignored the incident out of indifference and a positive 
 fear that it would certainly lead to more serious hap- 
 penings. 
 
 I judged that this occurrence would affect George in a 
 way that would cause him to be more favorable to my 
 plans. For George, with all his wickedness, was no fool. 
 He was as cunning as any rascal on earth, and as under- 
 standing, too. 
 
 If Romeo and I left the party, he would be relatively 
 stronger in the camp and at a time, too, when he was 
 threatened by foes from without. So the next day I ap- 
 proached him on the subject. 
 
 I found him perfectly willing and agreeable to my 
 plans. He thought Romeo ought to be taken out by all 
 means, and said that we could take anything whatever 
 we wanted from the supplies and tools on hand. This was 
 the whole thing, tools and supplies, so accordingly we 
 made plans to leave at once. My first plan was to build a 
 raft and drift down this little river that we were on into 
 the Alsek, thence to the sea. This, however, was aban- 
 doned after I had almost completed the raft, because one 
 stormy night, as I lay in my bag, I heard the surf dis- 
 tinctly pounding on the beach, and realized that we were 
 very much nearer the sea than we had supposed. 
 
 71 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 The Retreat. 
 
 We left camp about the first of May. Many little buds 
 were about to break, and in patches, where the snow had 
 gone, numerous and wonderful wild flowers were begin- 
 ning to appear. 
 
 We took as much as we could carry, and our outfit 
 consisted of two axes, two rifles with ammunition, two 
 blankets each, frying pan, coffee pot and some pounds of 
 bacon, hardtack, sugar, tea and other things. 
 
 We said good-bye and shook hands with each member 
 of the party. Edwards gave me a letter of identification 
 and stopped me on the outskirts of the camp and said 
 some complimentary things to me that he did not wish 
 the others to hear, and entrusted me with two letters that 
 he did not want George to know had gone forward. 
 These I accepted and afterwards took the pains to mail 
 in Sitka. 
 
 There is one thing I must pass over rapidly here. That 
 is Precious. He was, of course, not my dog, but had 
 taken up with me, and I felt very deeply about him. I 
 considered stealing him and letting him take a chance 
 with me, though my own future was so uncertain and 
 dark at that time. However, I finally decided not to do 
 so, which was well, for I could never have got him 
 through, as will be seen. So I left him with the others, 
 hard as it was to do so. 
 
 We had only gone a short distance before it became 
 
 72 
 
THE RETREAT 
 
 apparent that Romeo could carry hardly any burden, 
 though, poor fellow, he was plucky. I had to gradually 
 relieve him of his load, until I had both burdens, which 
 were more than I could carry. 
 
 We managed to get to the mouth of the river the first 
 night, notwithstanding, and discovered that this river 
 flows into Dry Bay, a huge bay when the tide is in and 
 no bay at all when the tide is out. The Alsek River also 
 flows into this bay. 
 
 Here we spent a rather uncomfortable night. The 
 next morning there were thousands of hair seals coming 
 in with the tide. The surface of the water was crowded 
 with their heads and graceful bodies sporting in the 
 water as far as the eye could see. There are some Indians 
 that are said to live around this bay, the small remnant of 
 a tribe that are not on good terms with the Yakutats. 
 However, I saw no indications whatever of them, and was 
 relieved, for I had no desire to meet them in my present 
 situation. 
 
 Romeo being too weak to carry anything at all, I gave 
 him a rifle and started him up the beach, while I would 
 take a load and, going ahead several miles, put it down 
 and go back for the second load. This was slow. How- 
 ever, I was tied down to the pace that Romeo could make, 
 anyway, and wanted to save as much of the supplies as 
 possible, for it was now evident that we would be on the 
 way much longer than calculated. 
 
 The walking on the beach was very good, and the days 
 were very long, so by keeping it up late at night I hoped 
 to reach Yakutat in about five days. 
 
 The third day out it rained all day, and we had a most 
 
 73 
 
AN ADVENTURE IN ALASKA 
 
 uncomfortable night as well. I found that these double 
 trips were too much for me, so I left behind some of our 
 effects (an axe and some provisions), but went very 
 heavily loaded as it was. Romeo was getting rapidly 
 weaker, and had to walk with two sticks, and I began to 
 consider whether or not I should take him back to camp. 
 
 We proceeded on in the rain until one evening we 
 came to a good sized stream, and going up this stream a 
 short distance to discover a crossing, we found a very 
 comfortable Indian hut or "bribary" built on the banks 
 of this stream. There was no one there, but a consider- 
 able amount of Indian belongings, such as paddles, traps 
 and fishing apparatus. Having been out in the rain for 
 two days and nights, this place seemed a palace to me. 
 
 I built a fire and made some tea, and told Romeo that 
 we would have to rest here for a day or two for him to 
 recover his strength. I then walked down to the beach 
 to gather some driftwood for the fire. The beach on this 
 coast, from California up, is piled high with driftwood; 
 it is a continuous line. Wherever there is a beach it is 
 piled high with wood, and I estimate there must be 30,000 
 miles of it. I had gathered an armful, when, looking up, 
 I saw a figure standing not far away. I yelled and the 
 figure turned and started to run. I dropped my wood and 
 gave chase, yelling all the while. As I rapidly gained, the 
 figure fell to the ground. Upon coming up I recognized 
 Mrs. Krowley. She was dressed in what sailors call a 
 Southwester, with hip rubber boots. She was badly 
 frightened, having mistaken me for a Dry Bay Indian. 
 She presented a pathetic sight, sitting there on the cold, 
 wet ground, her eye still black from George's blow. 
 
 74 
 
THE RETREAT 
 
 When she recogtiized me she began to sob, and I sat down 
 beside her and waited. Her frail little body was con- 
 vulsed with emotion and despair, and I felt that, what- 
 ever she was, I would do anything for her now. 
 
 She told me that Krowley and Brooks were nearby, 
 pitching camp, and that they had no provisions, except 
 tea and a little hardtack. I went to her camp with her 
 and apologized to Mr. Krowley for having frightened 
 his bride. It seems that these people had started out 
 immediately after their trouble with George, but had 
 been lost in the forest for several days, and had just now 
 come out on the beach. 
 
 After looking over their situation, I invited them all 
 to come down to my palace on the river, which invitation 
 they very gratefully accepted. 
 
 So we were five now, and had started with provisions 
 for two. We all sat around the fire that night and got 
 dry and warm for the first time in several days. 
 
 A peculiar assertive feeling came over me. I may have 
 been a little intoxicated by the large quantities of tea I 
 had been drinking, for tea, if drunk in large quantities, 
 will affect you a little that way. 
 
 Anyway, I announced in a most emphatic tone that from 
 now on I would assume leadership of this party; that if 
 anyone there did not like it, he or she could immediately 
 leave my house. 
 
 I told Brooks that he would get out at dawn and pro- 
 ceed along the beach to a point about eight miles back, 
 where he would find an axe and certain other things, 
 which he would immediately bring to me, as I might need 
 him further in the afternoon. 
 
 75 
 
AN ADVENTURE IN ALASKA 
 
 I told Mrs. Krowley that we were not interested in the 
 time when she was a society leader in West Milwaukee, 
 but I hoped she would prove amiable and courageous in 
 these circumstances and give Romeo whatever attention 
 she could, 
 
 Romeo was dum founded at my speech and attitude, but 
 pleased. Indeed, I was surprised at myself, but it worked 
 perfectly, and from that moment my word was law. In 
 some such way as this, I imagine, the first petty monarch 
 established himself on earth, though he had perhaps some- 
 thing stronger than tea as an excuse. 
 
 The next day and the next it rained and poured, and 
 we did not move on account of Romeo's condition. He 
 was very weak, and I was at a loss to know what to do 
 with him. After two days we again started and, cross- 
 ing the river with some difficulty, went on our way. 
 
 We three men were loaded fairly well, but not too 
 heavily, I having ordered a thirty pound sleeping bag be- 
 longing to Mrs. Krowley to be left behind. No one said 
 a word. 
 
 Very shortly after crossing this river our troubles com- 
 menced. Leaving the belt of timber land that skirted 
 the river banks, we came out upon an extensive network 
 of quicksand marshes. There was no timber growing 
 in this belt, only clusters of Alder brush. It appeared to 
 be about fifteen miles across to big timber, and to extend 
 from the sea back to the foothills, which were also about 
 fifteen miles away. I did not for the first day or two 
 realize the difficulties and dangers that confronted us, 
 and we pushed on as best we could. 
 
 We would cross a short distance of this sand and then 
 
 76 
 
THE RETREAT 
 
 a short distance of solid earth, and so on without end. It 
 was very heavy and slow traveling, for long detours had 
 to be made. It was dangerous, too, for several times I 
 had to lie down and roll over and over as rapidly as I 
 could in order to get out. I dont' think we made over two 
 miles the first day, when we camped in a cluster of Alder 
 brush. 
 
 Finally, the marshes became much worse, and in addi- 
 tion thereto we came to numerous streams, some of them 
 quite deep, which had to be waded. The banks of these 
 streams were usually solid, but their bottoms proved 
 treacherous. Krowley came very near, indeed, losing his 
 life in one of them, and all of us had several narrow 
 escapes more than once. 
 
 The situation was, in fact, desperate in every way, and 
 our provisions had been reduced to almost nothing. It 
 was evident that we could make no headway in this place, 
 and would surely perish if we persisted. I began to 
 upbraid myself for not having more accurately read the 
 terrain, for certainly the absence of timber here meant 
 something, and we had actually seen what that something 
 was in the beginning. Yet I had plunged blindly on, wast- 
 ing much precious time, our provisions and strength. 
 
 Impressed by this situation, I called the party together 
 and announced that the route must be immediately aban- 
 doned. Romeo, who was again almost in a state of col- 
 lapse, could, in fact, go no further. I turned over to 
 Krowley all the provisions we had except about a pound 
 of tea and a handful of cracker dust that was in the bot- 
 tom of my haversack. I told him to take his wife and 
 
 77 
 
AN ADVENTURE IN ALASKA 
 
 Romeo back to the cabin we had just left and to remain 
 there until I sent some Indians up from Yakutat for them 
 by boat. 
 
 I explained to him that Brooks and I would make our 
 way to the foothills, which were in sight, and, having 
 found solid ground, would continue on to the head of En- 
 chantment Bay, where he had left a good boat secured. 
 In this we would proceed to Yakutat and would at once 
 send some Indians to fetch them out. 
 
 It was a hopeless and desperately depressed group that 
 stood around me on that far away marsh. Mrs. Krowley 
 gave way to tears; so did Krowley. However, there 
 seemed nothing else to do. I started them off on their re- 
 turn to the cabin, which I do not think was more than five 
 miles away. They had provisions that with care would 
 last for some days, and tea that would last for a month. 
 We could see them for some distance after we parted, 
 slowly making their way toward the cabin, poor Romeo 
 bent over and walking with two sticks, very much re- 
 sembling a crab, I thought, in the distance. 
 
 Brooks and I then started on our long tramp for the 
 foothills. We followed the banks of the stream we were 
 on, but were still bothered and delayed very much by 
 quicksand, and had to wade this stream many times. It 
 was a tedious, dangerous and long tramp. It was the 
 worst place I have ever seen, and what seemed curious to 
 me was the number of dead fish that covered the whole 
 surface of the earth for miles and miles. 
 
 It seems that this place in July and August is covered 
 with water from the melting snow in the foothills. The 
 fish then come in here by the tens of thousands. At the 
 
 78 
 
THE RETREAT 
 
 first freeze the water recedes, leaving these fish to die. 
 So the fish we now saw had been dead for about a year, 
 and would soon be washed out to sea and others would 
 take their place. 
 
 Brooks, as a companion, proved amiable enough, 
 though he was weak and would give way to fits of despair. 
 At such times he talked incessantly of his little farm "back 
 in Missouri," and would mourn and wail and swing him- 
 self like a Baptist about to shout. We, of course, had no 
 provisions at all, except tea without sugar. We drank 
 great quantities of this, and always felt stimulated. 
 
 It was, of course, a dreadfully rough trip, and we were 
 growing weaker all the time, but what amazed me was 
 that I did not suffer from hunger at all. I felt myself 
 growing weaker each day, but had no pangs or uncom- 
 fortable feeling at any time. In about forty-eight hours 
 we succeeded in freeing ourselves from this dreadful 
 quagmire and reached solid land. 
 
 I knew the exact position of our old Camp No. 3 from 
 its location near the base of an extinct volcano, whose 
 top had been blown off in a peculiar way. We directed 
 ourselves toward this camp, which was, in fact, not more 
 than a dozen miles away, but we encountered many unex- 
 pected difficulties. 
 
 As soon as we reached the highlands we found several 
 feet of snow, which was very soft, and we had no snow 
 shoes. Often we had to plough through this up to our 
 waist, and as a general thing it was knee deep. This 
 delayed us dreadfully and absorbed our strength. There 
 were, besides, many huge and extensive "wind-falls" of 
 tangled trees in our paths, which are difficult things to 
 
 79 
 
AN ADVENTURE IN ALASKA 
 
 scale, and also numerous streams to wade. In short, the 
 entire aspect of the country had changed since I had 
 passed through here during the winter. All of these 
 things were covered up and frozen then, so that we 
 passed over them without even knowing of their presence. 
 It was very different now, and the difficulties were in- 
 creased a thousandfold. 
 
 Finally we became so weak that we had to stop every 
 few hundred yards to rest. Brooks was constantly raving 
 about his little farm "back in Missouri," and his face had 
 taken on a deathly pallor. My shoulders were raw from 
 the blanket straps, and they became an intolerable burden. 
 It did not seem possible to carry them any farther, espe- 
 cially over the "wind-falls," which had to be climbed. 
 They were constantly catching in branches and snags, 
 and we had some dangerous falls, for some of these 
 "wind-falls" covered several acres and were from three 
 to twenty feet high. 
 
 So we discarded our blankets and proceeded with only 
 our axes, rifles, a coffee pot, some tea and a big block of 
 Chinese matches. This relieved us of a sore trial while 
 moving, but it proved a great hardship at night, for it was 
 still very cold and we got no rest at all after this, having 
 to spend the night cutting wood and huddled closely be- 
 side the fire. 
 
 I thought at this time that we should surely reach the 
 head of the bay in twenty-four hours. However, so im- 
 mensely difficult was the task and so weak had we become, 
 that it was forty-eight hours before we reached the mo- 
 raines. During all this time I never felt the slightest 
 doubt but that we should come through in perfect safety, 
 
 80 
 
THE RETREAT 
 
 though I reahzed, of course, that we were having a des- 
 perate time and that there were still hardships to be met. 
 
 While we were so weak for want of food, there were 
 thousands of geese flying over our heads ; they were con- 
 stantly flying, night and day, and often very low. We 
 had been firing at them for days, but had never got 
 even so much as a feather. Our ammunition now was 
 almost exhausted. Finally, one evening, our last eve- 
 ning in the woods, we came upon a flock that had alighted 
 in a bottom. Brooks fired at them. Imagine our joy 
 when one fell. We almost shouted. We cut that goose 
 up and boiled him in the coffee pot. We had several pots 
 full of it, and it was the best wild goose I have ever 
 tasted, without salt or bread. 
 
 That night we spent at our old Camp No. 3, and though 
 we got no sleep again, we felt better and much stronger. 
 From here on I was on very familiar ground. We started 
 early the next morning for the moraine, which was only a 
 few miles through the forest, and at the foot of this 
 moraine we had left a boat that I now expected to secure 
 and to proceed on our journey to Yakutat. 
 
 Suppose the boat had disappeared, had been broken up 
 by the ice or taken away? Then, indeed, we should be in 
 desperate straits. There was no question about that. We 
 approached the moraine, therefore, with much anxiety 
 and with a feeling that we must rush and see as quickly 
 as possible. 
 
 As soon as we came out to the moraine, however, we 
 thought no more of the boat, for the sight that met our 
 eyes amazed us and we stood for a while stupefied. 
 
 We came out on the moraine at a point about halfway 
 
 81 
 
AN ADVENTURE IN ALASKA 
 
 between our old Camps No. i and No. 2, and from this 
 point a view of the entire moraine was had. Immediately 
 across from where we stood was a cluster of tents which 
 extended all the way up to our Camp No. 2. Below, in 
 the vicinity of our old Camp No. i, was another cluster 
 of tents. Scattered along throughout the moraine itself 
 were several hundred men, working away, pulling, pack- 
 ing and carrying great loads; some of them even had 
 horses, and they extended far up on to the glacier itself, 
 where they looked like little flies perched on a great white 
 wall. 
 
 I was entirely bewildered, and a great feeling of dis- 
 appointment came over me, for I thought that these peo- 
 ple had made a rich strike on the spot where we had 
 camped alone and wasted so much time. I fired my rifle 
 and waited for an invitation to come over. This was 
 answered from the front of several tents. I fired again 
 and the invitation was repeated. We then crossed the 
 moraine, which was here about a half-mile wide. 
 
 As we struggled up the opposite bank several men met 
 us, and we were at once invited in. The head of the 
 party who received us was a man named Hearndon. He 
 was from Chicago, and had charge of a small party of 
 young men, "sons of well-to-do," some of whom, I soon 
 gathered, had been running rather untamed along State 
 Street. 
 
 Hearndon was making men of them, and had several 
 of them in harness and hitched to sleds, as he introduced 
 them to me, giving at the same time some amusing little 
 account of each. One was the son of a Senator of much 
 influence in Washington at that time; the father of an- 
 
 82 
 
THE RETREAT 
 
 Other was a well-known banker and philanthropist of Chi- 
 cago. I told Hearndon that we had had no food for 
 some time, and we were immediately supplied with a hot 
 meal of everything- that is best in camp. During the 
 meal I told Hearndon that I belonged to the Stinson party, 
 and gave him a rapid account of our experiences. Sev- 
 eral other men were also in the tent. I told him that 
 there was something very rotten about the Stinson party 
 that I did not understand as yet. That we had not gone 
 over that glacier at all, as he supposed we had ; that the 
 glacier could not be crossed, in fact, and did indeed lead 
 nowhere. 
 
 I noticed several times a pained and peculiar look in 
 Hearndon's face. I went on, however, and told him 
 that the Stinson party was at that moment some fifty 
 miles down the coast, near Dry Bay. I then got a look 
 and gesture which said most plainly "shut up." I was a 
 little puzzled at this. The party in the tent had been 
 increased by several while this was going on, and Brooks 
 also was talking at a great rate, but mostly about his 
 little farm "back in Missouri" and the terrible hardships 
 we had just gone through with. 
 
 The meal over, Hearndon took me to another tent, 
 where we conversed alone. He then explained to me that 
 practically all of these people, the several hundred that 
 were then encamped along the moraine, had been sent up 
 there by Rennick and Pennick ; that they all had letters to 
 George Stinson, Bruce Gotten or some other member of 
 the party, instructing said Stinson or Gotten to locate 
 bearer on certain placer diggings named and described as 
 now held by said Stinson, Gotten or Lang for said 
 Rennick. 
 
 83 
 
AN ADVENTURE IN ALASKA 
 
 Hearndon said that there were many men here who had 
 paid their all for this purchase of a claim from Rennick; 
 that very many of them were now suspicious of the whole 
 thing and were desperate and discouraged. Therefore, 
 he had stopped me from talking in the other tent as soon 
 as he could, because he was not sure what the effect of 
 my disclosure would be on this situation. 
 
 He himself had nothing whatever to do with Rennick. 
 He had merely come out to take care of a bunch of young 
 fellows, mostly sons of his friends. Having heard that 
 there was a great rush on to Yakutat, he had followed 
 along, thinking this as good a place as anywhere to break 
 in and give his young fellows experience. 
 
 This was, of course, a great surprise and shock to me, 
 and I began to see the light. I now understood Rennick's 
 kindly interest in seeing that we got that $i a day and 
 why. To insure this, he had insisted that the bank should 
 give him a receipt each month for the amount placed to 
 our credit. For did this not prove that Gotten, Lang and 
 the rest of us were his caretakers in Alaska, and what 
 better proof would any Iowa farmer want than this state- 
 ment from a national bank? It was a wicked thing, this 
 wholesale robbery of the credulous and simple-minded, 
 and Rennick paid for it with his life. 
 
 But to return to Hearndon, After full explanations I 
 had a feeling that Hearndon was hesitating to say some- 
 thing that was on his mind. I then asked him frankly 
 what he thought the effect of my presence in camp would 
 be. He was immediately relieved and said : "That is just 
 what I have been thinking about." He said that there 
 were many desperate men there; that they were now 
 
 84 
 
THE RETREAT 
 
 almost all out at work and scattered along the trail ; that 
 when they returned my disclosures would be known 
 throughout the camp. Well, he got up and went out of 
 the tent for a few moments. When he returned he said, 
 "If I were you, I should go on to Yakutat tonight. I can 
 get you an Indian who will take you and Brooks down, 
 and you can leave now." I said, "All right; I will do 
 so." He went for the Indian and I went to find Brooks. 
 
 Brooks was seated on a pile of goods talking to some 
 of Hearndon's party. The strangers who were in the 
 tent while I was having my meal had disappeared. 
 
 It was a wonderful day. The sun was a blaze of glory. 
 I looked across the moraine that I knew so well and loved, 
 too, for it had given me many, many interesting moments, 
 and it seemed to belong to me, too, for I had it all to my- 
 self, and now it was filled with all those idiotic farmers, 
 who should have been at home attending to their wives 
 and pigs, instead of coming here to ruin themselves and 
 spoil the view. 
 
 What Hearndon had really said to me was, that if I 
 did not get out of camp before these men came in from 
 work, I might be hanged. He did not use these words, 
 but there was no mistaking his meaning. These men 
 had been ruined. My own disclosures proved that, and 
 certainly Stinson and the rest of us were associated in 
 the fraud, and would look very proper on the short end 
 of a rope. 
 
 This, of course, did not appeal to me at all. I had left 
 home prepared for any honorable adventure, but this was 
 too much. The people at home would certainly never 
 
 85 
 
AN ADVENTURE IN ALASKA 
 
 understand such a performance, and I should have been 
 a disgrace to the family forever. 
 
 I called Brooks and told him that we would leave at 
 once for Yakutat. He protested, but when I told him 
 of the situation and reminded him that there was a man 
 named Brooks in the Stinson party, he became as meek 
 as a lamb. 
 
 Hearndon had sent the Indian to prepare the boat, and 
 now told me that the Indians at Yakutat were very much 
 excited, and that most of them had run away to the woods. 
 It seemed that one of their medicine men had tied up 
 some witches and had tortured one to death. The Gov- 
 ernor had been appealed to, and had visited Yakutat in 
 the little gunboat Wheeling. He tried to arrest the medi- 
 cine man, but, being unable to find him, had fired the 
 ship's guns and turned the searchlights on the village 
 itself, which so frightened the Indians that they had fled. 
 
 The Indian, however, who was to take me down, "Skoo- 
 cum" Jim, was all right, he said, for he had been working 
 for Hearndon for a week or two.* 
 
 Hearndon walked with me almost to the beach, and 
 asked me that if I got to Seattle to please try and find a 
 Mr. Colton and to stop him from coming up. He said 
 that Mr. Colton was from Kentucky, and had been an 
 Episcopal minister, was a friend of his, and he wanted me 
 to stop him from coming and thus save him a heavy ex- 
 pense. He had no idea where I would find Mr. Colton in 
 Seattle. 
 
 "Skoocum" means strong, handsome, noble, true, brave and many 
 other nice things, so if there is anything in a name, Jim should have 
 been perfection. 
 
 86 
 
THE RETREAT 
 
 We found "Skoocum" Jim waiting for us at the foot 
 of the moraine, where there was a store with all manner 
 of things for sale, and on the site where our Camp No. i 
 had been I noticed that the woods had been marked out 
 in streets for the location of a town. I did not inquire as 
 to what this new city was going to be called. Rennick- 
 ville, I suppose, would have been a proper name, but I 
 was not then suggesting anything to anybody, and felt 
 no particular civic pride in the locality. 
 
 Since this is an intimate relation, I must admit some- 
 thing here that usually is not confessed except to one's 
 closest pal. That is, that all the money I had was two 
 $5 gold pieces that I had carried all winter securely sewn 
 in the lining of my coat. As for Brooks, he did not have 
 a penny. I cut them out here and purchased some sugar, 
 bacon and hardtack, and paid the Indian $6 for the trip 
 in advance. At Yakutat, however, I sold this same In- 
 dian my rifle, or rather the rifle I had, for $i8, so I was 
 still far from broke. 
 
 We started immediately, about 4 o'clock in the after- 
 noon. The boat was an Indian canoe, dug out and 
 equipped with a small sail in the bow, which was a great 
 help in places. 
 
 We traveled all night and until about 9 o'clock the 
 next morning without any stop, for indeed there were no 
 places where we could stop. This night and this trip 
 have always stood out in my memory as the night of all 
 horrors. Certainly in my life I have never suffered such 
 frightful pain and such prolonged agony as on this occa- 
 sion. We were both, of course, as can be judged from 
 this little description I have given, in an advanced stage 
 
 87 
 
AN ADVENTURE IN ALASKA 
 
 of exhaustion. It was true, we had food now, but we 
 were full of bruises and stiffness, my feet were much 
 swollen, and I ached all over. But what caused us by far 
 the greatest agony was our need of sleep. We had had no 
 sleep at all to speak of for over seventy hours, and very 
 little, indeed, since we left the Indian hut on the river. 
 As the sun got low my eyes began to pain me fearfully. 
 My eyelids seemed like lead and spikes seemed to have 
 been driven into my pupils. It was fearfully cold, and 
 we had no blankets or shelter of any kind. To sleep 
 meant certain death, either by freezing or by falling out 
 of the canoe, which was too small to lie down in. There 
 was nothing to do but to paddle and suffer. 
 
 There were many icebergs in the bay, and I am sure 
 I was delirious at times, for I had visions and saw 
 many unreal things, such as great ships and groups of 
 men and animals fighting among these icebergs. These 
 ships were most distinct, and sometimes passed so near 
 that I feared we would be run down. They were all of 
 ancient design and carried men armed with spears and 
 axes and protected with armor and shields like the 
 cohorts in Caesar's Legions. 
 
 I never lost my senses and knew that these things could 
 not exist, yet they were so real to me that when we landed 
 on a little island the next morning. I took pains to let the 
 Indian go ashore first, though he had to crawl over me 
 to do so. I was not at all sure it was a real island. 
 Brooks was suffering, too, and groaned a great deal, 
 though I never knew what particular form his agony 
 took. We had hot tea and breakfast on this island and 
 felt better. We were at the mouth of Enchantment Bay, 
 
 88 
 
THE RETREAT 
 
 and from here on for a distance of about five miles we 
 were exposed to the full swell from the ocean as it swept 
 into Yakutat Bay. It was entirely too rough for a canoe, 
 and how we ever made it and were not all drowned 
 has always been a mystery to me. This Indian was a 
 master boatman, but even he at times was alarmed. 
 
 To make a dangerous situation worse, Brooks, when 
 we were in the midst of this passage and under full sail, 
 seemed to be seized with some form of mental disorder. 
 He began to throw himself from side to side and turn 
 himself about. The boat was all but capsized several 
 times. The Indian threw off his coat in order to take to 
 the water. As for me, I could not have lived five minutes 
 in that water, and the shore was fully two miles away. 
 We were facing certain death if Brooks was not quieted 
 instantly. He was seated in front of me, on the forward 
 seat of the boat, and I was facing his back, but during 
 these contortions he had got himself turned around in 
 some way and was now seated facing me. 
 
 I reached forward and struck him as hard as I could 
 with my fist squarely in the mouth. He fell over in the 
 boat, his back and shoulders on the bottom, his legs 
 hanging over the seat. Most fortunately, he fell square 
 and did not move, or we should have been lost. I crawled 
 forward between his knees and told him not to move or 
 the boat would be capsized. He said, "Is that you, Cot- 
 ten?" and lay perfectly still. I crouched over him and 
 watched him and cautioned him occasionally. His lips 
 began to swell, and a tiny little stream of blood trickled 
 down on his beard. I had a big feeling of sorrow for 
 him then, and affection, as he lay there perfectly still, 
 thank God. 
 
 89 
 
AN ADVENTURE IN ALASKA 
 
 Fortunately, we were soon out of this rough water, 
 for we had sailed it at good speed. We came under the 
 lee of a little island, called Hat Island, because of its 
 shape like a hat. To my joy, I saw several tents pitched 
 there. "Skoocum" said they were Indians fishing. I told 
 •him to go ashore, for I wanted to get Brooks up. We 
 found quite a party of Indians camped there. They re- 
 ceived us with open arms and with more tokens of friend- 
 ship than I had ever seen Indians show before. 
 
 We got Brooks up and took him in a tent where there 
 was a stove. We warmed up and drank tea. These In- 
 dians were so polite and considerate that I was mystified, 
 and finally became suspicious, for Indians are never 
 thoughtful of your comfort and considerate in a way these 
 Indians were. Besides, they insisted upon giving us 
 their own tea, which was extraordinary, I thought, for 
 they value tea beyond anything on earth, and are rarely 
 able to keep themselves supplied with it. 
 
 I kept hearing a peculiar noise in an adjoining tent, 
 and feeling now somewhat suspicious, I got up and 
 walked over to this tent and went in. There I found, 
 seated around the body of a dead woman, several Indians, 
 among whom was the old medicine man. They were hav- 
 ing some ceremony and putting hot rocks to the body in 
 an effort to restore her life. The odor in the tent was 
 frightful, and I withdrew, more suspicious than ever, for 
 I remembered what Hearndon had told me about the Gov- 
 ernor trying to arrest this medicine man, and I sur- 
 mized that his followers here perhaps thought that we 
 were looking for him and might take him away. 
 
 I do not, of course, know whether these Indians medi- 
 
 90 
 
THE RETREAT 
 
 tated any mischief toward Brooks and myself or not ; any- 
 way, I felt very suspicious of them. They might have 
 poisined the tea, which I now seemed to remember 
 tasted rather queerly, and the more I thought of this the 
 more queerly I remembered the tea had tasted. 
 
 Though being killed by Indians on an island was much 
 more romantic than being hanged by white men on the 
 mainland, yet I was not prepared for this either, so I de- 
 cided to leave the island at once. "Skoocum" said that 
 Yakutat was not so far away, and pointed out to me and 
 illustrated by a drawing on the ground that by using a 
 portage across a narrow island that lay between us we 
 could make it that night. We started immediately. 
 Brooks perfectly quiet and apparently much better. 
 Brooks, I might say, never remembered anything at all 
 about the latter part of this trip. I lived with him for 
 about two weeks afterwards, and he had no recollection 
 whatever of that episode in the boat, or of being on this 
 
 island at all. 
 
 Our way from here was through quiet waters and 
 among numerous small islands. We reached the portage 
 and carried our boat about lOO yards across an island. 
 From here we could see Yakutat ; in fact, we were imme- 
 diately in front of the town, and it was only a question 
 now of crossing over a distance of about two miles. 
 
 We landed in front of Johnson's store. It was about 
 10 o'clock at night, though the sun was shining brightly. 
 Johnson received us most kindly, seated us beside a big 
 iron stove that had been made from a Standard Oil drum, 
 and started some of his squaws preparing a meal for us. 
 
 I became warm and dry. I could feel my whole ner- 
 
 91 
 
AN ADVENTURE IN ALASKA 
 
 vous system relaxing with jerks and twitches. All my 
 troubles seemed to be gone, and I was drifting away. 
 Johnson seemed to be talking in the distance. I remember 
 seeing some hot rolls, some butter and steaming coffee. 
 But that was the last. I passed away, asleep. 
 
 92 
 
CHAPTER VIL 
 Back to Seattle. 
 
 Sometime the next morning I awoke in Johnson's 
 store, where I had been placed away on a cot and cov- 
 ered with blankets. They had got my shoes off with 
 difficulty, and my feet were very sore and swollen. Oth- 
 erwise I felt very well, surprisingly well, considering. 
 Johnson prescribed hot sea water for my feet, and I got 
 "Skoocum" to get me some from the bay and heat it. 
 This seemed to help very much. I continued this for sev- 
 eral days, and the swelling passed entirely. "Skoocum" 
 had taken a great fancy to my rifle and was around two 
 or three times a day to buy it. I told him Iwould not sell 
 it to him now, but that if he would bring me that hot sea 
 water twice a day, when my feet got well I would let 
 him have it. This he did faithfully, and I sold him this 
 rifle for $i8. 
 
 My first thought, of course, was to relieve Romeo and 
 the Krowleys from their predicament in the cabin down 
 the coast, and with Johnson's assistance two Indians were 
 at once dispatched in a boat, who brought them in safely, 
 the round trip taking only about three days. It seems 
 that the Indians knew these quicksand marshes well, and 
 would under no circumstances enter them. However, 
 there was a short cut to that cabin by way of a portage 
 and river called Ancow, which, if we had known it, 
 would have saved us great trouble and hardships. Romeo 
 arrived looking better for his rest in the cabin, but very 
 
 93 
 
AN ADVENTURE IN ALASKA 
 
 morose and sour. He and the Krowleys were taken in at 
 the Mission, and were very comfortable there. 
 
 Johnson's sense of humor and amusing ways was a 
 fine tonic, and did much to brace me up. Feehng, how- 
 ever, that we ought not to land ourselves on him, I rented 
 the front room of Steve's cottage — the same Steve who 
 had brought us here and who had recently been hanged 
 on the Valdez Glacier. His young squaw was glad to 
 get $2.50 per week for permitting us to sleep on the 
 floor and furnish our own blankets, which Johnson loaned 
 us. This was an attractive little room for these parts, 
 and was the "drawing room" of the cottage. There were 
 several "icons" on the wall and some decorated skins 
 and bead work. There was also a looking-glass that 
 threw me into hysterics, for I had not seen myself for 
 over six months. I walked over to this mirror, and the 
 sight of myself was a dreadful and painful thing to be- 
 hold. I wept and laughed in turn. It did not seem pos- 
 sible that I could ever look like that. So far as I could 
 recall, there was not a single feature of my old self left. 
 My face was covered with a shaggy, colorless beard, ex- 
 cept at two spots at the corners of my mouth, which were 
 entirely bare. I looked like a terrible Siberian convict. 
 My clothes, too, were in keeping with my appearance — 
 torn, stained and all out of shape. My heavy hob-nailed 
 shoes were much worn and patched in places. I looked 
 very different, indeed, from the dandy that had so aston- 
 ished the Governor of Alaska six months before. The 
 skin of my face, however, wherever visible was of a 
 milky whitness and as soft as that of a baby. This was 
 caused, I was told, from so long bathing in snow water. 
 
 94 
 
BACK TO SEATTLE 
 
 I knew that I had to improve my appearance if I wished 
 to get along any further in the world and have any decent 
 companions. So I finally succeeded in borrowing a razor, 
 and so darned and cleaned my clothing that I looked very 
 handsome and well groomed in comparison. 
 
 Now commenced the wait for the steamer Dora, which 
 was expected in about ten days. As has been inferred, I 
 had not sufficient funds to pay for a passage to Seattle. 
 My intention was to go aboard when the steamer arrived 
 and induce the purser to take me down on my promise 
 to pay at Seattle. I expected Edwards' letter to assist 
 me in this. Failing— well, I had no plans, only I was 
 going down on that steamer if it was humanly possible. 
 
 Brooks and I continued to live at the cottage, doing 
 our own cooking. Romeo did not visit me at all, but held 
 himself aloof, and seemed to have attached himself to the 
 Krowleys, whom I disliked. This rather pained me, and 
 I have never understood it. The days were very long 
 and full of sunshine. I recall sitting outside and reading 
 a book until after 1 1 o'clock at night. There were a num- 
 ber of white men in Yakutat waiting to go down on the 
 Dora. 
 
 Shortly after my arrival, a Mr. Wilcox came to my 
 "drawing room" and introduced himself to me. Wilcox 
 was a mining engineer and investigator. He was about 
 fifty years of age, I should say, and was from Minnesota,: 
 where he had a real wife and family. As we got better 
 acquainted I learned that he represented an English min- 
 ing syndicate and, having spent his entire life in this 
 business, was familiar with all the mining districts in 
 America. 
 
 95 
 
AN ADVENTURE IN ALASKA 
 
 Wilcox was of the old school of mining men, a school 
 that had its beginning in the days of '49, which had a 
 very different soul and psychology from this thing that 
 was now developing in Alaska. His was the open man- 
 ners of the Rockies, while that of these people in this 
 rush was that of the city tough intermingled with agrarian 
 provincialism. 
 
 He was a large man, self-educated and without culture. 
 He was a revelation to me, as gentle as a child and as 
 rough as a bull, but he had, as I found, a heart of gold. 
 He is dead now, and may God rest his big soul. 
 
 Wilcox told me that this rush to Yakutat had caused 
 considerable excitement below, and that his company had 
 insisted upon his coming here and seeing what it was all 
 about. He had got in on the first trip of the Dora 
 going north, and had seen at a glance that it was all about 
 nothing. He had learned that the whole thing had been 
 started by Pennick, and that was enough for him. He 
 had known of Pennick since he was a boy, and told me a 
 great deal about him (Pennick) and his career, some of 
 which has been used in this narrative. When I told him 
 of the Stinson party and Pennick's connection therewith, 
 he was immensely interested, and we became fast friends. 
 He came to my "drawing room" every day, and we had 
 many long chats and came to know each other well. 
 
 One day a schooner came into the harbor with a new 
 party. This was a rather large party, and among their 
 possessions were two horses. As there was no place to 
 land these animals, they were thrown overboard some dis- 
 tance out in the bay and made to swim ashore. The 
 beach was lined with the usual crowd of old men, squaws 
 
 96 
 
BACK TO SEATTLE 
 
 and children, who ddight in sitting out on sunny days to 
 air themselves, wrapped in blankets. When these horses 
 came up on the beach, there was a panic, the like of which 
 had never been known in Yakutat before, for none of 
 these people had ever seen a horse, and the sight of the 
 devil himself arising from the water could not have 
 caused greater terror. The town was entirely depopulated 
 in a few minutes ; even the dogs betook themselves to the 
 forest, and some of the Mission people had to go out and 
 gradually coax them back. 
 
 The head and financial backer of this new party was 
 a man whose name I did not record, and for this I am 
 sorry, for he enters somewhat into this relation. I am 
 entirely unable to recall his name, though I saw much of 
 him for a while. However, if someone will look up the 
 Seattle papers for the latter part of June, 1898, his name 
 will be found in a column or two devoted to a spectacular 
 fight he had with Rennick in the Seattle Hotel one mid- 
 night. 
 
 This Mr. X — , as we will call him, was from Duluth, 
 and was said to be a prominent business man there. He 
 had been president of the Chamber of Commerce, was 
 about forty years of age, and had with him as friend and 
 assistant a Mr. Hall. 
 
 Wilcox brought him up to my "drawing room" and 
 told me that Rennick had swindled him out of about 
 $75,000, mostly in expenses, I presume. After my dis- 
 closures Mr. X — decided to send the schooner back and 
 to return himself on the Dora. 
 
 A few days before the Dora arrived, Wilcox asked me 
 if I was going down on her. I told him I was if I could 
 
 97 
 
AN ADVENTURE IN ALASKA 
 
 do SO, but that' much depended on the purser, as I had 
 hardly any money at all. His answer to this made such 
 an impression on me that I can swear to his exact words 
 to this day. He ran his hand in his pocket and, drawing 
 out a large roll of bills, said, "Mr. Gotten, if you will be 
 so kind as to state what amount of money you require, 
 I will be delighted to let you have it." Here was gener- 
 osity for you, and faith, too, and I was, of course, im- 
 mensely pleased. I started to tell him that he knew noth- 
 ing whatever about me, but he refused to listen, and said 
 that I had inspired a confidence in him which he hoped he 
 would have inspired in me had our situations been re- 
 versed. That if he lost a hundred or so by me, he would 
 not mention it to a soul, and that it did not in the least 
 matter, anyway. 
 
 I finally told him that if he would pay my fare and 
 expenses down to Seattle, it would indeed relieve me 
 of much embarrassment, and that I was in position to 
 repay him upon arrival. This was indeed a fine thing for 
 Wilcox to do, for I looked a tramp, and he knew nothing 
 whatever of me. 
 
 In the meantime. Brooks had found a friend from 
 "back in Missouri," and had been taken off my hands; 
 Romeo and the Krowleys also managed to get in the steer- 
 age of the Dora when she arrived. Romeo seemed to be 
 awfully peeved about something, and I only saw him once 
 on the boat. Brooks thought that Romeo was displeased 
 because I had not secured him in the good graces of Wil- 
 cox. This, however, I could not do, because Wilcox sim- 
 ply would have nothing whatever to do with either Brooks 
 or Romeo. 
 
 98 
 
BACK TO SEATTLE 
 
 Wilcox wanted to visit Juneau on business, and in- 
 sisted upon my stopping- over with him. This I could 
 not very well refuse under the circumstances, though I 
 wanted so much to hurry south and enter the army. So 
 we left the Dora at Sitka and awaited an opportunity to 
 get over to Juneau. 
 
 After leaving Yakutat Wilcox really looked after me 
 like a father. He began to call me lad, and came near 
 throwing a rather neatly dressed man overboard because 
 he left his seat that was next to mine at the table. Wil- 
 cox thought he did this on account of my rough appear- 
 ance, which was probably true, and, though I must say 
 I could hardly blame him myself, Wilcox thought other- 
 wise, and gave him a call down the like of which I have 
 never heard in my lifetime. 
 
 This man was badly frightened, and was not seen on 
 deck again. His "biled shirt" was too immaculate and his 
 collar too high, besides he had a sweet tenor voice, a com- 
 bination entirely fatal to fellowship in this land of 
 Chanooke. Wilcox would also come around every day or 
 two and push a ten or twenty dollar bill in my pocket. 
 Of these he kept no account whatever, and when we got 
 to Seattle and he finally rendered a bill, I already had 
 more than enough of his own money in my pocket to pay 
 him with. 
 
 This caused some argument, and we finally settled by 
 my turning over to him all the money I had in my pocket 
 upon arrival, plus the fare and other expenses that could 
 be remembered. 
 
 We remained in Sitka several days. When we went up 
 to our room at the hotel that night, the Indian porter told 
 
 99 
 
AN ADVENTURE IN ALASKA 
 
 US with pride that Madame Sarah Bernhardt had recently 
 occupied that same room, but what interested me most 
 was real beds, such as I had not seen for six months. Mine 
 had sheets on it, and they tickled me so that I could not 
 sleep for a long time. Here we heard of Dewey's victory 
 over the Spaniards in Manila Bay. No one knew at all 
 where Manila was, and a fierce argument went on at 
 the hotel for several days. Finally someone discovered a 
 map, which showed Manila to be in the Spice Islands. 
 After a few days a yacht belonging to the Alaska Pack- 
 ers' Association came in and offered to take us over to 
 Juneau. It was a beautiful trip of one day, through the 
 islands and across the entrance of Glacier Bay. Juneau 
 is a wonderful spot. Across the narrow strait on Douglas 
 Island is Douglas City, where are situated the Tredwell 
 mines, the largest stamp milling property in the world. 
 
 At Juneau we had quite an interesting experience, for 
 in the hotel here were stopping both "Nigger Jim" and 
 "Swift Water Bill" Gates. These were very prominent 
 Klondike millionaires, and until quite recently had been 
 just ordinary tramps. They were each occupying entire 
 floors at the hotel and were accompanied by numerous 
 retainers, including a number of girls from the under- 
 world. 
 
 "Nigger Jim" was a common white man from Lou- 
 isiana, who had acquired his name from the fact that he 
 spoke like a negro. He had taken out, it is said, about 
 $800,000 from the Klondike section, and was now at the 
 height of his glory. This fortune was entirely squandered 
 in about two years, and in 1904 he was pointed out to me 
 in Skagway, where he was working as a common laborer 
 at $2.50 a day. 
 
 100 
 
BACK TO SEATTLE 
 
 "Swift Water Bill" Gates was more presentable than 
 "Nigger Jim." He was said to have possessed more 
 than a million, which he likewise entirely squandered in 
 a year or two, during which process he married three 
 sisters in rapid succession. 
 
 They were both unique and widely known characters 
 as long as their money lasted, and the whole of Juneau 
 felt their presence on this occasion. It was a noisy, 
 drunken and riotous time, and I remember coming in one 
 evening, when the crowd had got too drunk to be noisy, 
 and found "Nigger Jim" and "Swift Water" quietly 
 sitting at a table drinking champagne out of the bottle 
 and cutting the cards for $5,000 a cut. 
 
 These notables were being held here on account of the 
 situation in Skagway, where a famous gambler, "Sopey" 
 Smith, had seized control of things and was openly rob- 
 bing everybody that came through the town. "Sopey" 
 had himself elected Mayor of the town, and immediately 
 inaugurated a reign of terror. This lasted for about six 
 weeks, during which time fully fifty people were mur- 
 dered in cold blood. "Sopey" himself was finally killed, 
 but succeeded in killing at the same time his adversary, 
 and they are both buried in Skagway, side by side. 
 
 Upon the arrival of the City of Seattle, we proceeded 
 down through the wondrous inside passage into Puget 
 Sound, and arrived at Seattle on the 14th of June. There 
 were a number of miners and gamblers aboard, and some 
 of the atmosphere of "Swift Water Bill" lingered with 
 us still. The captain kept a roster of the boys who should 
 answer bells and wait on the poker parties that were go- 
 ing on, and it was said that the tips received by some of 
 
 lOI 
 
AN ADVENTURE IN ALASKA 
 
 these boys on a single trip often exceeded the captain's 
 pay for a month. 
 
 On the way down I saw in a paper that my brother, 
 Lyman Gotten, had graduated from the United States 
 Naval Academy and had been assigned to the U. S. S. 
 Columbia, thereby starting a career that has been brilliant 
 and most creditable to himself and to the family as well. 
 
 My first day in Seattle was spent shopping and in a 
 barber shop, where I got a shave, haircut, singe, sham- 
 poo, massage and manicure. When I appeared for din- 
 ner that night Wilcox was most enthusiastic over my ap- 
 pearance. He had never seen me in a "biled" shirt, and 
 hardly knew me. That evening we went to a theatre. 
 Next to me sat a gentleman, alone, with whom I began 
 to converse. It proved to be Mr. Colton, and I delivered 
 Hearndon's message upon the first evening I arrived, 
 which was most fortunate, for he was leaving in two 
 days for Yakutat. 
 
 We both thought this a queer coincidence. He came to 
 see me the next morning and we started to church. On 
 the way we met Dr. Shelton Jackson. Mr. Colton knew 
 Dr. Jackson, and introduced me to him and we all went to 
 church together. Dr. Jackson was at that time regarded 
 the best living authority on everything pertaining to 
 Alaska. 
 
 I again went to the Globe Hotel and quickly got in 
 contact with what friends I had in Seattle. All received 
 me warmly and were much interested in this story. I 
 began to study the war and to make plans to enter the 
 army at once. Wilcox did not approve of this entirely, 
 and offered me a place in some works of his in Idaho, but 
 
 1 02 
 
BACK TO SEATTLE 
 
 I felt the call of the soldier, and Wilcox finally said good- 
 bye with a big bear hug, and I never saw him again, 
 though I have thought of him often and his great kind- 
 ness to me. I shall never see his like again. 
 
 Only one other thing need be recorded here. Very 
 early one morning, before anyone was up, there came a 
 knock on my door and a whisper, "Open the door, Cot- 
 ten ; it is Rennick." I opened the door, and it was Ren- 
 nick indeed. Not the Rennick that I knew, with blue 
 shirt and mackinaw, but Rennick, the immaculate, if you 
 please. Rennick with whiskers nicely trimmed, tailored 
 suit, gloves and walking cane. He came in and I locked 
 the door behind him and stood against it. Many people 
 in Seattle were looking for Rennick. Mr. X — , at the 
 Seattle Hotel, was most anxious to find him. In every 
 hotel in Seattle there were people looking for Rennick, 
 and here he was in my room at sunrise. 
 
 I was so surprised that I could make no decision as to 
 how I ought to act, and ended in making a mess of the 
 opportunity I had. He asked me why I had left the 
 party, and said I had ruined him by coming back and 
 spreading all those reports. I stopped him and began 
 talking in a rough and threatening way. Rennick was 
 alarmed and thought that I was going to do him bodily 
 harm, for he was physically a great coward. He began 
 to beg piteously. He insisted that he had been robbed 
 by Pennick and betrayed by that beast of a George, and 
 put up a most pathetic tale. I again began to feel the 
 effect of this man's personality, which was most curious 
 and hypnotic in some way. 
 
 I began to weaken and then let him go entirely, feeling 
 
 103 
 
AN ADVENTURE IN ALASKA 
 
 rather sorry for him. I almost immediately repented. I 
 should have listened to what he had to say, learned his 
 plans and then acted. As it was, I do not know to this 
 day why he came to my room at sunrise, but I am sure 
 he had something very interesting up his sleeve. 
 
 I dressed hurriedly and went to Wilcox and got him 
 out of bed. Wilcox said I had behaved like a ten-year- 
 old, but told me to hurry to the room of Mr. X — and 
 inform him that Rennick was in town. Mr. X — 
 and Hall were much excited and immediately began a 
 search of the town. But no Rennick was found. Mr. 
 Rennick was a most difficult man to find ; he kept rooms 
 in many hotels in many places, and had spies at them all, 
 usually some of the desk clerks, and they covered him 
 up and lied for him splendidly. 
 
 Mr. X — , however, persevered in his search, and 
 finally ascertained that Rennick would most likely be 
 found in Portland. He detailed Mr. Hall, who was 
 unknown to Rennick, to undertake the search and to ar- 
 range to bring Mr. X — and Rennick together. 
 
 Mr. X — 's sole object in this was to adminster to 
 Rennick a sound thrashing, and he vowed that he would 
 never be happy again until he had in person administered 
 such punishment. "A little piece of his hide." as he 
 expressed it, would to some extent atone for the injury 
 done and console him in his declining years for having 
 been such a fool in his younger days. 
 
 Accordingly, Hall was dispatched to Portland, where 
 he shortly located Rennick in one of the smaller hotels. 
 He took a room at this hotel and let it be known that 
 he was from the Middle East; that he had sold out his 
 
 104 
 
BACK TO SEATTLE 
 
 business and wanted to go to Alaska. He even showed 
 the head clerk a large roll of hundred-dollar bills, and 
 said he would invest in something in Alaska, provided it 
 was something sufficiently promising and sure. 
 
 Rennick, of course, had nothing but "sure things" to 
 offer, and the presence of easy money in the lobby soon 
 brought him from his seclusion. Hall was advised by one 
 of Rennick's spies to see Mr. Rennick, who was described 
 as a wealthy and successful miner and the owner of valu- 
 able properties in Alaska. 
 
 It was insinuated that Rennick was a great personal 
 friend of the Secretary of the Interior, and could do 
 things in Alaska forbidden to the less favored. 
 
 Hall appeared interested, and asked to see Mr, Ren- 
 nick. Mr. Rennick was very busy, as usual, but after 
 some delay gave him an appointment. Hall stated his 
 situation ; said that he had sold out his packing business 
 in Quincey; that the Trust had driven him out, and that 
 he never expected to go East again, 
 
 Rennick was very abusive of the Trust, Hall said, and 
 after a while, seeing that he was a deserving man, offered 
 to sell him certain interests in mining property located 
 near Yakutat. Rennick said that he had been developing 
 this district secretly for some years, but that the thing 
 was out now and that the entire section ought to be lo- 
 cated as quickly as possible, before Congress changed 
 the laws and put a stop to the whole thing. He showed 
 Hall a pile of blueprints, and told him of a number of 
 people who were in there, mentioning by name among 
 others Mr. X — , who, he said, would certainly make a 
 million. 
 
 105 
 
AN ADVENTURE IN ALASKA 
 
 Hall, as can be understood, was very much interested in 
 this prospect, and deeply impressed with the opportunity. 
 After some further negotiations, he told Rennick that he 
 had but $5,000, but that a friend of his named Adams 
 had come west with him for exactly the same purpose 
 as himself; that Adams had about $10,000, but had gone 
 to Seattle. He so much desired to bring Mr. Rennick 
 and Adams together, and himself wanted to go in with 
 Adams on this proposition. 
 
 Hall then tried (?) to get Adams to come down to 
 Portland, but Adams would not come, and Hall showed 
 Rennick his letter, which looked so promising that Ren- 
 nick finally consented to run over to Seattle, though he 
 was so busy he could only spend a couple of hours there. 
 
 Hall and Rennick arrived in Seattle at midnight, and 
 Mr. Adams (X — ) was waiting to receive them in his 
 room at the Seattle Hotel on Yestler Way. 
 
 Mr. Hall took Rennick to Mr. X — 's room and locked 
 the door behind him. Mr. X — then stepped from be- 
 hind a screen and with his bare fists began to extract 
 that "bit of hide" that he so ardently craved. In a few 
 seconds Rennick lay sprawling on the floor, yelling and 
 screaming with all his might. Mr. X — continued to 
 administer his punishment, until suddenly he realized 
 that the entire hotel was in an uproar and panic. Some- 
 one had turned in a fire alarm, half-clad men and women 
 were rushing through the halls, boxes and trunks were 
 being tumbled around, children crying and the ofiice force 
 rushing about trying to locate the trouble. 
 
 Mr. X — opened the door and he and Hall went out 
 and tried to calm things down by explaining to the 
 
 106 
 
BACK TO SEATTLE 
 
 ladies and apologizing for what had occurred. It was 
 some time before quiet was restored, during which time 
 Rennick vanished, leaving on the floor a very pretty little 
 gold nugget, which had rolled out of his pocket during 
 the melee. This Mr. X — secured and valued very much 
 as a souvenir of his experiences. 
 
 Shortly after this a plain man came down from Yaku- 
 tat, one of the many such that had been ruined by Ren- 
 nick's extraordinary cunning and cruel dishonesty. He 
 sought Rennick, too, quietly, himself and alone. He 
 found him, and his bullet found its mark. I should say 
 that if Rennick could have talked to that man for one 
 minute and looked him in the eye, he would not have shot 
 him. 
 
 Now I have come to the end of this narrative. It is a 
 true story, and a curious tale for one like me. I have 
 often examined myself in an effort to discover if any evil 
 remained therefrom, if any mud had stuck to my character 
 in the passing. I think not. I learned much of the 
 world, and saw much that was not beautiful in man, but 
 it did not affect me badly. Though I met George, I also 
 met Wilcox, and I took more of Wilcox than I did of 
 George, and went on in my way to other things, and am 
 not sorry. 
 
 [finis.] 
 
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UNIVERSITY OF N.C. AT CHAPEL HILL 
 
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 FOR USE ONLY IN 
 THE NORTH CAROLINA COLLECTION