Travels in Alaska 



indignation whether he was not ashamed to meet a 

 missionary with a gun in his hands. Friendly relations, 

 however, were speedily established, and as a cold 

 rain was falling, they invited us to enter their hut. It 

 seemed very small and was jammed full of oily boxes 

 and bundles; nevertheless, twenty-one persons man- 

 aged to find shelter in it about a smoky fire. Our 

 hosts proved to be Hoona seal-hunters laying in their 

 winter stores of meat and skins. The packed hut was 

 passably well ventilated, but its heavy, meaty smells 

 were not the same to our noses as those we were ac- 

 customed to in the sprucy nooks of the evergreen 

 woods. The circle of black eyes peering at us through 

 a fog of reek and smoke made a novel picture. We 

 were glad, however, to get within reach of information, 

 and of course asked many questions concerning the 

 ice-mountains and the strange bay, to most of which 

 our inquisitive Hoona friends replied with counter- 

 questions as to our object in coming to such a place, 

 especially so late in the year. They had heard of Mr. 

 Young and his work at Fort Wrangell, but could not 

 understand what a missionary could be doing in such 

 a place as this. Was he going to preach to the seals 

 and gulls, they asked, or to the ice-mountains? And 

 could they take his word ? Then John explained that 

 only the friend of the missionary was seeking ice- 

 mountains, that Mr. Young had already preached 

 many good words in the villages we had visited, their 

 own among the others, that our hearts were good and 

 every Indian was our friend. Then we gave them a 

 little rice, sugar, tea, and tobacco, after which they 



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