1 8973 ^ Ruinous Feud 



tense and seemed to warrant Kipling's assertion 

 that 



There's never a law of God nor man runs north of fifty- 

 three. 



Indeed, more than once the heights above Karluk War at 

 had been fortified by the local canners, injunctions ^"""^"^ 

 then being laid with the rifle. En revanche, "Scar- 

 faced Charley" of Chignik, a noted fighter, was 

 sent over with his band to capture and hold the 

 beach; for by law the right to fish belonged to who- 

 ever was actually drawing nets. This involved 

 operating them day and night throughout the season, 

 a system ruinous to the salmon run, as it permitted 

 relatively few spawning individuals to ascend what 

 had originally been the finest salmon river in the 

 world. 



Earlier that summer, while one set of men was 

 making a haul on the beach, a rival steamer cast 

 anchor beside the net and then moved away, tear- 

 ing its web to pieces. This naturally led to reprisals; 

 so when a larger vessel of the invading company 

 afterward anchored off Karluk, a net was cast 

 around it, hauling it to shore, where only capitula- 

 tion saved it from wreck. But when we arrived the 

 two corporations had arranged a truce which ap- 

 parently lasted until better statutes were provided. 



At Belkofski, a forlorn little Russian town on Beikojski 

 the Alaskan Peninsula, we stopped for a day, find- 

 ing there a most distressing condition due to the 

 extirpation of the Sea Otter — Latax lutris — 

 practically the sole dependence of the people, who 

 had formerly lived by the sale of its skins. This 

 situation was the result of continuous criminal 



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