LET US GO AFIELD 



you couldn't tell whether it was New England, Italy, 

 or the showerbath at an athletic club. 



Kodiak Island being wholly outside the concern 

 of Divine Providence, the latter was jointly repre- 

 sented by the United States Commissioner, the 

 Deputy United States Marshal and the Alaska Com- 

 mercial Company, with some argument as to prece- 

 dence. I met the agent of the Alaska Commercial 

 Company, who led me up to a high place in his 

 storage loft and showed me scores of bearskins, 

 some of them large as Oriental rugs. He advised 

 me against going farther, saying that here on Kod- 

 iak Island we could get patient bears with short 

 noses, long claws and sociable dispositions; where- 

 as, if we remained on the steamer, it might be 

 Christmas before we got into the bear country that 

 we proposed to reach. 



I had four minutes in which to decide, and as 

 president of the company decided in three. The 

 other minute I spent in getting my companion, our 

 guns and blankets off the boat. As to our highly 

 select grub outfit from Seattle, it went on to Si- 

 beria. 



"Do you think," asked the captain of the boat, 

 with his hand on the bell-rope, "that I can dig your 

 camp stuff from under forty-eight tons of freight 

 in three-quarters of a minute?" 



212 



