TWO" DIANAS IN ALASKA 73 



and on meeting the contingent from the Cook's Inlet 

 side our hunters from the Bering Sea could return to 

 their homes. Our present men from Kodiak could 

 return with the Lily as she sailed back to Cook's 

 Inlet. 



With every one wanting to set sail for a different 

 locality matters got a trifle difficult. On talking it 

 over with Cecily we decided that the plan of plans 

 was to get the Leader of the expedition into a belief 

 that the proposed trip up the Kuskokwim was his 

 idea solely, when, man-like, he would hang on to it, 

 and run it for all he was worth. If a man is judici- 

 ously allowed to think he is having his own way com- 

 pletely a woman can do anything with him, and, by 

 the law of contraries, let a woman get but a glimmer- 

 ing notion that she is having her own way and a man 

 can do nothing with her. 



The thing worked like a charm. By adroit man- 

 oeuvres, hints, and fragile suggestions we initiated 

 the Leader into the first steps of the already arranged 

 trip, and by lunch-time he was confident that he had 

 thought out the details of it, and by tea-time he would 

 have sworn by all his gods that he alone had evolved 

 the scheme. The Sushitna-Kuskokwim route was 

 carried. When I was asked had I ever considered 

 that it would be a good line of country for the expedi- 

 tion to travel over, I didn't remember. Cecily, too, 

 had a most astonishing lapse of memory. It is well 

 for a woman to have a faulty memory on occasion, in 

 fact, it is rather stupid for a woman over thirty to 

 have a memory at all. Her object is, or should be, 



