TWO DIANAS IN ALASKA 205 



to the Leader to do the right thing. All he said 

 was 



"Oh er really, hang it! Where's Steve?" 

 Steve could not help here either, and finally we 

 discovered a minion who translated to Steve in a 

 lingo understood by him, and the message gradually 

 filtered through to us. The chief would like some 

 " hootchinoo." A diabolical form of whisky. We 

 explained, again by the complicated form of word 

 transmission, that we were anti-hootchinooers, and 

 proffered a small bottle of lime juice instead. A 

 woman seized it, somewhat roughly certainly, and 

 the outraged chief caught her a terrific blow on her 

 shoulders, and annexed the trophy himself. 



The women of this camp struck us as being a 

 frightfully put-upon lot, and even in the short time 

 we were there we saw one or two incidents which 

 made our blood boil. Perhaps it would be too much 

 to ask that savages should not push and cuff their 

 women-kind in a scrimmage of get-there-first variety, 

 but at least they need not treat the harmless feminines 

 as though they were militant suffragettes. Juvenal 

 asked, "Who shall guard the guards themselves?" 

 Cecily and I paraphrased this query and inquired, 

 " Who shall guard the Indian women from the 

 Indians?" But there was no reply. However, this 

 tribe, whatever they might be called, could not be 

 regarded as pure Indians. A strain of Indian hung 

 about them, showed in their cheekbones, in hands 

 and skull conformation, but the infusion of other 

 blood was stifling the characteristics of the Redskin. 



