XIII ON THE HOMEWARD TRAIL 269 



killed on the island during the season of 1903 which the 

 natives had brought into the Alaska Commercial Com- 

 pany's store, and were then awaiting shipment down to San 

 Francisco. There were a matter of some sixty skins, but 

 although many of them had been stretched on pegs we were 

 pleased to find on measuring the largest ones that not one 

 skin reached the same measurements as those of our largest 

 bear. 



Here also we again met our friend Mr. Folstad, and saw 

 once more his schooner, the Alice, in which we had made 

 our adventurous trip in the spring. Folstad was full of 

 enthusiasm over the prospects of some coal and oil lands 

 which we had discovered during our travels on the Alaska 

 Peninsula. He had staked large quantities of ground, and 

 had hopes that some day we might all reap a fortune from 

 the lucky strike. Whether or no these hopes will ever be 

 realised I cannot say, but there is no doubt that the whole 

 country is teeming with mineral wealth, and many valuable 

 strikes are now lying idle in Alaska owing to lack of capital 

 to develop them. 



It was not without regret that we finally bade farewell to 

 Kodiak, for here began and ended our first experience of 

 wild Alaska. Since we first landed there, we had travelled 

 many hundreds of miles by land and water. We had sailed 

 in waters which are at times a terror to hardy mariners and 

 natives whose lives are spent along those inhospitable shores. 

 We had traversed miles of barren, desolate lands, and miles 

 of endless primeval forests, following rivers, crossing lakes, 

 and climbing mountains, places where the hand of man has 

 yet left few traces, where wild nature may still be seen un- 

 tarnished by the march of civilisation, and where still abound 

 some of the grandest specimens of big game yet remaining 



