CARIBOU AND BROWN BEAR 181 



"When the time came for me to begin serving in 

 either the army or the navy I said to myself, 'Fritz, you 

 are the yomigest of eighteen boys in your family and no 

 one of them has ever served Billy the Kaiser and you are 

 not going to break the family record.' But they caught 

 me all the same and put me on one of the warships. 

 One day I cursed one of the officers and he hit me in the 

 face. They put me in irons for a month, and after that 

 they gave me hard jobs around the deck and long hours. 

 But I met some Danish fishermen and I said to them: 

 'You get your boat about one thousand yards away from 

 ours and at one o'clock in the night show a light aboard 

 of it, and I'll be there.' So at one o'clock that night I 

 saw the hght as arranged; I brought a belaying pin down 

 on the head of the watchman and with a sandwich in my 

 pocket, overboard I went and swam to the fisherman. 

 I have had no desire to go to Germany since. 



"From there I reached the coast of Chile in South 

 America and worked with a lumber gang, but I could not 

 get along with the boss any better than I could with any 

 other boss, so I finally went to New York and learned 

 the shipbuilding trade. Now I have been in Alaska for 

 seven years and Alaska is good enough for me. 



"I don't need to take any orders from anybody here 

 in Alaska and I can punch a man's face if I don't like it. 

 I have never been arrested since I came to Alaska except 

 for stealing food and for fighting. Before I got here I 

 was arrested about seventy-eight times." 



This Fritz was a hard character, but he was a good 

 packer and delighted in his power of carrjdng heavy loads. 

 When it was time to strike camp and move back to the 

 "Abler" Fritz came to our little tent and looked at it 

 carefully. It contained Elting's bed and mine, together 



