132 BIG GAME SHOOTING IN ALASKA chap. 



yacht, without which I should have had a terrible task, 

 extending over many days, to reach this river in the dory 

 and bidarki. We parted with a promise on my part to return 

 and visit him at his house near the river-mouth, where there 

 was a new salmon cannery which had just been started to 

 exploit and fish some of the rivers along the coast. Having 

 found the native settlement, which consisted of four or five 

 huts, my next trouble was to explain to the chief exactly 

 what we wanted. He appeared to be neither an Aleut nor 

 an Esquimaux, but somewhat of a link between the two, and 

 what language he spoke I cannot say, but by dint of Nicolai 

 speaking to him in Aleut, and Nikita in Russian, I managed 

 to engage the services of one man, and the loan of two 

 bidarkis, for a small sum of money and some tea and 

 sugar, etc. 



I questioned him closely as to my chances of finding bears 

 along the river. He replied that there were any number 

 there, and that now the natives had ceased to kill them for 

 the fur-market, since their skins only fetched a few dollars, 

 the bears came down after the salmon to within a few miles 

 of the village. He declared that he and his men had counted 

 fifteen bears along the river-bank on one evening a few days 

 previously. This made me crazy to be off, and although it 

 was then 8 p.m., I ordered the men to hustle all our stores 

 into the three bidarkis, and, leaving our big dory behind, we 

 made about five miles up the river before camping for the 

 night. Luckily, I had the forethought to take with us some 

 dry wood, as there was not a vestige of anything to burn 

 within several miles of our camp. We had already reached 

 a spot where bears' tracks were fairly numerous along both 

 river-banks. At daylight we were off again, and by 3 p.m. 

 had reached a spot where two low spurs of foothills ran down 



