THE CHILKOOT PASS. 
125 
" Injuns gone at sunrise this morning. Paddle um 
canoes for Copper River." 
Richard shook his head gravely, and rose from the table. 
" We may hear more of them," he said, " but I hardly 
think there is serious danger, or I would not start. We 
shall go well armed, and when the cowardly chaps find 
we are to strike reenforcements at Selkirk, they won't 
care to risk their skins, I reckon." 
One half-hour later the party was under way. 
As it moved down toward the wharf, viewed by a half- 
hundred sleepy Sitkans, it was composed as follows : — 
1. Lieutenant Button and Peeschee. 
2. Mrs. Button, Florence, and Chloe. 
3. Thirty Chilkat Indians, whose services had been 
procured to pack " the tents, arms, blankets, and pro- 
visions over the snowy mountain pass to the navigable 
waters of the Yukon. 
4. Solomon Baronov. This last was a hunter, trapper, 
and guide ; a Yankee through and through on his 
mother's side, and a shrewd Russian on his father's. 
The former had been a Ca|)e Cod girl, and had found her 
way somehow with her father, the skipper of a fisherman- 
coaster, to the Alaska banks. Seeking shelter in Sitka 
from a storm, they had met Ivan Baronov, and " Betsy " 
had loved and married him. Solomon, their only child, 
had at an early age taken to the woods for amusement and 
occupation. Whether his mother and grandfather had 
always retained the peculiarities of the nasal New Eng- 
