442 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Dec, 3. 1898, 
tft ^portenim jurist. 
Yukon Indians. 
{Continued Jrom parge 224.) 
Pink Tea on the Yukon. 
The first night we were in the cabin about half the 
village organized a surprise party. Everybody came 
except those who had to stay home to keep the dogs 
from stealing the meat, and they brought their appetites 
with them. In this respect it differed from other sur- 
prise parties, for the hosts were expected to furnish the 
dainties, as the Indians weren't slow to explain. They 
sat around on our provision sacks and the bed, and 
some of them squatted, Indian fashion, with crossed 
legs on the floor. . 
Mac and I elected that, as we had to furnish the grub, 
we would change it into a 5 o'clock tea, or a pink tea, 
or any old thing where solids were not called for. 
We" set a pail of water on the stove and dropped ma 
handful of tea (we had more tea than anything else m 
our outfit), and then we gobbled our own supper and 
were prepared to be sociable. 
I filled half a dozen tin cups with tea, and Mac passed 
them around to the ladies first. Somehow when we 
looked around the men all had the teacups, and they were 
the biggest and ugliest looking men at that. 
In our own selfish interests we had forgotten the sugar, 
but the first man to taste his tea remedied the defect. 
He got up from his seat on one of the three chairs 
that the cabin boasted of, and stationing a boy on guard 
over it, walked over to the table and put his hand into 
the tin pail containing sugar and helped himself. His 
hand would hold a lot of sugar, and it looked as if he 
had been skinning caribou that day. We were quick to 
appreciate the delicate hint, and passed no tea after that 
night without a modicum of sugar. 
The party was laughing and chatting among them- 
selves, and firing questions at its when they could invent 
some way of framing them to suit our comprehension. 
Bum, a fierce looking little man, as black as most 
pure-blooded negroes, asked our names. We told him 
Jack and Mac. On hearing the name Mac, all the 
Indians with a common impulse laughed as if greatly 
amused. . 
Mac looked a little mad. for he couldn t see anything 
humorous in his name, and asked Bum what there was 
to laugh about. - . 
"Mac," said the Indian, and he laughed again at the 
mention till the tears came into his eyes. "Mac, him no 
matches. Him cold; bu'r'r. Him stop, all the samey 
Yukon. Him no muck muck." From which we gath- 
ered that the Indians had been acquainted with a man 
by this name who had frozen to death. When the 
Yukon freezes they say it stops. Why the incident 
and the coincidence in names seemed funny to them is 
more than I can explain, unless they were putting it 
all on to tease Mac and scare him. 
They couldn't scare the plucky Scotchman, who was 
nothing if not cool grit, but he showed very plainly his 
annoyance, and I resolved to try to rid him of the at- 
tentions of the crowd. 
Burning Water. 
Our light was furnished by a bacon grease lamp (called 
"bitch" for short on the Yukon), and as it happened 
the Indians had never seen anything like it. We had 
taken an empty butter can, melted in that our grease, 
with a little lard and salt mixed in, improvised a wick 
from a raveled cotton rope, and a burner from the top 
of a condensed milk can. and finally supported wick 
and holder on a wooden float, so that the flame would 
always remain a suitable distance above the grease. 
When it was completed the grease at our disposal would 
not fill the can, and the rim cut off a portion of the 
light. To remedy the trouble we poured water into the 
can till we had raised the grease and flame to the de- 
sired level. . , 
The Indians it seems are unacquainted with the fact 
that grease has a lower specific gravity than water, and 
will float on top without commingling. 
"Johnson." I said, addressing the most troublesome 
Indian of the lot, "you asked us a while ago what we 
burned in that lamp." 
Johnson went over and examined the lamp, and the 
Indians forgot all about their joke and became interested. 
"It's water," I said, telling only about two-thirds 
a lie. "If you don't believe me, get some water and see 
it burn." 
The Indian was incredulous, but he took a cup and 
went to the pail from which they all had been drinking 
since the tea gave out, and dipped up some water and 
poured it in the lamp. None happened to fall upon the 
wick, and it continued to burn as brightly as ever. 
The Indians were convinced, and I had furnished them 
a subject which gave them plenty to talk about the rest 
of the evening. They have been frying to burn water 
there ever since, but they haven't succeeded. 
Good Indians. 
Along the Yukon they bury dead Indians in boxes that 
look like chicken coops or dog kennels with pickets 
around them, and instead of spending their money on 
a lot of carriages and flowers- they buy red, white and 
blue paint and try to make the place look cheerful. To 
scare off bad spirits they hang up various articles on 
poles. Sometimes it is a tin can, but more commonly 
some kind of a gaudy streamer of silk or cotton. 
It is getting to be the fashion among them, to cremate 
their dead and carry them around with them wherever 
they go in .little decorated trunks. These trunks come 
in handy for seats in their houses, and they don't seem to 
think it is bad medicine for a white man to -sit on One 
of them. For themselves they prefer to squat on the 
floor when at home. • 
Mr. Curtis, at Marsh Lake, told me the following in- 
cident. The Tagish Indians had a settlement there till 
they got into trouble with the whites, and set up a war- 
whoop and left in a body. The most intelligent Indian 
15 named John. Ha had a store, and was a trader in- 
^ very" primitive Scmp one had made him a ai^a. 
which is still there, and reads: "John s House Mer- 
chant." This is the way Curtis tells it: An Indian 
by the name of Slim Jim— he's the fellow that goes up 
to all strangers and says, 'Me good Christian. Got 
chew tobacco?'— was off hunting near the Salmon cache 
on the McClintock, and his wife, 'Couchman' the In- 
dians call them, died. Jim brought her down to Johns 
store, and the Indians had a. big feast, stove going red 
hot and the woman propped up as if she was looking on. 
"Next day John came to me and said, 'Come to my 
store; I want to show you something.' Jim was there 
sitting in one corner, with his face blackened up like the 
ace of spades — suppose that is some Indian custom. 
"John pointed to him and said, 'Him poor Indian. 
Lost his wife.' Jim didn't look particularly sad— was 
grimacing over it. John said, Want to see? Want 
to see?' He began pulling off coats and a whole lot of 
truck piled upon the bed, and there was the corpse. 
Wanted me to give some money to Jim for the show. 
John will keep her there all winter and burn the body 
next spring. He has a whole lot of burial trunks on 
storage there. Sort of safe deposit for the other Indians, 
you know." 
Not Related. 
The Indian's idea of relationship is queer. They in- 
herit propertv through their mothers, and their fathers 
are not considered relations by blood. When the father 
dies his children inherit none of his property, which all 
goes to the relatives on his mother's side. A man's father 
or children may be starving and get none of his property 
at his death. Tn Dawson's report a case is mentioned 
where a rich Indian would not go out or contribute to 
send others out to search for his aged and blind father, 
who was lost and starving in the mountains. Not 
counting his father a relative, he said: "Let his people 
go and search for him." Yet this man was an over- 
average good Indian. 
The Indians steal from each other, it is said, though 
as far as our experience goes they do not steal from 
white men. They entered and left our cabin constantly, 
and yet we never missed anything of value. The white 
men are the thieves of the Yukon. J. B. Burnham. 
It is further related that his perturbed spirit still fre- 
quents the melancholy spot, and "the hunter on the hill- 
side" sometimes catches the sound of the horn as it 
echoes up from the infernal regions. 
It is a gruesome story. The exigencies of the poem may 
have required some amplification of the circumstances; 
but that Marmie committed suicide in somewhat the man- 
ner described seems to be a well settled belief in that 
region. Mr. Cowan writes me: "As far as I know 
there is no historical, basis for the suicide of Marmie, 
only tradition. I got it from an intelligent man who 
belongs to one of the oldest families in the neighbor- 
hood, and was the treasurer of all their traditionary 
lore. 
"I cannot say Tiow the truth may be, 
I tell the tale as told to me." 
A boon companion of Marmie's was a brother French- 
man named De Harperd, who, after a meteoric career, in 
which he married the most beautiful woman in south- 
western Pennsylvania, suddenly disappeared from view. 
His wife got a divorce, married her lawyer, who com- 
mitted suicide by cutting his throat when he thought his 
wife was dving, and she was carried to her grave on the 
following day. They left a daughter, who became the 
wife of a well-known citizen of an adjoining county. 
T. J. Chapman. 
Ingram, Pa. 
Monsieur Marmie. 
For the last hundred years western Pennsylvania has 
taken a leading part in the iron industry. I find from my 
friend James M. Swank's valuable work on "Iron in All 
Ages," that the first iron furnace west of the Alleghany 
Mountains was the Alliance Furnace, on Jacob's Creek, 
in Fayette county, which was first put into operation 
on Nov. i, 1700. This was almost in the shadow of the 
Chestnut Ridge. A chief partner of this enterprise was 
Peter Marmie. The 61b. shot for General Wayne's ex- 
pedition against the Western Indians was made at this 
furnace in 1792. This enterprise was carried on at 
intervals until the year 1802. when it finally went out of 
blast. Mr. Swank, writing in 1891, says that the stack 
of this primitive furnace was then still standing, but in 
ruins. 
Peter Marmie, mentioned above, if he had been only a 
manufacturer of iron, would be no more entitled to no- 
tice in these columns than are his partners in the Alliance 
Furnace business. But he is otherwise worthy of dis- 
tinction. He was a Frenchman— a dashing, high-living, 
enthusiastic fellow, and notably addicted to field sports. 
The region in which he lived afforded abundant scope 
for these pursuits. It was then an almost unbroken 
wilderness, and alive'with wild turkeys, squirrels, foxes, 
bears, and deer. We imagine Monsieur Marmie's .aste 
for sylvan diversions might easily grow by what it fed 
upon. There was no let or hindrance to its free exercise; 
no game laws, no trespass notices, no private right even 
in a large part of that vast wilderness. A man with a 
livelier imagination than mine could easily depict an old- 
time hunting party under the auspices of the mercurial 
and wealthv Frenchman; could in fancy pursue the wily 
fox or the bounding elk through his devious way, make 
us hear the baying of the hounds down in the woodland 
hollows or along the rough hillsides, and the clear ring 
of the view-halloo as the unfortunate victim of the chase 
came into sight. 
"Yell'd on the view the opening pack; 
Rock, glen and cavern paid them back; 
To many a mingled sound at once 
The awakened mountains gave response. 
A hundred dogs bay'd deep and strong. 
Clattered a hundred steeds along; 
Their peal the merry horns rang out, 
A hundred voices joined the shout: 
With hark and whoop and wild halloo. 
No rest Benvoirlich's echoes knew." 
Only a sportsman with the genius of Sir Walter could 
so glowingly portray the glories of the chase in the merry 
days of old. But, however merry the dogs of Mon- 
sieur Marmie may have been at their best, they ended 
in a frightful tragedy. For any knowledge of the fate of 
this old sportsman and iron master 1 am indebted to 
Frank Cowan's poem, in his volume entitled "South- 
western Pennsylvania in Song and Story. 1 ' It seems that 
the Alliance Furnace was not a successful enterprise'. 
After a few years the firm was dissolved, and the works 
were left on the hands of Marmie alone. His affairs 
went on from bad to worse, till finally, with that reck- 
lessness and penchant for the dramatic which character- 
ize his people, he resolved upon an exit from this mun- 
dane sphere in a style at once tragic and memorable. 
One day, when the furnace was glowing like a vol- 
cano and the molten metal bubbled and hissed in the 
vast cauldron, Marmie was seen to ascend to its brim 
accompanied by his faithful dogs. For a moment he 
stood, then casting the dogs two by two_ into the 
seething mass, he paused for an instant to wind a blast 
upon his huntsman's horn, and then leaped into the fur- 
nace to die with the constant companions of his wood- 
land sports. 
"Tirr-ill irr-ill, larry o-hee!— 
Why that glowing, curling wreath 
Of the smoke above, the crater? 
It is Marmie at the- death." , 
S^c* Vas tke fatf? oi Mannte, acwortitng to the- po&c, 
The Copper River Country, 
Tvonic. Alaska. Oct. 8.— Editor Forest and Stream: 
You will be pleased to learn that I have been to the 
Tanana Valley this summer, having traversed' the un- 
explored region between, the Suchitna and Copper Rivers. 
I returned to the Knik Station on Sept. 24, and on 
the 28th I found a practicable route across from Portage 
Bay to the Knik Arm. Late in July I packed up the 
Matanuska alone, seventy-five miles, to Lt. Castner's 
party. In August Capt. Glenn came out with his party 
and we proceeded north with fifteen pack animals (horses 
and mules) ; at Bubb River (a branch of the Teslina) we 
fell in with Mr. Castner's guide, an old-timer in the 
country, who led us to the Tanana country. Pack ani- 
mals can go anywhere through this country, and they 
do not apparently suffer from the mosquito pest. 
The route we pursued was not the best one, and can 
be much improved. After we passed the head of the 
Matanuska (120 miles), in looking south one could see 
a vast ice-bound region of snowy peaks and glaciers 
extending to the coast on Prince William's Sound. As 
we advanced north through the forest lake region beyond 
Bubb River, the Wrangel Range loomed up at in- 
tervals through the mists. Mount McKinley can be 
seen from the Knik Arm only, but once, when about 200 
miles north (magnetic), I saw a tremendous high peak 
true north from my position. Soon we saw a barrier 
of snow-clad mountains ahead, extending east and west 
bevond a range of isolated foothills. The Gerstle River, 
down which we proceeded, flows south out of these foot- 
hills into a chain of lakes, thence north about 100 
miles through this barrier to the Tanana. 
As we approached the Tanana, the country appeared 
rounded and very dry. On the side hills I found cotton- 
wood, willows and alder 3hi- high, and flattened out like 
vines. From the head of the Matanuska to the Tanana 
we found caribou and moose, also black bears. On the 
lakes we found few ducks (mallard and teal), once 
we saw geese and a few swans. We wasted a good deal 
of ammunition on loons. Some prairies on the Gerstle 
reminded me of Montana. Not a single rabbit was seen. 
This must be one of the years during which they dis- 
appear. On the glaciers enormous brown bears are 
found, and the largest wolf tracks I ever saw. We 
passed several river beds scooped out by glacial action, 
and some of these places I wanted to prospect, but 
could not stop. Fair indications of gold are found on 
Gerstle River, and on streams between Portage Bay 
and the Knik Arm. Except in mosquito time Ave did 
not use tents much from May to October, but slept in 
the open or under spruce trees. 
Luther S. Kelly. 
John Gomez and a Coincidence 
Coming down in the elevated train the other day we 
read in the morning Times a dispatch from Knoxville, 
Tenn., reporting the death in that city of Mrs. Susan 
Sanders, aged 107 years. Mrs. Sanders was a relation 
of John Sevier, first Governor of Tennessee, and owned 
many souvenirs of the battle of King's Mountain. This 
record of the advanced age of 107 years called to mind 
old John Gomez, of Panther Key, down on the West 
Coast of Florida; and when we reached the office we 
found in the morning's mail this note from Tarpon, 
dated Tarpon Springs, Fla., Nov. 21: 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
Your inquiry about old man Gomez should have been 
announced before, but I have been waiting to send you 
something definite. I have heard a rumor that he was 
dead, but I do not believe it. The yacht Maud, of this 
place, is now on a cruise to Miami. She will call at 
Panther Key one way, and I shall know all about old 
John when the Maud returns, which will be soon. I 
will write as soon as I learn the facts. I mean to take 
one cruise myself this winter, and I want to see old John 
once more. We are having glorious weather, and T 
never saw so many quail. Tarpon 
Nessmuk, 
Medina, N. Y. — Editor Forest and Stream: Who is 
Nessmuk, 'the author of "Woodcraft"? Is he alive; if 
so, where does he reside, and how old is he? Kindly 
give such biography of him as you can without too much 
trouble as I am certain it will interest many of your 
readers'. D - D - W. 
[Nessmuk was the pen name of Geo. W. Sears, who 
was for years one of the best known and best liked con- 
tributors to Forest and Stream. He died May 1, 1890,! 
at the age of sixty-nine. An autobiographical sketch is. 
contained in his book'of poems, "Forest Rimes/' which 
has also an artoiype portrait] _1 
