my wife—were cooking breakfast on a 
mountain top year before last. A doe 
and two fawns, uneducated in the dan- 
gers of association with humans, came 
up a gully and appeared over a ridge 
not a hundred yards from us. 
HEY stood for some minutes, ap- 
parently wondering what sort of 
creatures we were, before they took 
alarm and darted off down hill. As 
the wind was blowing toward the place 
where they appeared, and as our cook- 
ing was in progress, they must have 
known something unusual had invaded 
their mountain fastness and come up 
out of sheer curiosity. 
Later in the season the 
deer come down into the 
woods and here the native 
guides lead the hunter along 
the game trails. Occasion- 
ally the guide stops and 
“calls” the deer by blowing on 
a leaf held between his two 
thumbs. The noise appar- 
ently raises the curiosity of 
the deer. One will be heard 
in the brush circling around 
the hunters. If they re- 
main quiet, he will finally 
approach and offer an op- 
portunity for a shot. 
Goat are the game of the 
mountaineer. Only the more 
intrepid of the soldier-hunters 
attempt to bring home the 
wild “ba-ba’’; but there are 
plenty of such men among 
the garrison, who are willing 
to spend a week among the 
glaciers and carry a heavy 
carcass and head _ several 
miles over ridges and through 
brush to their canoes. Prop- 
erly treated, goat meat is not 
to be scorned, while the great 
head makes an_ enviable 
trophy and the thick fleece 
makes a rug inferior to none. 
Among the trophies of the 
chase in this country should 
be mentioned the handsome mounted 
heads of the American eagle. The 
troops at Chilkoot Barracks hunt 
eagles, largely with rifles, for two 
reasons: first, to obtain a head for 
mounting, since such a trophy shows 
its owner had sufficient skill with a 
rifle to hit the great bird as he soars 
high overhead, and, second, for the 
bounty of one dollar paid by the terri- 
torial government for the claws of the 
birds, which are very destructive of 
salmon and other valuable game and 
fur-bearing animals. 
T HE bounty on eagles not only pays 
the modest expenses of many a sol- 
dier’s furlough in “the sticks,” but 
often yields a considerable profit. 
Page 721 
Another source of revenue to the sol- 
dier is the hair-seal, found frequently 
in the waters of southeastern Alaska. 
Although their pelts are not as valuable 
as those of their cousins, the fur seal, 
they are in demand among the natives 
for making moccassins, hunting shirts 
and curios, and are also purchased by 
the fur buyers who visit the locality 
each year. 
Winter hunting includes the beauti- 
ful ptarmigan, pure white except for a 
few black markings visible only when 
the bird is in flight. Preferred by many 
to any other wild game, the ptarmigan 
is one of the most delicious of fowls. 
Snow-shoe rabbits abound; and after 

Officer with ptarmigan 
the snow is on the ground there is an 
opportunity to trap many of the fur- 
bearers, especially the fox, wolf, mar- 
ten and wolverine. 
Bear are, however, the standby of the 
big game hunters of the garrison be- 
cause plentiful in territory easily ac- 
cessible from the post. The black bear, 
a comparatively harmless species, is 
plentiful, found even on the reservation 
itself. Last summer a party of Presby- 
terian missionaries led by that intrepid 
exvlorer-clergyman, Dr. S. Hall Young, 
spent a few hours at the barracks. 
About ten o’clock in the evening one of 
the reverend tourists took a walk a few 
hundred yards down the beach from the 
post dock where their steamer was 
berthed. When he returned, making 
every effort to be casual, he asked, 
“What kind of animals are in the 
woods around here? I heard a grunt- 
ing in the brush and something ran 
away through the thickets.” 
H® was very much perturbed when 
told it was very probably a bear, 
a black cub that had been hanging 
around the garbage dump all summer 
eating refuse. This cub, incidentally, 
had eluded several parties of soldiers 
who had endeavored to catch him bare- 
handed and chain him up for a pet. 
As he was very tame, no one had the 
heart to shoot the little fellow. 
The Alaskan brown bear, 
however, is a different propo- 
sition. He will almost al- 
ways fight when attacked and 
sometimes charges even when 
the human he encounters has 
the most pacific intentions. 
A few miles up the Chilkat 
river, a country perfectly ac- 
cessible from the Post by 
automobile or hiking on a 
good road, the brown bear 
are plentiful. 
When the salmon run, the 
big fellows come down to the 
small streams and catch 
them. From the banks they 
reach in their claw-armed 
paws and pull the big fish 
from the shallow water. At 
this time they take but one 
bite from the back of each, 
as is evidenced by the hun- 
dreds of salmon carcasses 
lining the shores of each 
stream. Only occasionally 
do they consume more of the 
fish. The swarms of gulls 
and ducks which feast on the 
salmon eggs as soon as de- 
posited, often come in for 
their share of pecking the 
eyes out of the carcasses and 
sometimes eating some of the 
flesh. It is surprising how 
many salmon one bear will put out of 
the water in the course of a few hours 
in the early morning. His fishing over, 
bruin retires through one of the many 
well-beaten trails he has made in the 
dense thickets which grow around the 
streams. 
A FEW yards from his fishing place 
he has a favorite cottonwood tree, 
at the foot of which he has scooped 
himself a shallow bed in the sandy soil. 
Here he takes a siesta until evening. 
When the snow is deep enough, bruin 
hibernates and in the spring awakes to 
feast on the succulent but odoriferous 
“skunk cabbage” which grows in the 
(Continued on page 757) 
