munity houses of the Stickeens. To go from one Indian town to the other you had to pass through the fort.

It was a lovely, sunny day in midsummer. Everything was peaceful about the old fort. School was in session in the old hospital, our little children were playing on the grass, and our old cow, "Spot," was feeding in the gateway.

This cow was a little black and white Holstein which the ladies of Pennsylvania had purchased for Mrs. Young's trainingschool, and to supply our babies and the native babies with fresh milk. She was the first cow which had been brought to Fort Wrangell, and was a great curiosity and wonder to the Indians. The Thlingets had no name for cattle, because these animals were not known in Alaska; so they adopted the Chinook name-moosmoos-and, owing to the Thlingets' inability to pronounce any consonant that brings the lips together, they called it "wusoos.'

Our little "wusoos was gentle and tame as a kitten. Our children used to hang onto her tail, and feed her bunches of grass and

leaves of cabbage. Once I

group that made me laugh.

came upon a

"Spot" was

lying down and placidly chewing her cud; Abby, aged five, was seated between the cow's horns; while Alaska (Lassie), who was three, with her little dog, Jettie, in her arms, was sprawling on Spot's back.

This peaceful summer's morning the cow was cropping the grass by the gate. Suddenly the silence was shattered by a strong Indian voice, pitched high through fear, calling to me:" Uh-eedydashee; uh-eedydashee, uh-Ankow; uh-cedydashee!" (Help me; help me, my chief; help me!)

I ran quickly out of the house and through the gateway in the direction of the cries, which were growing more agonizing. I thought somebody was being murdered. I rushed past" Spot," who was calmly munching grass, undisturbed by the hullabaloo. At first I could see nobody; then I discovered the huge bulk of old Snook, the hootz-hunter, crouching behind a stump. His face was as pale as its coating of smoke and grease would permit, and he was shaking like a leaf.

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"Why, Snook!" I cried in Thlinget, "what's the matter? Is anything wrong in the Indian village?"

He pointed a trembling finger towards the

cow and quavered, "Drive that thing away!"

The thought of that famous old bearhunter, scared to death at my gentle old cow, was too much for me, and I burst into a roar of laughter. When I had recovered my powers of speech and locomotion I walked to "Spot" and put my arm over her neck.

"This is a shawat wusoos" (a woman cow), I explained. "She will not hurt anybody. See how kind and gentle she is.”

Snook was unconvinced. His eyes were fixed in fascinated terror upon "Spot," and he dodged at every motion of her head.

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Eehya-a-ah!" he answered in contempt, "she knows white man; she doesn't know Indian. See the sharp horns on her head!” and he refused to come away from the shelter of the stump until I had driven

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Spot" away some distance; and even then he sidled past, eyeing her apprehensively and then hurrying through the gateway and across the parade ground with the air of one who has escaped deadly peril.

The memory of Snook and the cow has often braced me up when I was tempted to retreat from the path of duty, because I did

not know what was in the gateway, or because of unfamiliar obstacles. It is the unknown that terrifies us. If we march right up to the bugaboos that stand across our way, we will find the terrible horned monster change into something no more harmful than a gentle old cow.

A

VII

NINA AND THE BEARS

LL these stories are true, in their essential points. In some of them,

however, I have to change or suppress the names of persons and towns, because the characters introduced are still living, and might not like publicity. That is the case in this story.

Ever since the great gold stampede of 1897 into the Klondike, it has been my duty, as it certainly has been my pleasure, to follow the new gold stampedes into different parts of Alaska, and be at the beginning of most of the new gold camps and towns of the great Territory of the Northwest. Of course I began preaching as soon as I arrived at one of these camps, holding my first services on log piles, under the trees, in tents or saloons or lodging houses-wherever I could gather together a congregation.

Always, the next thing was to start a Sun