an American," remarked Ted, while Kalitan
said, briefly: "I like Thlinkit."

CHAPTER XII

THE SPLENDOUR OF SAGHALIE TYEE

The _tundra_ was greenish-brown in colour, and looked like a great meadow
stretching from the beach, like a new moon, gently upward to the cones of
volcanic mountains far away. The ground, frozen solid all the year,
thaws out for a foot or two on the surface during the warm months, and
here and there were scattered wild flowers; spring beauties, purple
primroses, yellow anemone, and saxifrages bloomed in beauty, and wild
honey-bees, gay bumblebees, and fat mosquitoes buzzed and hummed
everywhere.

Ted and Kalitan were going to see the reindeer farm at Port Clarence,
and, as this was to be their last jaunt in Alaska, they were determined
to make the best of it. Next day they were to take ship from Cape Prince
of Wales and go straight to Sitka. Here Ted was to start for home, and
Mr. Strong was to leave Kalitan at the Mission School for a year's
schooling, which, to Kalitan's great delight, was to be a present to him
from his American friends.

"Tell us about the reindeer farms, daddy. Have they always been here?"
demanded Ted, as they tramped over the _tundra_, covered with moss,
grass, and flowers.

"No," said his father. "They are quite recent arrivals in Alaska. The
Esquimos used to live entirely upon the game they killed before the
whites came. There were many walruses, which they used for many things;
whales, too, they could easily capture before the whalers drove them
north, and then they hunted the wild reindeer, until now there are
scarcely any left. There was little left for them to eat but small fish,
for you see the whites had taken away or destroyed their food supplies.

"One day, in 1891, an American vessel discovered an entire village of
Esquimos starving, being reduced to eating their dogs, and it was thought
quite time that the government did something for these people whose land
they had bought. Finding that people of the same race in Siberia were
prosperous and healthy, they sent to investigate conditions, and found
that the Siberian Esquimos lived entirely by means of the reindeer. The
government decided to start a reindeer farm and see if it would not
benefit the natives."

"How does it work?" asked Ted.

"Very well indeed," said his father. "At first about two hundred animals
were brought over, and they increased about fifty per cent, the first
year. Everywher