d Russians. It
was perfectly natural that the Alaskan Indians should resent the Aleuts
intruding on the hunting-grounds of the main coast, one thousand miles
from the Aleutian Islands. Besides, the mainland Indians had now
learned unscrupulous brutality from foreign traders. Baranof knew his
danger and never relaxed vigilance. Of the sixteen men, five always
stood sentry at night.

The night of June 20 was pitch dark. Terrific seas were running, and a
tempest raged through the woods of the mainland. For safety,
Ismyloff's ship had scudded to the offing. Baranof had undressed,
thrown himself down in his cabin, and was in the deep sleep of outdoor
exhaustion, when above the howling of the gale, not five steps away, so
close it was impossible to distinguish friend from foe in the darkness,
arose the shrill war-cry of hostiles. Leaping to his feet, Baranof
rushed out undressed. His shirt was torn to shreds by a shower of
flint and copper-head arrows. In the dark, the Russians could only
fire blindly. The panic-stricken Aleuts dashed for their canoes to
escape to Ismyloff's ship. Ismyloff sent armed Russians through the
surf wash and storm to Baranof's aid. Baranof kept his small cannon
pounding hot shot where the shouts sounded till daylight. Of the
sixteen men, two {324} Russians and nine Aleuts were dead. Of the men
who came to his aid, fifteen were wounded. The corpses of twelve
hostiles lay on the beach; and as gray dawn came over the tempestuous
sea, six large war canoes vanished into the morning mist, a long trail
of blood over the waves showing that the hostiles were carrying off
their wounded. Well might Baranof write, "I will vanquish a cruel
fate; or fall under its repeated blows." The most of men would have
thought they had sufficient excuse to justify backing out of their
difficulties. Baranof locked grapples with the worst that destiny
could do; and never once let go. Sometimes the absolute futility of so
much striving, so much hardship, so much peril, all for the sake of the
crust of bread that represents mere existence, sent him down to black
depths of rayless despondency, when he asked himself, was life worth
while? But he never let go his grip, his sense of resistance, his
impulse to fight the worst, the unshunnable obligation of being alive
and going on with the game, succeed or fail. Such fits of despair
might end in wild carousals, when he drank every Russian under the
table, outsh