phaltum. She was making one of these water bottles. She
heated small round stones in the fire and put them in the asphaltum, and
then lined the bottle, making it tight. She had no matches, of course,
nor even a tinder-box, but started fire by rubbing two sticks together.

She said her child was eaten up by wolves. None of the Indians
understood her dialect; finally one woman was found who could talk to
her a little, who had been raised on the same island. The woman was
found in 1853. She seemed happy and contented, and would go round to
different houses and dance the Indian dances. She was a great curiosity;
twenty or thirty would go along with her. Many who were sailing by would
stop just to see her.

The other hunters had noticed small human tracks, but never could see
any one. At last several men were scattered all over the island, and
Charlie Brown was the first to discover her. He thought at first it was
only a black crow sitting on a whalebone. I give his version, as his
language is far more picturesque and vivid than my paraphrase would be.
He says:

"She had built a brush fence about two feet high to break the wind. The
sun was coming in her face. She was skinning a seal. The dog when he
noticed me he began to growl. I thought if she should run. I stepped
right round her, and she bowed as if she knew me before, and when the
Indians came up they all kneeled down, and when she saw there was some
of her color, she held out some of her food and offered all some.

"I took her by the shoulder, and I said, '_Varmoose_,' and she
understood at once. I took everything she had, and she took a big seal
head in basket. We all had something to carry. Then she had a little
brand of fire, and she took that away and wobbled along with a strange
kind of a step like until we came to a watering-place about fifty feet
down the bank, and they all went down there and she went too, and she
sat down there and we watched to see what she would do, and she washed
herself over; her hair was all rotting away, a kind of bleached by the
sun, and we got to the vessel and she kneeled down, and we had a stove
right on deck and she crawled to the stove and we gave her a piece of
biscuit and she ate like a good fellow. It came on to blow; old man
Nidever had some bed-ticking. I made her a dress, and gave her a man's
shirt. She was tickled to death. If I was where she was she would hold
up her dress and point that I made it."

He was asked how