or notable red-man. Over one
door was this inscription: "In memory of ----, who died by his own
hand." The lodge door was fastened with a rusty padlock, and the place
looked ghoulish.

I think we were all glad to get out of Tongass, though we received our
best welcome there. At any rate, we sat on the beach and got our feet
wet and our pockets full of sand waiting for the deliberate but
dead-sure boatmen to row us to the ship. When we steamed away we left
the little bride in her desert island to the serene and sacred joy of
her honeymoon, hoping that long before it had begun to wane she might
return to the world; for in three brief weeks we were beginning to lust
after it. That evening we anchored in a well-wooded cove and took on
several lighter-loads of salmon casks. Captain Carroll and the best
shots in the ship passed the time in shooting at a barrel floating three
hundred yards distant. So ran our little world away, as we were homeward
bound and rapidly nearing the end of the voyage.

CHAPTER XV.

Out of the Arctic.

When Captain Cook--who, with Captain Kidd, nearly monopolizes the young
ladies' ideal romance of the seas--was in these waters, he asked the
natives what land it was that lay about them, and they replied:
"Alaska"--great land. It _is_ a great land, lying loosely along the
northwest coast,--great in area, great in the magnitude and beauty of
its forests and in the fruitfulness of its many waters; great in the
splendor of its ice fields; the majesty of its rivers, the magnificence
of its snow-clad peaks; great also in its possibilities, and greatest of
all in its measureless wealth of gold.

In the good old days of the Muscovite reign--1811,--Governor Baranoff
sent Alexander Kuskoff to establish a settlement in California where
grain and vegetables might be raised for the Sitka market. The ruins of
Fort Ross are all that remain to tell the tale of that enterprise. The
Sitkan of to-day manages to till a kitchen-garden that suffices; but his
wants are few, and then he can always fall back on canned provision if
his fresh food fails.

The stagnation of life in Alaska is all but inconceivable. The summer
tourist can hardly realize it, because he brings to the settlement the
only variety it knows; and this comes so seldom--once or twice a
month--that the population arises as a man and rejoices so long as the
steamer is in port. Please to picture this people after the excitement
is over, quietl