tell you," said Jesse. "That big fellow down there--I call him
Simon--he's got one of those bluestone pipe bowls that you told about.
He says it's old, and he wants ten dollars for it. They understand
what a dollar is; they don't trade in skins like these other tribes."

"Well, you see," said Uncle Dick, "these men all have met the
whale-boats which come around through Bering Sea. They know more about
the white men's ways than the inland tribes. As you see, they are a
much superior class of people."

"That's so," said Rob, who was just back from photographing among the
Loucheux villages located on top of the hill, timidly remote from the
Eskimos. "Those people up on the hill are about starving, and so
ragged and dirty I don't see how they live at all."

"They've got religion, just the same," said John. "I've been down
making a picture of the mission church. I bought two hymn-books for
one 'skin' each of the native preacher. Here they are, all in the
native language, don't you see? And I bought a Book of Common Prayer,
printed in Loucheux, too."

"Well, I've got three bone fish-hooks and a drill," said Jesse,
triumphantly. "I don't know whether I'll have any money left before
long. You see, it's hard to wait till the boat starts back, because
some one else might get these things before we do."

"Is any one going out?" asked Rob.

"Yes, the inspector of the Mounted Police and one man are going
out--the first time in two years," replied Jesse, proud of his
information. "Two new men that came with us are going up to Herschel
Island. There is a four-man post up here, with the barracks beyond the
trader's house. They have to travel a hundred miles or so in the
winter-time, and it's more than a hundred miles by boat from here to
Herschel Island. The Inspector of Police who is going down there told
me he was going to hire one of these Huskies to take him down in his
whale-boat."

"They tell me the old trader has not been outside for more than forty
years, or at least not more than once," added Rob to the general fund
of information. "He came from the Scotch Hebrides here when he was
young, and now he's old. He has a native Indian wife and no one knows
how many children running around up there."

"I suppose he's going to take care of the district inspector who came
down from Fort Simpson with us on the boat," ventured John, who had
made good friends with the latter gentleman in the course of the long
voyage.

"Well,"