rns, an' children playing, an' music-boxes an'
pianos goin' an' all the rest of it?"

"It is noisy," Eric admitted, "but you soon get used to that."

"Hearin' is just one o' the five senses, ain't it?"

"Yes."

"An' smellin' is another?"

"Of course."

"Well, an Eskimo's nose gets to be like a city man's ear, one smells all
the time an' doesn't notice it, the other hears all the while an'
doesn't care. You can't judge a people by its smell. An' when it comes
to fair dealin', you won't find anywhere a squarer people to deal with
than the Eskimo. You're Commissioner, ain't you?"

"Yes," the boy answered.

"An' you haven't found much crime, have you, eh?"

"Mighty little," he admitted.

"It's the same every year. They're a fine race, the Eskimo. I'll tell
you just one little thing about 'em, that I don't think could be said of
any other native race in the whole world."

"What's that?" the boy asked.

"You know," the whaler said, "how natives go to pieces when civilization
hits 'em."

"Generally."

"What do you suppose is the reason?"

"Whisky and white men's ways," answered Eric promptly.

"Right, first shot," said the other. "Soon after Alaska was opened up,
the Eskimo learned the excitin' effects of whisky. Fearin' trouble, a
strict watch was kept on the sale of liquor to the natives, an' as it
was easy enough to find out where the whisky had come from an' no vessel
could escape from the Arctic without being known, tradin' spirits to the
Eskimo soon had to be given up.

[Illustration: SIGNALS THAT GUARDS OUR COAST.

Flags flying at Quogue Station, warning vessels far out to sea.]

"But, in order to increase business, the traders taught one old Eskimo
chief, named Ah-tung-owra, how to make whisky out of flour and
molasses."

"They made it themselves?"

"Yes."

"But where could they get stills? I should think it was as easy to catch
a trader selling stills as selling whisky."

"They're home-made stills," the whaler explained. "There ain't much to
the apparatus. It is just a five-gallon coal-oil tin, an old gun-barrel
an' a wooden tub. The liquor they make tastes like chain lightnin', and
makes up in strength what it hasn't got in flavor.

"But what I think wonderful is this. When the Coast Guard--it was the
Revenue Cutter Service then--began its patrol of the Arctic, one of the
first things it did was to show the Eskimo the result of their drunken
bouts. Takin' whisky to native tribes a