f paint given to her
piebald, rickety sides that transformed her into what the fur company
proudly regarded as a frigate. Before the year was out, Baranof had
his men at work on two more vessels. There was to be no more crippling
of trade for lack of ships.

But a more serious matter than shipbuilding demanded Baranof's
attention. Rival fur companies were on the ground. Did one party of
traders establish a fort on Cook's Inlet? Forthwith came another to a
point higher up the inlet, where Indians could be intercepted. There
followed warlike raids, the pillaging of each other's forts, the
capture of each other's Indian hunters, the utter demoralization of the
Indians by each fort forbidding the savages to trade at the other, the
flogging and bludgeoning and butchering of those who disobeyed the
order--and finally, the forcible abduction of whole villages of women
and children to compel the alliance of the hunters. All Baranof's work
to {327} pacify the hostiles of the mainland was being undone; and what
complicated matters hopelessly for him was the fact that the
shareholders of his own company were also shareholders in the rival
ventures. Baranof wrote to Siberia for instructions, urging the
amalgamation of all the companies in one; but instructions were so long
in coming that the fur trade was being utterly bedevilled and the
passions of the savages inflamed to a point of danger for every white
man on the North Pacific. Affairs were at this pass when Konovalof,
the dashing leader of the plunderers, planned to capture Baranof
himself, and seize the shipyard at Sunday Harbor, on Prince William
Sound. Baranof had one hundred and fifty fighting Russians in his
brigades. Should he wait for the delayed instructions from Siberia?
While he hesitated, some of the shipbuilders were ambushed in the
woods, robbed, beaten, and left half dead. Baranof could not afford to
wait. He had no more legal justification for his act than the
plunderers had for theirs; but it was a case where a man must step
outside law, or be exterminated. Rallying his men round him and taking
no one into his confidence, the doughty little Russian sent a formal
messenger to Konovalof, the bandit, at his redoubt on Cook's Inlet,
pompously summoning him in the name of the governor of Siberia to
appear and answer for his misdeeds. To the brigand, the summons was a
bolt out of the blue. How was he to know not a word had come from the
governor of S