sealing,
when the two Governments undertook its regulation, to take up the easier
trade of fleecing the Indians. The natives were all practised trappers and
hunters, and as the limitations upon sealing did not apply to them, they
had pelts to sell that were well worth the buying. Ignorant of the values
of goods, eager for guns and glittering knives, and always easily
stupefied with whisky, the Indians were easy prey to the sea traders. For
a gun of doubtful utility, or a jug of fiery whisky, the Indian would not
infrequently barter away the proceeds of a whole year of hunting and
fishing, and be left to face the winter with his family penniless. It has
been the duty of the officers of the revenue cutters serving on the North
Pacific station to suppress this illicit trade, and to protect the
Indians, as far as possible, from fraud and extortion. The task has been
no easy one, but it has been discharged so far as human capacity would
permit, so that the Alaska Indians have come to look upon the men wearing
the revenue uniform as friends and counselors, while to a great extent
the semi-piratical sailors who infested the coast have been driven into
other lines of dishonest endeavor. Perhaps not since the days of Lafitte
and the pirates of Barataria has any part of the coast of the United
States been cursed with so criminal and abandoned a lot of sea marauders
as have for a decade frequented the waters off Alaska, the Pribylof
Islands, and the sealing regions. The outlawry of a great part of the seal
trade, and the consequent heavy profits of those who are able to make one
or two successful cruises uncaught by officers of the law, have attracted
thither the reckless and desperate characters of every sea, and with these
the revenue cutters have to cope. Yet so diversified are the duties of
this service that the revenue officers may turn from chasing an illicit
sealer to go to the rescue of whalers nipped in the ice, or may make a
cruise along the coast to deliver supplies from the Department of
Education to mission schools along Bering Sea and the Arctic Ocean, or to
carry succor to a party of miners known to be in distress. The rapid
development of Alaska since the discoveries of gold has greatly added to
the duties of this fleet.

[Illustration: REVENUE CUTTER]

The revenue service stands midway between the merchant service and the
navy. It may almost be said that the officers engaged in it suffer the
disadvantages of bot