vage" means
simply a forest dweller, and the author is glad himself to be a savage a
great part of every year, but yet, as savages, entitled to name their
own rivers, their own lakes, their own mountains. After all, these
terms--"savage," "heathen," "pagan"--mean, alike, simply "country
people," and point to some old-time superciliousness of the city-bred,
now confined, one hopes, to such localities as Whitechapel and the
Bowery.

There is, to the author's mind, a certain ruthless arrogance that grows
more offensive to him as the years pass by, in the temper that comes to
a "new" land and contemptuously ignores the native names of conspicuous
natural objects, almost always appropriate and significant, and overlays
them with names that are, commonly, neither the one nor the other. The
learned societies of the world, the geographical societies, the
ethnological societies, have set their faces against this practice these
many years past, and to them the writer confidently appeals.

* * * * *

This preface must bear a grateful acknowledgment to the most
distinguished of Alaskans--the man who knows more of Alaska than any
other human being--Peter Trimble Rowe, seventeen years bishop of that
immense territory, for the "cordial assent" which he gave to the
proposed expedition and the leave of absence which rendered it
possible--one more in a long list of kindnesses which have rendered
happy an association of nearly ten years. Nor can better place be found
for a tribute of gratitude to those who were of the little party: to Mr.
Harry P. Karstens, strong, competent, and resourceful, the real leader
of the expedition in the face of difficulty and danger; to Mr. Robert G.
Tatum, who took his share, and more than his share, of all toil and
hardship and was a most valuable colleague; to Walter Harper,
Indian-bred until his sixteenth year, and up to that time trained in not
much else than Henry of Navarre's training, "to shoot straight, to speak
the truth; to do with little food and less sleep" (though equal to an
abundance of both on occasion), who joyed in the heights as a
mountain-sheep or a chamois, and whose sturdy limbs and broad shoulders
were never weary or unwilling--to all of these there is heartfelt
affection and deep obligation. Nor must Johnny be forgotten, the Indian
boy who faithfully kept the base camp during a long vigil, and killed
game to feed the dogs, and denied himself, unasked,