the
hitherto neglected natives of that region. Pitching tent at a spot
opposite the mouth of the Alatna, with the aid of a skilled carpenter
and a couple of axemen brought from the mining district above, and the
labour of the Indians, the little log church and the mission house were
put up and prepared for the two ladies--a trained nurse and a
teacher--who should arrive on the first steamboat. The steamboat that
brought them in carried him out on its return trip, and the next year
was spent in the States making known the needs of the work in Alaska and
securing funds for its advancement.

[Sidenote: DOCTOR GRAFTON BURKE]

On my return I brought with me a young physician, Doctor Grafton Burke,
as a medical missionary, and a half-breed Alaskan youth, Arthur, who had
been at school in California, as attendant and interpreter. A
thirty-two-foot gasoline launch designed for the Yukon and its
tributaries was also brought and was launched at the head of Yukon
navigation at Whitehouse. The voyages of the _Pelican_ on almost all the
navigable waters of interior Alaska do not belong to a narrative
concerned solely with winter travel, but her maiden voyage ended in an
unexpected and rather extraordinary journey over the ice which is
perhaps worth describing. After the voyage down the Yukon, and up and
down the Tanana, it was purposed to take the boat up the Koyukuk to the
new mission at the Allakaket, where dogs and gear had been left, and put
her in winter quarters there. The delays that associate themselves not
unnaturally with three novices and a four-cylinder gasoline engine, had
brought the date for ascending the Koyukuk a little too late for safety,
though still well within the ordinary season of open water. The
possibility of an early winter closing the navigation of that stream
before the _Pelican_ reached her destination had been entertained and
provided against, though it seemed remote. Three dogs, needed anyway to
replace superannuated members of the team, had been bargained for at
Tanana and accommodations for them arranged, and a supply of dog fish
stowed on the after deck of the launch. But when we went to pay the
arranged price and receive the dogs, the vender's wife and children set
up such a remonstrance and plaintive to-do that he went back on his
bargain and we did not get the dogs. There was no time to hunt others,
to linger was to invite the very mishap we sought to guard against, so
we pulled out dogless,