people, far up towards the head of the river as they were, had
yet come at some period from the mouth. We were out of Walter's language
range now, and were glad that the bilingual John of the march country
was with us to serve as interpreter.

Standing proudly up against the wall in one corner of the cabin was a
rather pathetic object to my eyes--an elaborate gilt-handled silk
umbrella. There needed no one to tell its story; it spoke of a visit to
the Yukon with furs to sell and the usual foolish purchase of gay and
glittering trash--novel and quite useless. What easy prey these poor
people are to the wiles of the trader! Said one of them to me recently,
when I asked the purpose of an "annex" to his store with a huge
billiard-table in it--at an exclusive native village--"It's to get their
money; there's no use trying to fool you; if we can't get it one way
we've got to get it another." This gorgeous silk umbrella was concrete
expression of the same sentiment. It was bought outside, it was brought
into the country, it was set on exhibition in the store, because some
trader judged it likely to attract a native eye. No one, white or
native, uses an umbrella in interior Alaska.

We made twenty-five miles the next day through a wide, open country,
well wooded in places with a park-like distribution of trees, unwonted
in our travels and attractive. A new species of spruce threw thick
branches right down to the ground and tapered up to a perfect cone; each
tree apart from the others and surrounded by sward instead of
underbrush. There was a dignity about these trees that the common Yukon
spruce never attains. Rolling hills of small elevation stretched on
either hand and game signs abounded. After eight hours of such travel
we spoke of camping, but presently saw footprints in the snow and pushed
on to the bank of a little river, the Chedolothna, where stood a cabin,
a tent, and several high caches. Here, with two families that occupied
the cabin, we stayed the night.

[Sidenote: MEASLES AND DIPHTHERIA]

Six people at this place, six at Talida, sixteen at Minchumina, make up
all the population of a region perhaps a hundred and fifty miles square.
Yet it is a noble Indian country, one of the most favourable in all the
interior, capable of supporting hundreds of people. Signs, indeed, of a
much larger occupation of it were not wanting, and all accounts speak of
the wholesale destruction of the natives by disease. We were told