ation house,
gambling hell in one. But let that same youth be taken early in hand by
one who has a care for him and will be at some personal pains to train
him cleanly and uprightly, and he is as amenable to the good influences
as he would be to the bad if they were his sole environment. Conscious
all the time of his equivocal position, shy and timid about asserting
himself amongst whites, he is easy prey to the viciously as he is apt
pupil to the virtuously disposed.

What is said here of the male half-breeds applies _a fortiori_ to the
female. Unless early taken in hand by the missionary, or put under the
protection of some church boarding-school--and sometimes despite all
such care and teaching--the lot of the half-breed girl is a sad one; and
some of the lowest and vilest women of the land are of mixed blood.

The half-breed is assuredly to be reckoned with in the future of Alaska.
He is here to stay. He is here in increasing numbers. He is the natural
leader of the Indian population. There seems little doubt that when he
cares to assert his rights he is already an American citizen, although
judicial decisions are uncertain and conflicting in this matter.

The missions in the interior have recognised, though perhaps somewhat
tardily, the importance of the half-breeds, and have picked them up here
and there along the rivers and become responsible for their decent
rearing. Some, assuredly, of the future leaders of the native people are
now in training at the mission schools. Some, unfortunately, are in
quite as assiduous training by the unscrupulous Indian trader and his
coterie of low-down whites.

The skies had threatened snow since we arose, and when our diminished
expedition was well upon its way the snow began to fall. For thirty-six
hours it fell without cessation. Three days of good travel had put us
forward seventy-five or eighty miles; now once more we were "up against"
deep snow and trail breaking. An old native whom we met on his way to
the potlatch later in the day spread out his hands with a look of
despair and cried: "Good trail all lose'm!" All day we pushed on against
the driving storm, the flakes stinging our faces and striking painfully
against our eyeballs, now following a narrow steep woodland trail, now
awhile along a creek bed, now across open country with increasing
difficulty in finding our way, until it grew dark while yet we were
some miles from our destination, and we made camp; and all n