One more human story before I come to Muir's part. It was during the
latter half of the voyage, and after our discovery of Glacier Bay. The
climax of the trip, so far as the missionary interests were concerned,
was our visit to the Chilcat and Chilcoot natives on Lynn Canal, the
most northern tribes of the Alexandrian Archipelago. Here reigned the
proudest and worst old savage of Alaska, Chief Shathitch. His wealth
was very great in Indian treasures, and he was reputed to have cached
away in different places several houses full of blankets, guns, boxes of
beads, ancient carved pipes, spears, knives and other valued heirlooms.
He was said to have stored away over one hundred of the elegant Chilcat
blankets woven by hand from the hair of the mountain goat. His tribe was
rich and unscrupulous. Its members were the middle-men between the
whites and the Indians of the Interior. They did not allow these Indians
to come to the coast, but took over the mountains articles purchased
from the whites--guns, ammunition, blankets, knives and so forth--and
bartered them for furs. It was said that they claimed to be the
manufacturers of these wares and so charged for them what prices they
pleased. They had these Indians of the Interior in a bondage of fear,
and would not allow them to trade directly with the white men. Thus they
carried out literally the story told of Hudson Bay traffic,--piling
beaver skins to the height of a ten-dollar Hudson Bay musket as the
_price_ of the musket. They were the most quarrelsome and warlike of the
tribes of Alaska, and their villages were full of slaves procured by
forays upon the coasts of Vancouver Island, Puget Sound, and as far
south as the mouth of the Columbia River. I was eager to visit these
large and untaught tribes, and establish a mission among them.

[Illustration: CHILCAT WOMAN WEAVING A BLANKET

Chief Shathitch was said to have over one hundred of the elegant Chilcat
blankets, woven by hand, from the hair of the mountain goat]

About the first of November we came in sight of the long, low-built
village of Yin-des-tuk-ki. As we paddled up the winding channel of the
Chilcat River we saw great excitement in the town. We had hoisted the
American flag, as was our custom, and had put on our best apparel for
the occasion. When we got within long musket-shot of the village we saw
the native men come rushing from their houses with their guns in their
hands and mass in front of the largest hou