ren't you a little fast?" I replied. "What does this mean? Where's
your wife?"

"Man," he exclaimed, "have you forgotten? Don't you know we lost a
glacier last fall? Do you think I could sleep soundly in my bed this
winter with that hanging on my conscience? My wife could not come, so I
have come alone and you've got to go with me to find the lost. Get your
canoe and crew and let us be off."

The ten months since Muir had left me had not been spent in idleness at
Wrangell. I had made two long voyages of discovery and missionary work
on my own account,--one in the spring, of four hundred fifty miles
around Prince of Wales Island, visiting the five towns of Hydah Indians
and the three villages of the Hanega tribe of Thlingets. Another in the
summer down the coast to the Cape Fox and Tongass tribes of Thlingets,
and across Dixon entrance to Ft. Simpson, where there was a mission
among the Tsimpheans, and on fifteen miles further to the famous mission
of Father Duncan at Metlakahtla. I had written accounts of these trips
to Muir; but for him the greatest interest was in the glaciers and
mountains of the mainland.

Our preparations were soon made. Alas! we could not have our noble old
captain, Tow-a-att, this time. On the tenth of January, 1880,--the
darkest day of my life,--this "noblest Roman of them all" fell dead at
my feet with a bullet through his forehead, shot by a member of that
same Hootz-noo tribe where he had preached the gospel of peace so simply
and eloquently a few months before. The Hootz-noos, maddened by the
fiery liquor that bore their name, came to Wrangell, and a preliminary
skirmish led to an attack at daylight of that winter day upon the
Stickeen village. Old Tow-a-att had stood for peace, and rather than
have any bloodshed had offered all his blankets as a peace offering,
although in no physical fear himself; but when the Hootz-noos,
encouraged by the seeming cowardice of the Stickeens, broke into their
houses, and the Christianized tribe, provoked beyond endurance, came out
with their guns, Tow-a-att came forth armed only with his old carved
spear, the emblem of his position as chief, to see if he could not call
his tribe back again. At my instance, as I stood with my hand on his
shoulder, he lifted up his voice to recall his people to their houses,
when, in an instant, the volley commenced on both sides, and this
Christian man, one of the simplest and grandest souls I ever knew, fell
dead at my f