Kalitan, Our Little Alaskan Cousin | Page 3

the camp with great politeness and considerable pride.
"You've a good place to camp," said Mr. Strong, "and we will gladly share your fire until we are warm enough to go on."
Ted's face fell. "Must we go right away?" he asked. "This is such a jolly place."
"No go to-day," said Kalitan, briefly, to Chetwoof. "Colesnass."[2]
[Footnote 2: Snow.]
"Huh!" said Chetwoof. "Think some."
"Here comes my uncle," said Kalitan, and he ran eagerly to meet an old Indian who came toward the camp from the shore. He eagerly explained the situation to the Tyee, who welcomed the strangers with grave politeness. He was an old-man, with a seamed, scarred faces but kindly eyes. Chief of the Thlinkits, his tribe was scattered, his children dead, and Kalitan about all left to him of interest in life.
"There will be more snow," he said to Mr. Strong. "You are welcome. Stay and share our fire and food."
"Do let us stay, father," cried Ted, and his father smiled indulgently, but Kalitan looked at him in astonishment. Alaskan boys are taught to hold their tongues and let their elders decide matters, and Kalitan would never have dreamed of teasing for anything.
But Mr. Strong did not wish to face another snow-storm in the sledge, and knew he could work but little till the storm was passed; so he readily consented to stay a few days and let Ted see some real Alaskan hunting and fishing.
Both boys were delighted, and soon had the camp rearranged to accommodate the strangers. The fire was built up, Ted and Kalitan gathering cones and fir branches, which made a fragrant blaze, while Chetwoof cared for the dogs, and the old chief helped Mr. Strong pitch his tent in the lee of some fragrant firs. Soon all was prepared and supper cooking over the coals,--a supper of fresh fish and seal fat, which Alaskans consider a great delicacy, and to which Mr. Strong added coffee and crackers from his stores,--and Indians and whites ate together in friendliness and amity.

CHAPTER II
AROUND THE CAMP-FIRE
"How does if happen that you speak English, Kalitan?" asked Mr. Strong as they sat around the camp-fire that evening. The snow had continued during the afternoon, and the boys had had an exciting time coasting and snow-balling and enjoying themselves generally.
"I went for a few months to the Mission School at Wrangel," said Kalitan. "I learned much there. They teach the boys to read and write and do sums and to work the ground besides. They learn much more than the girls." "Huh!" said the old chief, grimly. "Girls learn too much. They no good for Indian wives, and white men not marry them. Best for girls to stay at home at the will of their fathers until they get husbands."
"So you've been in Wrangel," said Ted to Kalitan. "We went there, too. It's a dandy place. Do you remember the fringe of white mountains back of the harbour? The people said the woods were full of game, but we didn't have time to go hunting. There are a few shops there, but it seemed to me a very small place to have been built since 1834. In the States whole towns grow up in two or three weeks."
"Huh!" said Kalitan, with a quick shrug of his shoulders, "quick grow, sun fade and wind blow down."
"I don't think the sun could ever fade in Wrangel," laughed Ted. "They told me there it hadn't shone but fifteen days in three months. It rained all the time."
"Rain is nothing," said Kalitan. "It is when the Ice Spirit speaks in the North Wind's roar and in the crackling of the floes that we tremble. The glaciers are the children of the Mountain Spirit whom our fathers worshipped. He is angry, and lo! he hurls down icebergs in his wrath, he tosses them about, upon the streams he tosses the kyaks like feathers and washes the land with the waves of Sitth. When our people are buried in the ground instead of being burnt with the fire, they must go for ever to the place of Sitth, of everlasting cold, where never sun abides, nor rain, nor warmth."
Ted had listened spellbound to this poetic speech and gazed at Kalitan in open-mouthed amazement. A boy who could talk like that was a new and delightful playmate, and he said: "Tell me more about things, Kalitan," but the Indian was silent, ashamed of having spoken.
"What do you do all day when you are at home?" persisted the American.
"In winter there is nothing to do but to hunt and fish," said Kalitan. "Sometimes we do not find much game, then we think of how, when a Thlinkit dies, he has plenty. If he has lived as a good tribesman, his kyak glides smoothly over the silver waters into the sunset, until,