The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1903-11-29
A DIV ntur e S o /
Mr.. | S a &C ow
81 c.ors. R.ndolph Chester

the neck or his limp balloon. BY ana Dy IL
would begin to initiate from the heat Of his
body and presently Ike would go slowly
soaring ND into the blue air of heaven.
buoyed up by his own hot air, amid a storm
of applause that soon became music to his
soul. With a pedal and propeller attach
ment Ike could have easily solved the air
ship problem, but what would have been the
use? Very few people would care to be sun
struck just to be able TO soar like bird,
and, besides, it might not always soak in
as il had done with him.
Ike was sorry when the season closed, and
he was just about to trek back to the lum-
Der camp when a Mormon missionary got
hold OF him and took him into the fold. He
never had a more earnest convert and Ike
wanted to start out as missionary at once.
So the Mormons, in view of his peculiar
case, sent him up to Alaska to do some
warm PROSECUTING.
He made the hit of his life up there. He
as popular with the Eskimo ladies as
a rabbit in nest of rattlesnakes, and, as
soon he could tell the women from the
men, he began to seal wives unto himself.
The Eskimoesses fiocked to him like old
maids to a baby show when they found
out what glowing proposition he was as a
husband. and lot of them never stopped
to get divorce. Ike just married them all
as they came, nobody barred from sixteen
to sixty. He didn't even talk religion to
them at first, by reason of not knowing the
language, but he figured that as soon as he
got right well acquainted he could explain
Mormonism.
He had forty-eight wives working for him
by the time he had smattering of the Ian
guage. Brigham Young would have been
proud Of him. All he did was just to sit in
the big igloo and keep ii nice and warm.
while. the chorus went out and captured
blubber and the other delicacies of the sea-
son for the family table. The contrast be-
tween these meek and helpful creatures and
the Jerusha he had left behind was one that
filed him with peace. and Ike would have
been about the most contented man in the
whole Arctic circle except for one thing.
No man could monopolize too many of the
other sex without getting into trouble With
the Husbands Union. Now it takes about
three months for an Eskimo to get an idea,
but when he does get it he usually keeps it
about his person until he dies. After chew
ing their own reindeer skins and cooking
their own blubber in single blessedness for
awhile, these Eskimo men came to the con-
clusion that, while Mormonism might offer
advantages to the women folk, it would hold
out very little benefit to bachelors and wild
overs. especially where the population was
SO limited and there were not more than
enough wives to go around anyhow.
So they fixed up little surprise party for
Ike. They came along one night and tore
him from the bosom of his family and toted
him out into the snow. They escorted him
about twenty miles away from the settle
ment and left him, with a warning not to
come back. in the teeth of a blizzard that
would freeze icicles on the hinges of hades.
This is considered a pretty good joke in
Alaska, where, ordinarily, under such cir
cumstances, man is found next morning,
if he is ever found at all, frozen nicely and
solidly into the landscape.
But Ike rather enjoyed it. He just laughed
at that Extraordinarily pulled it's whiskers,
so to speak-and trudged cheerfully on. In
the morning he found a frozen dog and by
this time he was we'll enough set in Eskimo
ways to consider frozen dog a delicacy, so
he had bit of breakfast and lay down in a
snowbank for a nap. That dog lasted him
till he reached the next settlement, where
he introduced Mormonism with great tenn
porary success. But from now on he was to
have no peace. No sooner would he begin to
radiate Mormonism and surround himself
with converts and comfort. than the news
would creep in from his previous passionate,
and he would have to move on.
From Sitka to Point Barrow he prose-
lyted faithfully. He was still acting as a
missionary when he discovered a gold mine
that gave him a few millions of loose
change. He went right down to St Michael
to rest, and, while he was studying what to
do with the dust, Professor Fakely's ANA
teur polar expedition stopped in to write
home for money and met Ike. That kept the
professor from writing home. He put up a
line of talk that would have melted the
| heart of cabbage. and by the time he was
through he had Ike convinced that it was
a duty he owed to civilization to discover
the North Pole Not only that, but 1t was q
keen delight to hunt poles.
| All you had to do was to buy four thou
sand dogs and load them down with sup
plies. You left the supplies at various
places along the route, In little iron boxes
where the bears couldn't get at them. and
|