Iditarod pioneer., 1915-03-06
Nm WO days the river steamer Dancer \ rlowod her way up the kuskoSwim,
 hro11rb thp uinhty SWtrIino sDrinp


 rlowod her way up the kuskokwim,
 through the mighty, swlring spring flood At half past 10 o'cIpci in the even ing she shrieked long and loud and pointed her nose toward distant Sont where a scat tering little hamlet sat per4hed high on q cut bark near a small continent l. with number of others, began getting my worldly effects together as that particular dot on the map indicated the end of our
 journey, as far as the steamer Dancer was concerned The hamlet had been named Roulette, for two reasons. The first and main reason was that there were not enough letters, nor the right kind of letters, in the English alphabet to spell the half Russian, half Eskimo name it had previously borne The second reason was that one Roulette had discovered coarse gold at the head of the aforementioned continent.
 When the steamer had been finally made fast alongside of the cut-bank, and a ladder set up, we climbed off, and then 1 met Kooyanna.
 Kooyanna is in her simple way manu- Facturer, and also her own distributor. She makes sealskin mukluks, mooseskin and car lbou-skin moccasins Ieggings, mittens and gauntlet gloves, and also face nets for pro lection against the mosquitos. There were 1 other sQuaws with the same commodities for barter, but kooyannas distinction lay in the fact that she had no feet, both lower extremties having been amputated halt way between the ankles and the knees. It IS the story of how she lost her feet that l shall try to tell as nearly as l can, having ! geaned 1t piece by piece from kooyanna herself, and from some trappers and trader on the upper KUskokwim. l had not come to Roulette for story. Writing stories is a sort of habit 1 have acquired, my regular vocation being mining and pros pectng, and lying about mines and pros poets. But upon hearing that an cid sc | uuaintance from the Yukon was making a regular business of freighting and carrying passengers to the supposed-to-be digglngs, 1 concluded to wait for him. kooyanna s rleasant face and rather bright manner, | combined with her serious misfortune, ln- terested me and 1 set to work to learn 1 how she had come by her mlshap. Little | could be learned from the other natives pxce3t that her feet had been frozen. The natives are very uncommunicatl Tn regard to their own affairs. 1 learned from the | trader. however, that she had had her feet | frozen about five years before. and that It had happened away up toward the head ot the kuskokwim And also that a white man had brought her down to the Mo ravian mission, near the mouth of the rlver, These few details, reager as they were, 1 added t0 my curiosity. and l set patiently to work to get the story from hooyanna 1 herself
 It was a job requiring much patience, and many unnecessary purchases ot her wares and many potatches of fruit, nuts, | fancy cookies, etc.. from the traders store 1 before I gained her confidence. But deep in her heart Kooyanna was very lonesome She had no relatives, ana no lordly buck 1 had cared to appropriate her services. she could not tend a fish trap nor pack wood for the igloo so she played lonely game of life, and when once her confidence had been gained and she loosened the secret springs, the story came readily enough. One evening, after 1 had bought the fourth-or was it the fifth pair of gloves I had been sitting in front of her hut, carry ing on g one-sided conversation with her until the sun was getting low and the mos c9itos were coming out of their hiding rlsces and beginning business. She mo 1 tioned me inside, then lighted smudge ln 1 the doorway and went to some inner recess and brought out little willow basket and i produced gaudy silk handkerchief or nut | fer, which she carefully unfolded and dIs- closed small bright trlnket, which she handed to me, and said; 'l tlnk so hlm some kind talk?" It was one of those httle aluminium disks perforated to form star in the center, and having name and ad- dress stamped on the margin. It bore the legend, David T---, Seattle, Wash May. 1S9S.'
 "Man;s name Long time go. Seattle stop," I said as 1 returned the trlnket to her hand.
 What name?" she asked.
 'Dave T." I replied.
 'Yes, Dave. Him talk Dave, that's all him goot man. Dave much goot man she said, as she gazed at the little disk Tn her hand. !,
 sDis he give, dis 1 find" she said, indl- eating first the muller, then the tag.
 s'You stop I mek tea. You drink tea, den YOU lak I mek long talk" she said. And so it was got the tale l shall not try to tell it verbatim as it was given me, for much of it I inferred and much of 1t had | from the trader and some trappers farther LID the Kuskokwim. But in substance the story IS as follows:
 Kooyanna, in company with her father, who was very old, had gone up one of the big tributaries flowing into the husko- | kwim, and had crossed divide to the headwaters of another stream flowing south and east, and also emptying into the upper Kuskokwim, or South Fork. And there the old man had taken sick and died, and she had been left alone. Winter was well along before the old man died, and alter burving him as best she could, she set out to find one of the Indian villages which she knew to be located on the South Fork.
 The rabbits had died of the winter pre- vious, so food was scarce ard hard to ind. Not knowing where the village was located, she had finally become lost. Then, to make bad matters worse, she broke through the ice, thus wetting her feet, and ln conse- olence froze them both to above the ankles. | She had finally found deserted trapper' cabin and had crawled in there and was slowly starving to death.
 Dave T, after the manner of his kind, ever seeking new fields, had come from the Susitna country, prospecting up the Yentna to its source, then pushing on had crossed Simpson pass and prospected and trapped down the Dillinger to the Kuskokwim 1 South Fork) On one of his scouts for fur