New Britain herald., 1928-08-01

from the shore line and about eight
miles from our point. That night
We got an initiation OF another sort
mosquitoes. Yes. We were camping
in a cabin whose caves were even
with the snow line-and We had
mosquitoes. Possibly the fact that
the trapper had a meat storage hole
under the floor which had filled
with water from melting snow ac-
counted for their presence. At any
rate as soon as the cabin warmed
up from the fire of our portable
stove the birds came from some-
where-birds. did ! say? Eagles
with snow shoes. They hummed and
they sang. they bit and bored and
slashed--they sure seemed to like
imported meat. We eventually
fooled them, however. Onto the
floor went our pup tent which had a
mosquito netting flap and We
crawled in to be bothered only by
their howls of Illustration.
Would that some OF our friends
of New Britain had seen us sleeping
in a pup tent pitched inside OF
perfectly good cabin. I can Inn
agne some of the less kind exclaim-
ing Il thought those fellows were
crazy when ! heard they were going
to Alaska. Now l know it." We
were not half as crazy as if we had
stayed outside, though We might
have gotten some good target prac-
tice with our automatic revolvers. I
strongly suspect that some of the
more experienced Of the mosquitoes
tried to turn the tent over and get
at us from the bottom. But the
fellow that made the tent had
thought of that. He had sewed a
bug proof bottom cloth into the out
fit.
Ups and Downs OF Hunting
But enough of the beauties of ma
ture and on to the hunt. BY this
time Joe and l were mad enough to
shoot almost anything and we madly
hunted. We donned snow shoes and
scaled up and down slopes with an
abandon that would have been
truly terrifying had our wives seen
us. The abandon going up consist
ed mainly in not considering how we
made it as long as We did. COM
ing down 1t consisted in utter disre-
gard Of any prominent part of our
anatomies, most OF which were cut
or rubbed off anyhow after the
first few days. Occasionally we
would vary the procedure by falling
through a snow bridge in the bot
tom of gully with a creek, or walk
five miles or so through glacier mud
along the beach at low tide,
equipped with rubber boots and
coating OF clay lover our hunting
clothes).
When fellow climbed a ledge he
soon found that 1t was against the
rules OF the game to grab hold of
bush to help him. The alders grew
at spots and, II careful dissemination
was used, they might be handled.
But just in the most essential place
devil club invariably grew. These
instruments of torture have an en-
tire stalk covered thickly with very
small thorns. Scarcely thicker than
hair and not over an eighth of
inch long. they 60 into the skin
easily, nothing to 1t at all. But the
next day-boy you know you have
had hold Of something! Every lit
tie barbed and hair-like thorn is
loaded with poison and your hand
is literally covered with little ul-
GERS. 1t isn't always your hand.
That's where you get the stickers
when you are climbing. Coming
down you get them as we'll, but not
in the hand SO much. But then, we
didn't sit down often anyhow. The
best thing about the weeds is that
they do furnish good strong grip.
! got SO that wouldn't even take
hold Of cup of coffee at meal
times without looking to make sure
it wasn't devil club:
Taken all in all. rocks. snow,
cliffs and mud and devil clubs, It's
some country.
Joe Gets HIS Bear
Without further preamble then. I
shall leave Joe to ~. days of this;
changing camps, walking, creeping,
crawling and picking devil club
thorns, until we come to the final
scene. He was camped near Point
Harriet on the west shore Of Cook
Inlet. For days he had been fol-
lowing bear tracks. Suddenly the