LOUIE PAUL AND THE HOOTZ

"Oh, 'e's bad feller, dat hootz," exclaimed Louie Paul, our half-breed Stickeen young man, the blood of his French father sparkling in his eyes and gesturing in his hands and shoulders. "'E's devil, 'im. Dat's no swear—dat's truf. Bad spirit got him, sure. Quonsum sallix (Always mad). 'E no savvy scare, no savvy love, no savvy die. 'E's devil, dat's all."

Louie's handsome face and coal-black eyes were alive with excitement, as he danced about his big bundle of tseek (black bear) skins, which he had just brought into Stevens' store at Fort Wrangell, and was unwrapping, preparatory to bartering. His outburst of language was called out by a question of mine. I had been noticing with surprise that among the great numbers of black bear skins that were being brought into the Wrangell stores daily by the Indians, were none of the big brown bear—the hootz. I knew these brown bears to be very plentiful up the Stickeen and Iskoot Rivers where Louie had been hunting. At this season (it was in early May) both species of bears, having wakened from their long winter's sleep, were roaming the banks of the streams restlessly day and night, making up in their fierce activity for their six months of torpor. Their coats were at their best—long, silky, glistening, thick and soft. The skins of the black bear Louie had brought were prime. They were more than black. Their ebony surfaces shone and sparkled, beneath our handling, like black diamonds.

Fort Wrangell, Alaska, on Etolin Harbor

To the left may be seen the first Protestant Church in Alaska, built by Dr. Young, 1879

I knew that the skins of the hootz would be equally beautiful and twice as large as those of the tseek. They would not be tawny at this season, but a rich, velvety brown, the color of the Irish setter's coat. In my canoe trips and steamboat voyages up the Stickeen I had seen more brown bears than black, standing boldly out on the bank to watch the sputtering steamboat, or grubbing for roots and worms in the green patches up the mountain slopes.

"Why don't you shoot the big bears?" I asked Louie. "I saw four in a bunch the other day. Don't you see any in your hunting trips?"

"Oh, yes," he confessed, "me plenty see hootz. All time me see heem. Yestaday me see tree—big fellers; stand up, all same man."

"What's the matter, then?" I pressed him. "Are you afraid of them?"

"Yes, you bet you boots, I scare of heem. I no shame scare about hootz. S'pose I big fool, I no scare; I shoot heem.—You never see me again no mo'."

Louie Paul had two claims to special distinction. First, he was a very expert and successful bear hunter; and, second, he was the husband of the star pupil of Mrs. McFarland's Home for Girls,—Tilly, the handsomest and brightest of the girls whom we had rescued from the vileness, squalor and sin of heathen life, and were training to be examples and teachers of Christian civilization to their tribe.

I had taken Louie and Tilly the preceding fall and established them at Tongas, one hundred miles south of Wrangell, outfitting Tilly with school books, Bibles, Sunday-school supplies, etc., and paying her a salary as teacher to that wild tribe. Louie's task was to keep up the fires for the school, and to cook for his wife and supply her needs. He had stayed at home faithfully during the winter, procuring the venison, ducks, geese, fish, clams, crabs, and other articles of food they needed, and making himself useful around the branch mission, even occasionally leading in prayer, and exhorting the people. But the trapper's "call of the wild" sounded in the early spring—a call he could not resist. So here he was, having left Tilly to cook her own meals and make her own fires, while he explored the streams, bayous and lakes in his small canoe, pursuing the elusive plantigrades.

The natives of Alaska at that time were handicapped in their hunting by an order of the Government which forbade the Indians to own or use breech-loading guns. This order was enforced among our peaceful Alaska natives, who had never had a serious trouble with the whites, while the Sioux, Apaches and Nez Perces, who were often on the war-path, had all the Winchester, Henry and Enfield rifles they wanted.

The natives of Alaska at that time—the early eighties—had only breech-loading, smooth-bore Hudson Bay muskets; and their round bullets had not much penetrating power. They were all right for deer, but you might fill a hootz full of those big, round balls and he would still have strength to tear you to pieces.

"The more you pester them big bear with them old-fashioned smooth-bores," said one of the old white hunters at Fort Wrangell, "the madder he gits."

Louie Paul looked so much more like a white man than like an Indian, and talked English so fluently, that I had persuaded the collector of customs—the only civil officer we had in that region—to permit me to lend Louie my new 45-75 Winchester repeating rifle. The repeater was a hard-shooting, accurate gun, chambering twelve cartridges in the magazine—the most efficient rifle made at that time. Louie was a fine shot, and the possession of this rifle gave him a great superiority over all the other Indian bear-hunters. He made more money in his three or four weeks of hunting in the spring than Tilly earned by her winter's teaching.

"I should think you would not be afraid of a brown bear when you have my Winchester," I urged. "You could put half a dozen balls clean through him before he could get to you."

Louie shook his curly head doubtfully. "Mebby so; mebby not."

Then his face lit up with a broad grin. "Mebby so I be lak Buck. You hear about Buck an' Kokaekish?"

"No," I replied, scenting a story. "What about them?"

I knew both these men. Kokaekish was a fine old Indian, the father of one of our best boys, whose Christian name was Louis Kellogg, but whose Indian name was Kokaek. The name, Kokaekish, means "Kokaek's Father," illustrating the curious custom of the Thlingets of naming parents after their children.

"Buck" was a French Canadian, Alex Choquette—a white man who had married a Stickeen woman and had been adopted into the tribe. He had seemingly become in heart and life an Indian, talking the language of his tribe, thinking their thoughts and pursuing their customs. How thoroughly he had become Indianized was evidenced by the language of Shustaak—the old heathen chief who had adopted Buck. "Wuck," he said, "delate siwash. Yacka tolo konaway nesika kopa klemenhoot." (Buck is a genuine Indian. He can beat all the rest of us lying.)

True to this definition of him, Buck had built his log house—a combined dwelling-house, hotel and store—thirty miles up the Stickeen River, opposite the Great Glacier, right on the boundary line between Alaska and British Columbia. Here he sold blankets, guns, groceries and whiskey to the white miners and to the Indians. When the Canadian authorities attempted to arrest him for his illicit traffic he claimed to be on the American side. When the Alaska custom officers went after him, he was a Canadian. Thus for years he had carried on his crooked business and escaped punishment.

"You know Buck," Louie began, "he worse siwash dan anybody; but he alltam make fun odder Injun. One day Kokaekish come Buck store, buy powder.

"'Where you come?' Buck say.

"'Iskoot,' say Kokaekish, 'make dry dog salmon. Now too many hootz, me come back.'

"Buck laugh. 'Eehya-a-ah! You shawat-too (woman-heart); you coward! What for you 'fraid hootz? S'pose me, I shootem all.' Buck much laugh.

"Kokaekish, he shame. He head hang down, so. Buck more laugh. Bimeby Kokaekish say, 'Buck, you strong heart. You want killem hootz?'

"Buck big bluff. 'Sure' he say. 'You show me hootz, me shootem quick.'

"'All light, come along. Me showem you hootz now.' Kokaekish go he canoe.

"Buck shame for back out. He get Winchester, all same you rifle. 'Where you go?'

"'No far. Ict tintin, nesika clap.' (One hour, we find.)

"Dey go up Iskoot, mebby tree mile. Fin' leetle stream. Plenty humpback an' dog salmon dere. Flap, flap, splash in shallow place. All roun' de grass all flat—plenty tail, fin, bone. Buck look. He scare, but shame go back. Leetle hill dere by de creek. Plenty bush. Kokaekish an' Buck go up; sit down; wait. Pitty soon sitkum polakly (half night—twilight), Kokaekish ketch Buck arm. Whisper, 'Hootz come.'

"Buck look. Bear all same house—delate hya-a-as! (very big), come down creek. Swing slow an' lazy. Go in water; slap out big salmon on bank pitty near two man; go an' eatem.

"Kokaekish whisper, 'Why you no shootem, Buck? You brave man! You much want killem hootz. Shootem quick!'

"Buck scare stiff. 'Sh-sh-sh! you ol' fool!' he say. He toof clap all same medicine-man rattle; water come out on he face; he shake like Cottonwood leaf.

"Kokaekish laugh. 'More hootz come,' he say. Nodder big bear come; growl, gr-r-r! go fishin'. Den she-bear an' two leetle feller come. Mamma ketch salmon; leetle bear play; run up-hill mos' on top man. Nodder bear come. Six Hootz; ketch salmon; scrap; one chase nodder; play.

"Buck not quite die. He lie flat down. He's finger count he's bead; he play Maly; he shake.

"Kokaekish much laugh. He rub it in. 'You brave man, Buck. You white man—no scare nuttin'. You want see hootz. Me fin' heem. Why you no shootem?'

"Bimeby delate polakly (quite dark). All hootz go leetle way up creek. Kokaekish shake Buck. 'Mebby so, you no want more hootz, we go now.' Dey walk han' an' foot—all same dog. Buck fo'get he's rifle. Dey fin' canoe; paddle quick Buck house.

"Now all Injun put shame on Buck face. 'Hey, Buck, you want shootem hootz? You white man; you brave; no scare nuttin'. How many hootz you kill?' Buck delate shame. Mos' keel hese'f. Mebby so, I lak dat."

"No, Louie," I replied when we had done laughing, "you are not like Buck. You would keep your nerve, and at least account for some of the brown bears."

"Well," he ventured doubtfully, "dis Winshesser mighty fine gun. I t'ink I try hootz nex' tam."

A week afterwards Louie came to my house in great excitement. He knocked repeatedly before I could get to the door.

"Mista Yuy," he almost shouted, "you come see my hootz skin. My firs'; my las' too."

I went with him to the store where several fine black bear skins were displayed to an admiring group of whites and natives. With them was an enormous brown bear skin, the largest I had ever seen. The fur was beautiful—rich in color, thick and glossy; but it was bloody and badly mussed. Turning it over I saw that the skin was full of holes—fairly riddled. I counted seventeen perforations. The larger and more ragged of the holes marked the exit of the balls that had ranged clear through the bear.

"Why, Louie," I exclaimed, "what did you mean by spoiling this fine skin? It is like a sieve. You have taken away more than half its value by shooting it up like that."

Louie danced about like a monkey—head, hands, feet, his whole body gesturing, his voice rising higher and louder as he went on with his story.

"You lissen me! I see dis big feller stan' up all same man. Open place; no big tree. Maybe hunner ya'd. I say me, 'Louie, you betta draw good bead dis tam. You shoot heem straight troo de heart, keel heem dead fust shot.'

"I shoot; he fall down. Klosh tumtum (good heart), me. I put de gun on shoul'er. Den I look. I 'stonish. De hootz, he git up queek; he come straight fo' me. I shoot queek; he fall down; he git up; he come for me. I shoot; I shoot; I shoot; he fall down; he fall down; he git up; he come for me. You betcha boots I hit heem ev'y tam. I scare to miss. I forgit how many catridge. I shoot; I shoot; I say, 'Dat's de las'; now he git me; dat's de las'; now he git me.'

"I git awful scare. I t'ink, 'Tilly widow now fo' sure. Nobody git wood fo' her no mo'.'—Dat bear git close—right here! He jus' goin' grab me. I mos' fall down; I so scare. I try once mo'. I put my gun agains' he's head. I shoot; he fall down; he don' git up no mo'. My las' catridge. I put ten ball t'rough heem. No-mo'-hootz-fo'-me!"

---