Part 50 (1/2)

He disappeared, and presently returned with a perfect treasure of a samovar,--old, battered, green with age and use. We went into ecstasies over it.

”I'll take it,” I said. ”How much is it?”

”It was twenty-five dollars,” said he, dismally. ”It is sold.”

”How very peculiar,” said my companion, as we went away, ”to keep bringing out samovars that are sold.”

For two years my thoughts reverted at intervals to those ”sold” samovars at Unalaska. Last summer I went down the Yukon. At St. Michael I was entertained at the famous ”Cottage” for several days. One day at dinner I asked a gentleman if he knew Captain Gray.

”Of Unalaska?” exclaimed two or three at once. Then they all burst out laughing.

”We all know him,” one said. ”Everybody knows him.”

”But why do you laugh?”

”Oh, because he is so 'slick' at taking in a tourist.”

”In what manner?” asked I, stiffly. I remembered that Captain Gray had asked me if I were a tourist.

They all laughed again.

”Oh, _especially_ on samovars.”

My face burned suddenly.

”On samovars!”

”Yes. You see he gets a tourist into his warehouses and shows him samovar after samovar--fifty or sixty of them--and tells him that every one is sold. He puts on the most mournful look.

”'This one was twenty-five dollars,' he says. 'A captain on a government cutter bought them to take to Boston.' Then the tourist gets wild. He offers five, ten, twenty dollars more to get one of those samovars. He always gets it; because, you see, Gray wants to sell it to him even worse than he wants to buy it. It always works.”

We walked over the hills to Dutch Harbor--once called Lincoln Harbor.

There is a stretch of blue water to cross, and we were ferried over by a gentleman having much Fourth-of-July in his speech and upon his breath.

His efforts at politeness are remembered joys, while a sober ferryman would have been forgotten long ago. But the sober ferrymen that morning were like the core of the little boy's apple.

It was the most beautiful walk of my life. A hard, narrow, white path climbed and wound and fell over the vivid green hills; it led around lakes that lay in the hollows like still, liquid sapphire, set with the pearl of clouds; it lured through banks of violets and over slopes of trembling bluebells; it sent out tempting by-paths that ended in the fireweed's rosy drifts; but always it led on--narrow, well-trodden, yet oh, so lonely and so still! Birds sang and the sound of the waves came to us--that was all. Once a little brown Aleutian lad came whistling around the curve in the path, stood still, and gazed at us with startled eyes as soft and dark as a gazelle's; but he was the only human being we saw upon the hills that day.

We saw acres that were deep blue with violets. They were large enough to cover silver half-dollars, and their stems were several inches in length. Fireweed grew low, but the blooms were large and of a deep rose color.

Standing still, we counted thirteen varieties of wild flowers within a radius of six feet. There were the snapdragon, wild rose, columbine, b.u.t.tercup, Solomon's seal, anemone, larkspur, lupine, dandelion, iris, geranium, monk's-hood, and too many others to name, to be found on the hills of Unalaska. There are more than two thousand varieties of wild flowers in Alaska and the Yukon Territory. The blossoms are large and brilliant, and they cover whole hillsides and fill deep hollows with beautiful color. The bluebells and violets are exquisite. The latter are unbelievably large; of a rich blue veined with silver. They poise delicately on stems longer than those of the hot-house flower; so that we could gather and carry armfuls of them.

The site of Dutch Harbor is green and level. Fronting the bay are the large buildings of the North American Commercial Company, with many small frame cottages scattered around them. All are painted white, with bright red roofs, and the town presents a clean and attractive appearance.

Dutch Harbor is the prose, and Unalaska the poetry, of the island. There is neither a hotel nor a restaurant at either place. It was one o'clock when we reached Dutch Harbor; we had breakfasted early, and we sought, in vain, for some building that might resemble an ”eating-house.”