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As he hesitated the chief turned away from the door, and the Aleuts now began to jabber among themselves. They pointed to the meat, and made signs that they were hungry. "Da, karosha!" assented Rob, who was beginning to learn Aleut from his friend John. He motioned them to help themselves.
They will listen better to reason after they taste some of our lead." His final words were lost in the explosion of the guns. All but the professor fired. He had no weapon. Several Indians fell, wounded in the legs, for all had taken Roebach's advice and fired low. With shrieks of rage and pain the Aleuts fell back, and found shelter for themselves behind trees and rocks.
Later, schooners, thirty or forty of them, gathered the hunters at some main fur post, stowed the light skin kyacks in piles on the decks, and carried the Aleuts to the otter grounds.
On July 7th he landed at a bay six miles north of the present town of Sitka, purchased a tract of land from Skayeutlelt, a local chief, and began the construction of a post which he named redoubt St. Michael. The building was done under great difficulties. Rain fell incessantly. There were but thirty Russian workmen as most of the Aleuts returned to Kodiak, hunting as they went.
Wash landed sprawling upon their shoulders bearing both Aleuts to the ground. The door of the cabin was dashed open and Phineas Roebach ran out and seized the two red men before they could scramble up. The others were streaking it for the woods as fast as they could travel. "Gollyation!" quoth Washington White. "Has dem rapscallawags done harmed de ole perfesser?"
Similarly among the Aleuts of Alaska the hunter who had struck a whale with a charmed spear would not throw again, but returned at once to his home and separated himself from his people in a hut specially constructed for the purpose, where he stayed for three days without food or drink, and without touching or looking upon a woman.
On one occasion, as many as three hundred victims were tied in line and shot. The result was that the Cossacks' outrages and the Aleuts' vengeance drew the attention of the Russian government to this lucrative fur trade in the far new land. The disorders put an end to free, unrestricted trade. Henceforth a hunter must have a licence; and a licence implied the favour of the court.
At first they were not paid at all. They were drugged into service with vodka, a liquor that put them in a frenzy; and bayoneted and bludgeoned into obedience. These methods failing, wives and children were seized by the Russians and held in camp as hostages to guarantee a big hunt. The Aleuts' one object in meeting the Russian hunter at all was to get possession of firearms.
Barely were the hunters asleep when the shout of Kolosh Indians from the forests behind told of ambush. The mainland hostiles resenting this invasion of their hunting-fields, had watched the storm drive the canoes to land. On one side was the tempest, on the other the forest thronged with warriors. The Aleuts lost their heads and dashed for hiding in the woods, only to find certain death.
The Aleuts, who never see any fresh beef, and who live in a country where not even caribou are often found, are very fond of bear meat, which the more civilized ones call "beef." The captive seemed to understand perfectly well how to take care of this "beef," and he took out the long tenderloins from the back of each cub and separated the hams.
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