As I sat in my cabin on Christmas eve, thinking over old times, and feeling, perhaps, a trifle blue, I determined to usher in the great day with some éclat. So I loaded up every firearm that I had, and when midnight came I stepped outside and "let loose" with revolvers, rifles, and shotguns. The first effect was to wake up four hundred dogs, who responded with howls and barks, which they kept up till morning. At seven o'clock, my Russian friends came flocking over to find out what I was celebrating. I told them that it was our Christmas day. Their Christmas comes twelve days later than ours. When they found out the cause of my exhilaration they slipped away, but within three hours the women and children began to appear, each loaded with a steaming dish. There were meats, fowls, berries, pasties, fish, blubber, stuffed ptarmigan, deer tongues, and other things--enough to feed a hundred men. When the table was so full that it could hold no more, they put the dishes on the floor. I knew well that they had brought much more than I could handle, and I was somewhat embarrassed by their excessive generosity. But my fears were ill-founded, for soon the whole village began to arrive. The priests and magistrates came first, and then the rest in descending scale, and by the time they were done, all the good things that they had brought had been consumed, as well as all that I could obtain from Mrs. Braggin. Two hundred were fed, and by night I was entirely cleaned out--cupboard, shelf, and cellar. What the small children could not eat they put in their pockets. The Russian storekeepers sent me a bag of coppers, telling me that it was the custom to give each child a coin on such occasions. When I went to bed at night, I determined that I would never again disturb the peace of Christmas night with firearms. On New Year's eve, fearing that the ceremony might be repeated, I stole away on my snow-shoes and spent the day hunting ptarmigan. I had good luck, and bagged all I could carry. These beautiful little birds are about the size of a pigeon, but of heavier build. In summer their color is brown, but in winter it is pure white, and they sit motionless in the snow, so that it is almost impossible to discover them. The native boys kill them with bows and arrows. Almost all the natives of the far north are good shots, being trained to it from boyhood. In order to catch ermine and _belk_ (arctic squirrel) they must be marksmen of the first order; for these animals are small, and must be shot in the head, or the skin is worthless. For this purpose, twenty-two caliber rifles of German manufacture are used. They are muzzle-loaders, and can be purchased in Vladivostok for four roubles. The natives rig them up with a forked rest, and an ermine at seventy-five yards stands no chance of escape.