Thanking Alalik for the quaint song, sung in a sweet, touching voice, they all took their departure, laden with purchases and delighted with their visit. "But you must not think this is a fair sample of Esquimo hut or Esquimo life," said Mr. Strong to the boys. "These are near enough civilized to show the best side of their race, but theirs must be a terrible existence who are inland or on islands where no one ever comes, and whose only idea of life is a constant struggle for food." "I think I would rather be an American," remarked Ted, while Kalitan said, briefly: "I like Thlinkit." FOOTNOTES: [15] The _eglu_ is the Esquimo house. Often they occupy tents during the summer, but return to the huts the first cool nights. CHAPTER XII THE SPLENDOUR OF SAGHALIE TYEE THE _tundra_ was greenish-brown in colour, and looked like a great meadow stretching from the beach, like a new moon, gently upward to the cones of volcanic mountains far away. The ground, frozen solid all the year, thaws out for a foot or two on the surface during the warm months, and here and there were scattered wild flowers; spring beauties, purple primroses, yellow anemone, and saxifrages bloomed in beauty, and wild honey-bees, gay bumblebees, and fat mosquitoes buzzed and hummed everywhere. Ted and Kalitan were going to see the reindeer farm at Port Clarence, and, as this was to be their last jaunt in Alaska, they were determined to make the best of it. Next day they were to take ship from Cape Prince of Wales and go straight to Sitka. Here Ted was to start for home, and Mr. Strong was to leave Kalitan at the Mission School for a year's schooling, which, to Kalitan's great delight, was to be a present to him from his American friends. "Tell us about the reindeer farms, daddy. Have they always been here?" demanded Ted, as they tramped over the _tundra_, covered with moss, grass, and flowers. "No," said his father. "They are quite recent arrivals in Alaska. The Esquimos used to live entirely upon the game they killed before the whites came. There were many walruses, which they used for many things; whales, too, they could easily capture before the whalers drove them north, and then they hunted the wild reindeer, until now there are scarcely any left. There was little left for them to eat but small fish, for you see the whites had taken away or destroyed their food supplies. "One day, in 1891, an American vessel discovered an entire village of Esquimos starving, being reduced to eating their dogs, and it was thought quite time that the government did something for these people whose land they had bought. Finding that people of the same race in Siberia were prosperous and healthy, they sent to investigate conditions, and found that the Siberian Esquimos lived entirely by means of the reindeer. The government decided to start a reindeer farm and see if it would not benefit the natives." "How does it work?" asked Ted.