As supercargo, Harry sat in the cabin with Captain Nickerson, and kept account of each trade as it was made, having good opportunity to watch the methods of the natives. He found them very clever at barter, Captain Nickerson, Yankee that he was, often meeting his match in some stolid native, who seemed to have a very clear idea of what he wanted, and how to get it. The first day of trading was merely preliminary, however, the natives bringing off their least valuable goods for barter, reserving the best of the ivory, and all the bone, until they found how prices were going, and whether the ship held such supplies as they needed or not. Their first demand seemed to be for hard bread, of which they are very fond. For this they offered, as a rule, the muckaluck, or native boot. Calico, as they had learned to call all forms of cloth, came next; then flour in bags, and later ammunition, rifles, and trade goods. Of brown sugar they were desirous, and chewing tobacco was asked for almost as soon as the hard-tack. This they called kowkow tobacco, or eating tobacco, from their trade word “kowkow,” meaning to eat. Harry made note of the Eskimo words as he heard them used, and picked up a working vocabulary, with the help of his notebook, in a very short time. Before the first day’s trading was over he had begun to understand what was meant, and by the end of the third day he astonished Joe with his fluency. As a matter of fact, his vocabulary thus far consisted of only forty words or so; but as they were the ones in most constant use, it made him seem quite a linguist. From this time forward he took great pains to jot down a new word and its meaning as soon as he heard it, getting many from the officers and crew, and this quick acquisition of the language was to stand him in good stead later on. At the end of the third day trading had ceased. There were great piles of deerskins, muckalucks, and small furs, several hundred pounds of not very good bone, quite a quantity of ivory, and many trinkets and curios. Harry wondered greatly as to the destination of much of this stuff. “Are reindeer skins worth much in the States?” he asked Captain Nickerson once, as the pile grew larger at the expense of much flour and calico. “I don’t think there is any market,” replied the captain, “though it is hard to see why. The fur is very thick and warm, the skin light, and should make most excellent lap robes and carriage robes, just as the buffalo fur once did. We shall trade them again when we meet the Eskimos on the other side of the straits. The caribou is scarce over there, and they gladly exchange fox, ermine, and bear skins for them. These we can dispose of readily in Frisco.”