Kenai is a little village built on a plateau overlooking the inlet, a sixty-foot sand embankment down to the water's edge, lending it the appearance of a fortified town. We ascended the road, entered the post-office and store, and began to make inquiries about guides, boats, and equipment. We soon learned that we could get white guides for ten dollars per day and "keep," and natives for five dollars; white packers for five dollars per day and "keep," natives for three dollars. After scouring the village we found two licensed native guides and two packers and gave them instructions to get our boats and provisions ready as quickly as possible, so that we could leave on the next flood tide for the Kenai River. In selecting guides and packers, I think it is a mistake to take natives, as they are naturally indolent, lack the interest the white man has in his work, are over-sensitive about their treatment, and sulk upon the least provocation; and then one never can impress upon them the eagerness of the party to secure, in the limited time at its disposal, photographs of big game in its natural haunts, or a desirable trophy. Time is the only object to them when they are out with a party at five dollars a day. To illustrate, on this occasion we had made an agreement with the head guide that the packers would go with us for three dollars a day and "keep," but we were not out more than a three days' "line" of the river until they demanded three fifty, and when refused began to sulk and lag behind with their work, and for fear they would leave us before we got up the river we were obliged to grant their demand. Indeed, they will sometimes purposely lead parties away from the best game country in order to keep them out as long as possible.
The evening before we arrived at Kenai, two miners had come to town for provisions and had sold their dust. They then started out for a good time, landed in a "joint," consumed all the "houch," after which they proceeded to "paint the town red." They succeeded fairly well, ended up with broken heads and limbs, and with a bullet in the breast of one. In the village was a doctor, some eighty years of age, who had long been in the habit of locating for the summer at Kenai to practice medicine. When the old man learned that there was a doctor in our party he looked us up and invited a consultation. Doc accepted the invitation, and on examination found the lead had entered the side, glanced around the ribs, and embedded itself in the muscles. He was very much surprised to find that the patient was wrapped in an extremely dirty towel, and everything was filthy. He said to the local physician, "Are you not afraid of the wound becoming infected?" Whereupon the latter informed him that no pus ever formed in wounds in that country and that infection was unknown. Our doctor made considerable inquiry about the matter, for he was very much interested, and learned that this was true.