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THE STORY OF ADA BLACKJACK 349

them long in the stretchers.” “That’s not right,” he told her.
“White people who live outside like them wide.” “I didn’t say
anything,” Ada said—“because I had never been outside and did
not know but natives tell me this was the way.” Her skins she
tanned with the claws on—the men of the expedition cut the claws
off of theirs. When she came out she had 15 fox skins that brought
her $38 apiece, $570 in all.

She saw the first seal about two weeks before Knight died—it
was out on the ice quite a distance, a small speck, she went out
after it—“crawling on my belly” about three hundred yards.
She fired at it—but missed it and it went into the water—when
she went home Knight told her she was too far off from it. About
two weeks after his death she shot her first seal. This time she
got within one hundred and fifty yards and used a softnosed
bullet—Knight had told her not to use softnosed bullets, to save
them for polar bears.

She made one exception to her rule of not talking to newspapers.
An accusation had been made by Mr. Harold Noice in a newspaper
interview that she did not take proper care of Lorne Knight.
She read the article carefully. Once she caught her breath sharply,
but otherwise she made no sound. When she finally looked up
her eyes had that dumb hurt look that belongs to a wounded
animal. After a long time she said:

“Well, maybe white people could do more—maybe people would
think I did not do enough, but I did all I knew how to do—maybe
no one believe me—but I cannot help that. I did all I know how
to do.”

The next morning, without consulting anybody, she got on the
street car and taking Bennett with her she went into Los Angeles.
She went directly to a newspaper office and told her story. She
must have made an impression for the next morning’s paper car-
ried a long and very sympathetic account of Ada Blackjack.

“When I got to thinking about what they are saying about me,
my throat chokes and tears run from my eyes like water in the
river when ice melts, and I turn my face away and look out car
window so no one will be seeing me—and I think I will walk up to
newspaper office and say a few words.”

Two letters she wrote while she was in California show the range