ALASKA SILVER

Uncle Mont Hawthorne, the itchy footed hero of Them Was the bays and The Trail Led North is back for a third time around. Returning in 1899 to Astoria, his Oregon home, he swore to his mother that he'd be content to stay there forever. But of course, it was really not for long, and soon he was off again for the North and the great salmon canneries, then just starting. Mont's adventures are told in his own salty tongue;- drifting in the Pacific in a stalled motor boat; exploring salmon fishing grounds; trips up various Alaskan rivers; difficulties with the Indians who'd been as badly treated by America as by Russia and who knew it; troubles with an ugly Indian woman when Mont's cruel joke backfired and she took his intentions seriously; a visit to the San Francisco Chinatown's tong houses. An irrepressible character but the story wears thin.