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Updated: May 15, 2025
Considerable bustle prevailed in the camp, for a general seal-hunting expedition was on foot, and the men of the tribe were preparing their dog-sledges and their spears. Edith was in her igloo of ice, seated on the soft pile of deerskins which formed her bed at night and her sofa by day, and worrying Kaga's baby, which laughed vociferously.
The Cossack said that no difficulty would be experienced in getting dog-sledges and men at Gizhiga to explore any part of the country west or north of that place, and that the Russian governor would give us every possible assistance. Under these circumstances there was nothing to be done but to push on to Gizhiga, which could be reached, the Cossack said, in two or three days.
To fill all these requisitions I had at my disposal about fifteen dog-sledges, and even these had gone with provisions to Penzhina for the relief of Lieutenant Bush.
Notwithstanding the famine the dog-sledges were sent, and Bush, with two men, had returned on them to Anadyrsk. Finding that settlement famine-stricken and deserted, he had started without a moment's delay for Gizhiga, his exhausted and starving dogs dying along the road.
Half a dozen dugout canoes lie bottom upward on the sandy shelving beach, covered with large neatly tied seines; two or three long, narrow dog-sledges stand up on their ends against every house, and a hundred or more sharp-eared wolfish dogs, tied at intervals to long heavy poles, lie panting in the sun, snapping viciously at the flies and mosquitoes which disturb their rest.
If you can imagine a rough American backwoods settlement of low log houses clustered round a gaily coloured Turkish mosque, half a dozen small haystacks mounted on high vertical posts, fifteen or twenty Titanic wooden gridirons similarly elevated and hung full of drying fish, a few dog-sledges and canoes lying carelessly around, and a hundred or more grey wolves tied here and there between the houses to long heavy poles, you will have a general but tolerably accurate idea of a Kamchadal settlement of the better class.
It was decided to take eight pony-sledges and two dog-sledges, together with about a ton of pony food, sledging rations, dog biscuit, and paraffin to a position on the Great Ice Barrier as far south as we could get before the first winter set in.
If there were any Americans there, they were certainly in a very unpleasant situation. Dodd and I talked the matter over until nearly midnight, and finally concluded that upon our arrival at Anadyrsk we would make up a strong party of experienced natives, take thirty days' provisions, and push through to the Pacific Coast on dog-sledges in search of these mysterious Americans.
Numerous guns, axes, and canoe-paddles hung round the walls or were piled in corners, and the rafters sustained a miscellaneous mass of materials, the more conspicuous among which were snow-shoes, dog-sledges, axe- handles, and nets. Having filled and lighted his pipe, Tom Whyte thrust his hands into his deerskin mittens, and sauntered off to perform his errand.
He had been forty-two days on the road, and had travelled on dog-sledges nearly twelve hundred miles, with no companions except a few natives and a Cossack from Tigil. He seemed disposed to look upon this achievement very modestly, but in some respects it was one of the most remarkable journeys ever made by one of the Company's employés.
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