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To the island ten miles off shore, Drusenin went himself, with Korelin, a wrecked Russian whom he had picked up on the voyage. On the way they must have passed all three mountains, that guard the harbor of Oonalaska, the waterfalls that pour over the cliffs near Kalekhta, and the little village itself where eleven men remained to build huts for the winter.
Just before the snow fell in the autumn of 1763 Alexis Drusenin anchored his ship on the north-east corner of Oonalaska, where the rocks sprawl out in the sea in five great spurs like the fingers of a hand. The spurs are separated by tempestuous reef-ribbed seas. The Indians were so very friendly that they voluntarily placed hostages of good conduct in the Russians' hands.
Korovin decided to hunt midway between Drusenin's crew and Medvedeff's. It is likely that the letters exchanged among the different commanders from September to December were arranging that Drusenin should keep to the east of Oonalaska, Korovin to the west of the island, while Medvedeff hunted exclusively on the other island Oomnak.
From the village to the easternmost point was over quaking moss ankle-deep, or through long, rank grass, waist-high and water-rotted with sea-fog. Here they launched their boat of sea-lion skin on a bone frame, and pulled across a bay of ten miles to the farthermost hunting-grounds. Again, the natives overwhelm Drusenin with kindness.
It was only September about the same time that Drusenin up north was sending out his hunters in three detachments. Korovin was so thoroughly satisfied all was safe, that he landed his entire cargo and crew, and while the carpenters were building wintering huts out of driftwood, set out himself, with two skin boats, to coast northeast.
Now, whether the Aleut had counted burning fagots, or kept tally some other way, the count was up. Barely had Drusenin stepped into the dark of the inner circle, when a blow clubbed down on his skull that felled him to earth.
Up to the northeast end, then, where the tide-rip thunders up the rock wall like an inverted cataract, posts Drusenin where he anchors his ship in Captain Harbor, and has winter quarters built before snow-fall of '63. An odd thing was the Indian chiefs became so very friendly they voluntarily brought hostages of good conduct to Drusenin. Surely Drusenin was in luck!
Each of the ships was under a commander who had been to the islands before and dealt fairly by the Indians. Betshevin's ship with Pushkareff, the Cossack, reached Kamchatka September 25. On the 6th there had come to winter at the harbor a ship under the same Alexei Drusenin, who had met Pushkareff the year before on the way to Oonalaska.
Drusenin had anchored between two mountain spurs like fingers. Eastward, across the next mountain spur was another village Kalekhta, of some forty houses; eastward of Kalekhta, again, ten miles across, another village of seventy families on the island of Inalook.
Drusenin was outward bound and must have heard the tales told of Pushkareff's crew; but the latter had brought back in all nearly two thousand otter, half sent by Drusenin, half brought by himself, and Oonalaska became the lodestar of the otter hunters. The spring of '63 found Drusenin coasting the Aleutians. Sure enough, others had heard news of the great find of the new hunting-grounds.
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