United States or São Tomé and Príncipe ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
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.
The panic-stricken sailors were for burning huts and ship, and escaping overland to the twenty-three hunters somewhere southwest. It was the 10th of December the very night when Drusenin's fugitives had taken to hiding in the north mountains. While Korovin was still debating what to do, an alarm came from beneath the keel of the ship.
On the tenth day, Russian huts and a stone bath-house were seen on the shore of a broad inlet. Not a soul was stirring. As Korovin's boat approached, bits of sail, ships' wreckage, and provisions were seen scattered on the shore. Fearing the worst, Korovin landed.
Anchoring sixty yards from shore, not very far from the volcano caves, where Drusenin's four fugitives were to fight for their lives the following spring, Korovin landed with fourteen men to reconnoitre. Deserted houses he saw, but never a living soul. Going back to the ship for more men, he set out again and went inland five miles where he found a village of three hundred souls.
In spring both sailed for the best sea-otter fields then known Oonalaska and Oomnak, Korovin with thirty-seven men, Medvedeff, forty-nine. In order not to interfere with each other's hunt, Medvedeff stopped at Oomnak, Korovin went on to Oonalaska.
By December Korovin had scattered twenty-three hunters southwest, keeping a guard of only sixteen for the huts and boat. Among the sixteen was little Alexis, the hostage Indian boy. The warning of danger was from the mother of the little Aleut, who reported that sixty hostiles were advancing on the ship under pretence of trading sea-otter. Between the barracks and the sea front flowed a stream.
With the addition of the fugitives, Korovin now had eighteen Russians. The Indian father of the hostage, Alexis, had come to demand back his son. Korovin freed the boy at once. By the end of April, the spring gales had subsided, and though half his men were prostrate with scurvy, there was nothing for Korovin to do but dare the sea.
Here Korovin met Denis Medvedeff's crew, also securing a year's supply of meat for the hunt of the sea-otter. The two leaders must have had some inkling of trouble ahead, for Medvedeff gave Korovin ten more sailors, and the two signed a written contract to help each other in time of need.
They launched this on the harbor and, stealing away unseen, rounded the northwest coast of Oonalaska's hand projecting into the sea, travelling at night southwestward, seeking the ships of Korovin, or Medvedeff, or Glottoff.
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.
Word Of The Day