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Updated: July 18, 2025
Rather a startling announcement to wake a man with, but as Dodd did not seem to be much concerned about it, I assured him that I didn't care, and lying back on my pillow went to sleep again, fully satisfied that my driver would find Penzhina sometime in the course of the night.
The news had been passed along from one encampment of Chukchis to another until it had finally reached Penzhina, and had thus been brought on to us at Shestakóva, more than five hundred miles from the place where the Americans were said to be.
Guided by the stars, Dodd, Gregorie, and I, with one other sledge which remained with us, turned away to the eastward, and about nine o'clock came upon the Penzhina River somewhere below the settlement. We started up it on the ice, and had gone but a short distance when we saw two or three sledges coming down the river.
Surprised to find men travelling away from the village at that hour of the night, we hailed them with a "Halloo!" "Halloo!" "Vwe kooda yáydetia?" "Where are you going?" "We're going to Penzhina; who are you?" "We're Gizhigintsi, also going to Penzhina; what you coming down the river for?" "We're trying to find the village, devil take it; we've been travelling all night and can't find anything!"
Just at dark we crossed the river Kondra, fifteen miles from Penzhina, and in two hours more we were hopelessly lost on another great level steppe, and broken up into two or three separate and bewildered parties.
Upon this Dodd burst into a loud laugh, and as the mysterious sledges drew nearer we recognised in their drivers three of our own men who had separated from us soon after dark, and who were now trying to reach Penzhina by going down the river toward the Okhotsk Sea. We could hardly convince them that the village did not lie in that direction.
In ten minutes we were seated on bearskins before a warm fire in a cozy Russian house, drinking cup after cup of fragrant tea, and talking over our night's adventures. The village of Penzhina is a little collection of log houses, flat-topped yurts, and four-legged balagáns, situated on the north bank of the river which bears its name, about half-way between the Okhotsk Sea and Anadyrsk.
Bush had been put in command of the Northern District from Penzhina to Bering Strait, and he, together with Macrae, Harder, and Smith, had been left at Anadyrsk for the summer. As soon as the Anadyr River should open, this party was directed to descend it in canoes to its mouth, and there await the arrival of one of the Company's vessels from San Francisco, with reinforcements and supplies.
In the course of conversation with the new arrivals, I thought I understood one of the Penzhina men to say something about a party who had mysteriously appeared near the mouth of the Anadyr River, and who were building a house there as if with the intention of spending the winter.
Late in the evening of December 2d, Yagór, who acted in the capacity of sentinel, came down the chimney with another sensation. He had heard the howling of dogs in the direction of Penzhina.
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