The 7th of August we remained over pumping out the bilge-water from the "barka" and transferring freight from the raft to the schooner, and making use of our photographic apparatus.

At Nuklakayet the Eskimo dogs begin to appear, forty or fifty being owned by the station, the majority of which Mr. Harper feared he should have to kill to save the expense of feeding them through the winter. As each of them ate a salmon a day, it will be seen that this cost was no small item. I remembered the trouble I had once experienced in obtaining even a smaller number of these useful creatures; a difficulty which many another Arctic traveler has encountered, while here was a pack about to be slaughtered that would well suffice for any sledging party. The Eskimo dogs of Alaska are larger, finer-looking, and a much more distinct variety than those of North Hudson's Bay, King William Land country, and adjacent districts; a description of any one Alaska dog answering nearly for all, while among the others I have named, there was the widest difference in size, shape and general appearance. From all I could learn, and I was careful to inquire of their capabilities, I do not think the Alaskan Eskimo dogs can compare with the others in endurance, whether as regards fatigue, exposure or fasting. For all the purposes of men who are never in fear of starvation, I think it more than probable that the Alaskan Eskimo dog would be found superior on short journeys and trips between points where food is procurable; but for the use of explorers, or of any one who may be exposed to the danger of famine, the others are undoubtedly far superior. When I told some of the Yukon River traders, who had spent much of their lives in the native country of these dogs, of some of the feats of endurance of the Hudson Bay species, they seemed to think, judging from their countenances, that I was giving them a choice selection from the Arctic edition of Munchausen.

Eskimo boats, or those in which the wooden frames are covered with sealskin, are also first noticed at this place; although the Eskimo people themselves are not found as regular inhabitants until Anvik has been passed, some twenty or thirty miles. I saw both kinds, the smaller variety, or kiak, in native language, and the large kind, or oomien, of the Eskimo. An attempt had evidently been made to fashion the bow and stern of the latter into nautical "lines," with a result much more visible than with those of Hudson's Straits and Bay.

On Wednesday the 8th of August, we got away late, and there being a slight breeze behind us, we set the jib—the only sail with the boat—and were agreeably surprised at the manner in which our new acquisition cut through the water, with even this little help; the sail assisting her probably a couple of miles an hour, and, better than all, making it very easy work to keep in the strongest currents.

Indian villages or camps were seen occasionally on the upper ends of islands, with their fish-traps set above them, and from some of these we obtained fresh salmon. As the trading stations are approached, these Indian camps increase, the largest being generally clustered around the station itself, while a diminution both in numbers and size is perceptible in proportion to the distance from these centers. As many of these camps are but temporary summer affairs, which are abandoned late in the fall, this clustering around the white men's stores becomes more marked at that period. That night's camping, however, plainly showed us that the "barka" was not as good as the raft for the purpose of approaching the shore, it drawing about three feet to the raft's twenty inches, so that "rubber-boot camps" might be quite numerous in the future. Worst of all, our rubber boots were but little protection in three feet of water, and filling to the top, became more of an impediment than otherwise in carrying our effects to the shore. Most of our camping places were now selected with reference to steep banks that had at least three feet of water at their foot, yet were not so high but that a long gang-plank could reach the crest.

On the 9th, we started early with a light wind in our face that within an hour had become a furious gale, with white capped waves running over the broad river and dashing over our boat. We ran into shoal water, dropped anchor, and tried to protect ourselves by crawling in under the leaking decks. Here we remained cooped up until four o'clock in the afternoon, when the gale abating somewhat we pulled up anchor and drifted for six or seven miles, going into camp at eight o'clock, having made eight and a-half miles for the day. After camping, the gale died down to a calm, and allowed us the full benefit of the mosquitoes. Either we were getting used to their attacks, or the season had affected the insects, for they appeared less numerous than on the upper river.

The 10th was another day starting well with a favorable breeze and ending with a heavy head-wind. That day we passed the Newicargut and still saw many Indian camps where fishing for salmon was going on.

The 11th was an aggravating repetition of the events of the two preceding days. That day we passed the Melozecargut, and camped opposite the mouth of the Yukocargut. [4]"Cargut" is the native name for river, and Sooncargut, Melozecargut, and Tosecargut, have been changed to Sunday-cargut, Monday-cargut, and Tuesday-cargut by the English speaking traders of the district.

Another object now influenced our selection of camps for the night, and that was to choose a spot with few or no islands in its front, so that the descending river steamer "Yukon" could not pass us while in camp by taking a channel hidden from our view.

Shortly after midnight a steamer's whistling was heard far down the river, and after a great deal of anxiety for fear it was the "Yukon" that had passed us unnoticed, we heard the puffing approach nearer and nearer, and soon saw the light of an ascending river steamer. It proved to be a very diminutive but powerful little thing which Mr. Mayo was taking to Nuklakayet for the winter. Two brothers of the name of Scheffelin, the elder of whom is well known in frontier mining history as the discoverer of the celebrated Tombstone district of Arizona, having amassed a fortune in that territory, decided to try the mining prospects of the Yukon and its tributaries, and the prior year had chartered a vessel in San Francisco on which they put this little river steamer, and sailed for the Yukon. Here a year was spent in prospecting, and although "ounce diggings[5] were struck" on or near the Melozecargut, yet all the surroundings made "Ed" Scheffelin think it would not pay to put capital in such an undertaking, although it might remunerate the individual effort of the itinerant miner whose capital is his pick-ax, pan and shovel. Early in the spring the Scheffelins got a letter from Arizona which determined their return to the United States, and they had left the river a few weeks previously, the three traders at Nuklakayet buying their little river steamer, which the former owners had named the "New Racket." The wages of these traders had been reduced by the Alaska Company in order to contract expenses, so that the company might make a small percentage on the large capital invested, until the traders found themselves without sufficient means to live upon, and they had bought the boat intending to organize a small trading company of their own upon the river unless their former wages were restored. The Scheffelin mining expedition was an expensive one, and remarkably well "outfitted" in every necessary department. The large number of Eskimo dogs at Nuklakayet had been selected by him for the purpose of sledging expeditions in winter time. He thought seriously of invading the prospective gold fields of Africa as his next venture, showing plainly the roving spirit which had served him so well in the arid deserts of Arizona. No one could meet him anywhere without wishing him good luck in his wild adventures, for he was the prince of good fellows.

The "New Racket" left us very early in the morning, having tied up alongside of camp the night before, while we started about the usual time, an hour after daylight. About 3:30 P.M. that day—the 12th—we passed a very considerable Indian village called Sakadelontin, composed of a number of birch-bark houses and some ten or twelve caches, and containing probably fifty or sixty people. It is one of the few large villages to be found at any great distance from a trading station. Before reaching it we observed a number of native coffins perched up in the trees, the first and only ones we saw so situated on the river. All day on the 12th and 13th a heavy gale from the south made even drifting difficult. Upon a couple of northward-trending stretches of the river that were encountered on the 13th we set the jib, and spun along at the rate of six or seven miles an hour. At one place where we were held against the high banks by the force of the gale, we went ashore, and much to our surprise found a most prolific huckleberry patch, where we all regaled ourselves as long as the wind lasted. These berries were quite common along this part of the river, and nearly every canoe that put off from a camp or village would have one or two trays or bowls of wood or birch-bark full of them, which the natives wanted to trade for tea or tobacco. We camped in what is called by the river steamer men the "cut-off slough," just south of the mouth of the Koyukuk River, a northern tributary of considerable dimensions, which empties into the Yukon at a point where it makes a short but bold bend to the north, the "slough" making the route about one-fifth shorter. The mouth of the tributary is marked by the Koyukuk Sopka (hill), a high eminence which is visible for many miles around. This feature is characteristic of this part of the Yukon Valley, isolated hills and peaks often rising precipitously from a perfectly level country.

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The 14th saw us make Nulato, quite an historical place on the river. It was the furthest inland trading station of the old Russian-American Fur Company at the time of our purchase of Alaska, and had been used as such by them, under different names, for nearly a quarter of a century. It was occupied by the traders of the Alaska Company until a year or two before my arrival, as well as by traders of the "opposition," when the killing of one of the latter led to trouble with the Indians, so that both companies withdrew.

Many years ago, one cold winter night, the Russians of the station were massacred, along with a number of friendly Indians who had assembled around the station. In this disaster fell an English naval officer, Lieutenant Barnard by name, who was looking for traces of Sir John Franklin, even in this out-of-the-way corner of the earth. A respectable head-board marks his grave, but the high grass and willows have buried it almost out of sight.

Here also lies buried a locally noted Russian character of hard reputation, Kerchinikoff by name, whose story was told me by more than one of the traders, who had known him and heard of his doings in his adventurous career. It was romancingly said by way of illustrating his prowess among the native tribes, that if the skulls of his Indian victims had been heaped together in his grave they would not only fill it but enough would have remained to erect a high monument to his memory. He died at a great age, having been from his very youth a terror to all the tribes on the lower river, but wholly in the interests, as he interpreted them, of the great iron monopoly to which he belonged. Many years ago the few Russian traders of the Andreavsky station had been massacred by the Indians. Kerchinikoff asked for protection and a sufficient force to punish the murderers, and those at Nulato transmitted his request to the headquarters of the Russian Fur Company at far-off Sitka, but did not receive even the courtesy of an answer. With one or two companions he put a couple of old rusty Russian carronades in the prow of his trading boat,—the identical one on which we were drifting down the river, and which he himself had built—and in lieu of proper ammunition, which he was unable to get, he loaded his guns with spikes, hinges and whatever scraps of iron and lead he could pick up around Michaeloffski, and appearing suddenly before the Indian village, demanded the surrender of the murderers. The natives gathered in a great crowd on the shore of the river, laughing derisively at his apparently absurd demands, having never even heard of such a thing as a cannon. Spears were hurled and arrows shot at the boat, which thereupon slowly approached, having its cannon pointed at the dense crowd. When an arrow buried itself in the prow, the terrible report of the two carronades made answer, and about a score of Indians were stretched upon the beach, while the wounded and panic-stricken fled in great numbers to the woods for protection. From that day not a single drop of white man's blood was ever shed by any savages upon the lower river, until Kerchinikoff himself, while lying on his sledge in a drunken stupor, was stabbed to death almost within a stone's throw of the graves of those whom he had avenged.

We landed at Upper Nulato (the "opposition" store), and here encountered a half-breed who spoke tolerable English, and who pointed out the places just mentioned.

"Hello, where you come?" was his first question, to which we briefly replied, one of the members of the party remarking it was quite windy hereabouts, referring to the three or four days' gale we had had.

"Allee time like that now," was his cheerful answer. This neatly-dressed young fellow took me down to his cache, and seemed especially delighted in showing me his new "parka," or reindeer coat, for winter wear. It was one of the highly-prized "spotted" parkas. The spotted reindeer are bred only in Asia, and their hides—for the tribe owning them will never allow the live animals to be taken away—find their way into Alaska by way of Bering's Straits by means of intertribal barter, while numbers are brought by the Alaska Company from Russian ports on that side, and are used as trading material with such tribes as wear reindeer clothing. I offered a good price for this particular "parka," but the owner would not part with it, as they are especially valuable and tolerably rare at this distance up the river, and only the wealthiest Indians can afford to buy them. He told me this was the only one at Nulato at the time, but I did not know how much faith might be put in the statement. Bad as the weather was, we got a good series of observations on the sun, while at Nulato, on the afternoon of the 14th.

On the 15th the old familiar gale from ahead put in its appearance as we started in the morning, but to every body's great surprise it hauled to the rear in the middle of the afternoon, and when we camped at 8:20 P.M., having used our jib in sailing, an Indian from a village near by told us the place was called Kaltag; so that we had made an extraordinary run under all the circumstances. Indian villages were quite numerous during the day. About Kaltag occurs the last point on the river at which high ground comes down to the water's edge on the left side, and for the rest of the voyage, a distance of some five hundred miles, precipitous banks only are found on the right side, while the country to the left resembles the flat-lands seen further back, but the horizon is much more limited than that of the flat-lands, hills appearing in the background, which finally become isolated peaks, or short broken ranges.

The morning of the 16th ushered in a heavy gale from ahead, accompanied by a deluge of showers, and as the camp, 57, was fortunately situated at a point where all the channels were united, so that the river steamer could not pass unnoticed, I determined to remain over.

It would be as tiresome to my readers as it was aggravating to us, to repeat in detail the old story of our starting with a fair wind, its change to a gale that kept us against the banks, and of our passing a few Indian towns.

This continuous drifting against a head wind taught us one singular thing, however, viz.: that our boat would drift faster against this wind when turned broadside to it and exposing the greatest surface to its action, than when facing it bow or stern on and with a minimum of exposed surface; this fact being the very reverse of what we had supposed, indeed, we had endeavored to avoid this very position. Thereafter we kept the "barka" broadside to the head wind, a very difficult undertaking, which required hard and constant work at the steering oar; but the mile or mile and a-half an hour gained over the vessel's drift was well worth it. I spoke of this afterward to the river men and found they had long since anticipated me by a much easier contrivance, viz.: by tying an anchor or a large camp-kettle full of stones and suspending it from the end of the jib-boom so that it would trail in the water. This method, a number of them assured me, would have saved our work at the steering oar which we rigged at the stern.

The 18th and 19th we fought our way down the river, inch by inch, against the wind. The latter night the storm culminated in a perfect hurricane, felling trees in the forest, hurling brush through the air, and raising waves four and five feet high, from whose crests flew great white masses of foam, the wide river resembling a sheet of boiling milk in the darkness. Although we were in a well-sheltered cove, which had remained calm the evening before, even in the high wind, yet this gale sent in such huge waves that our "barka" was on the point of being wrecked, and was only saved by the severest labor of the crew. The little birch-bark canoe was swept from her deck and thrown high up on the beach, where it resembled a mass of brown wrapping paper which the storm had beaten down upon the stones. The gale slowly died down on the 20th, but ceased too late to give us a chance to start, and we remained over night, a heavy fog and rain terminating the day.

On the 21st we saw a couple of oomiens, (bidarra—Russian) or large skin-boats being hauled up stream by native dogs on the bank, somewhat after the fashion of canal-horses on a tow-path. We had baffling winds most of the day, some few of which we could take advantage of, but at 6 P.M. the wind had settled down to its regular "dead-ahead" gale.

We camped at half-past nine o'clock at Hall's Rapids, (named by Raymond), but found them at the time of our visit to consist only of some rough water along the rocky beach, while the high land mapped by him on the south-eastern bank was wanting. As I said before, the high land on the right bank with low country upon the left is a state of things which continues until the delta is reached, when the whole country becomes level.

About six or seven o'clock in the afternoon we were passing the upper ends or entrances, seven of them altogether, of the Shagelook slough, which here makes a great bend to the eastward and incloses an area larger than some of the New England states before it again meets the Yukon River far beyond. This Shagelook slough receives the Innoka River in its upper portion and when the Yukon is the higher of the two it carries part of its waters into the upper entrances of the slough receiving the waters of the Innoka, and both streams emptying themselves at the slough's lower end. When the Innoka is the higher its waters find an outlet into the Yukon by the upper mouths. We now began to feel anxious about the "Yukon," as she was very much overdue. From this point she could make St. Michael's in three or four days, and although we had received official assurances from Washington that the revenue cutter "Corwin" would not leave St. Michael's before the 15th of September, yet there was fear that the boat might pass us or the "Corwin" find some official emergency to call her elsewhere before this date.

The night of the 21st-22d, was a bitterly cold one, verging on freezing, and we slept soundly after our loss of sleep the night before. We started quite early, however, and a little meteorological surprise in the shape of a favorable wind came to our aid after 10 A. M., and at 1:30 P.M. we landed at the mouth of the Anvic or Anvik. The picturesquely-situated trading station is about a mile or a mile and a-quarter above this point, but the shoals were so numerous, the channel so winding, that this was the nearest point we could make, especially with a foul wind. Right alongside of us was a large Indian village, where we learned to our satisfaction that the "Yukon" had not yet passed; for one of the party at our last camp had interpreted some Indian information to mean that the boat had passed down two days before.

From this place I sent a courier to St. Michael's, who was to ascend the Anvik River to the head of canoe navigation, and thence to make a short portage to a stream emptying near the post, the entire distance being readily covered in three days, or in two if sufficient energy is displayed. He promised to be there without fail in three days, i.e., by the 25th, and I paid him a little extra for the extra exertion. He arrived about a week after I did and we were ten days in reaching St. Michael's from this point. My object was to let the "Corwin" know that my party was coming. The "Leo," an Alaskan trading schooner, was also expected to touch at St. Michael's to exchange some signal officers, and I sent word to her, requesting her to wait for us if the "Corwin" had gone. Mr. Fredericksen was the trader, and a very intelligent person for such a lonely and outlandish spot. He had been furnished with meteorological instruments by the Signal Service, to which he made regular reports. He informed me that he has seen ice of such depth by the 4th of September as to cut the thick covering of a bidarra or oomien; but this, of course, is very unusual. The year before our arrival—1882—the ice did not form until the 12th of October, and the first of that month may be regarded as the average date of its formation.

Mr. Fredericksen warmly welcomed my arrival at his station, having recently had some serious trouble with the Indians, who were not even yet quieted. A number of Shagelooks, as he termed them, had come down the river, a short time before, to meet the Greek priest from the mission at Ikogmute, who had come to Anvik in order to baptize them. While the Shagelooks were waiting for the priest, they arranged a plot to rob the trader. Some one or two of them were to provoke him in some exasperating way, and if he showed any resistance or even annoyance, the others were to side with their fellows, seize the trader and secure him until his store was plundered and the booty removed, when he was to be liberated, or murdered if aggressive. In some way the Anviks got an inkling of the plot, and prepared to side with Mr. Fredericksen, and when the preliminaries commenced with the cutting open of one of the trader's finest skin-boats—bidarra—the Shagelooks saw themselves confronted by such an array of well-armed Anvik Indians, that they were perfectly satisfied to let the business drop. The christening was carried out according to programme, but the baffled Shagelooks vowed vengeance on both the Anviks and the trader whenever an opportunity might occur, and they were not reticent in so informing him at their departure, hinting that their turn might come when the Anviks left to hunt reindeer for their winter supply of clothing. That season would soon be at hand, and the Anviks had the alternative of losing their autumn hunting or of leaving the station in a weakened condition at their departure. The arrival of a body of troops, small in number as we were, was a cause of congratulation, and Mr. Fredericksen intended to make the most out of it with discontented natives by way of strengthening his position.

We could do absolutely nothing for him. When the president withdrew the military forces from Alaska, the executive order had "clinched" the act by providing that the military should exercise no further control whatever in that vast territory, and my orders had emphatically repeated the clause. In fact, it was a debatable point whether my expedition was not strictly an illegal one, and in direct violation of the president's order, since it was simply impossible to send in a military party that might not exercise control over its own members, which is all that soldiers ever do without an order from the president, and as to an attack by Indians we had the universal right of self-preservation. I told Mr. Fredericksen, however, to make the most out of my visit, which I suppose he did.

A foresail was borrowed from him, with which I could make my way from the mouth of the river to St. Michael's, should any accident have happened to the "Yukon." It was too large and would have to be cut to fit, an expedient to which I did not intend to resort until we reached the mouth of the river.

ANVIK.

(Looking down both the Yukon and Anvik Rivers.)