276 WHALING 



away. That evening the dogs returned to the village, and 

 having bargained for their use, Alexis informed me that we 

 could resume our journey the following day. It is wonderful how 

 soon one can become accustomed to odd conditions, for I awoke 

 the next morning without any bad effects, and from that on 

 never particularly noticed the odour of the huts." 



With fresh dogs, Lieutenant Bertholf's division followed 

 Lieutenant Jarvis. They reached Andreafski on December 

 27th and struck down the Yukon, where they met occasional 

 parties of miners, and so to Point Romanof, wdth various 

 catastrophes of their own. 



Lieutenant Jarvis, meanwhile, had gone on two days before 

 toward Cape Prince of Wales to start the deer up the coast, and 

 had left a letter directing Lieutenant Bertholf to take a thou- 

 sand pounds of provisions from Unalaklik across the portage to 

 Kotzebue Sound and meet him at Cape Blossom. 



After resting his footsore dogs and getting deerskin clothing, 

 deerskin boots, and a deerskin sleeping bag, Bertholf again took 

 the trail with a native boy as his guide. It was only sixty 

 miles from St. Michaels to Unalaklik, but the trail followed the 

 shore and the ice had piled up in hummocks and barriers of 

 every description, and the journey took three days. At 

 Unalaklik he waited a week for fresh dogs, then, despairing 

 of them, pushed on with his old team, hoping to pick up re- 

 placements at one trading post or another; only to be disap- 

 pointed at each. From Kayuk, where he at last got hold of 

 two makeshift dog teams and a train of reindeer and deer-sleds, 

 he set out at the end of January — the thermometer was register- 

 ing from 35 degrees to 40 degrees below zero during the day — 

 and reached Cape Blossom on the evening of February 11th. 



There he learned that Lieutenant Jarvis and his party 

 had overtaken a Government herd of deer beyond St. Michaels 

 and, sending back the dogs, had continued the journey with 

 deer-sleds. They were unable to keep that particular Govern- 

 ment herd because it was to be sent up the Yukon for the relief 

 of the miners, but Jarvis had got one hundred and thirty-eight 

 deer on credit from an Esquimau — which was in itself a notable 



