TWO DIANAS IN ALASKA 181 



changed out go the slim red feet, and make the 

 balance perfect. 



For one evening the wraith of the mist hung on 

 the skirts of the horizon, and no fog banks dimmed 

 the lustre of a perfect scene. Perhaps the silence, 

 the loneliness, the fierce, sad splendour of the chill 

 and haunting North, had never before seemed so in- 

 sistent as the sun sank, lighting up a path of glowing 

 glory for so far as the eye coulft reach, and rising 

 high beside us, sombre and grand, the great rocks of 

 Hagemeister Island, set in a waste of desolate waters, 

 a facetted jewel in a crowned world. 



Around Cape Newenham races the strongest tidal 

 current of the Bering Sea, an'd our skipper, fore- 

 warned, took precautions accordingly, and gave the 

 Cape a wide berth. Even so we felt the giant hands 

 of the deep drawing us nearer, and ever nearer, to the 

 coast. At times the strong ship turned as though 

 she were on a fixed pivot, so little progress made she, 

 so strong were the eddies and whirlpools arouncl her. 

 Captain Clemsen, or, more properly speaking, the 

 pilot, had not miscalculated, and we cleared the fear- 

 some place with a few hundred yards to spare. 



Far out of the swirling, whirling rapids we caught 

 a glimpse of two fur seals, the first we had seen, 

 bobbing and curtseying on the waves. Their shrift 

 would be short if the spirit of Wanderlust took them 

 much closer to shore. Steve and Ned looked long- 

 ingly at the bidarkas, and in fancy threw the deftest 

 of deft spears, but the sea ran much too strong to 

 permit of hunting seals. 



