The Return to Fort IVrangell 



ing us broadside on. At length we discovered a little 

 inlet, into which we gladly escaped. A pure-white 

 iceberg, weathered to the form of a cross, stood amid 

 drifts of kelp and the black rocks of the wave-beaten 

 shore in sign of safety and welcome. A good fire soon 

 warmed and dried us into common comfort. Our nar- 

 row escape was the burden of conversation as we sat 

 around the fire. Captain Toyatte told us of two simi- 

 lar adventures while he was a strong young man. In 

 both of them his canoe was smashed and he swam 

 ashore out of the surge with a gun in his teeth. He 

 says that if we had struck the rocks he and Mr. Young 

 would have been drowned, all the rest of us probably 

 would have been saved. Then, turning to me, he 

 asked me if I could have made a fire in such a case 

 without matches, and found a way to Wrangell with- 

 out canoe or food. 



We started about daybreak from our blessed white 

 cross harbor, and, after rounding a bluff cape oppo- 

 site the mouth of Wrangell Narrows, a fleet of ice- 

 bergs came in sight, and of course I was eager to trace 

 them to their source. Toyatte naturally enough was 

 greatly excited about the safety of his canoe and 

 begged that we should not venture to force a way 

 through the bergs, risking the loss of the canoe and 

 our lives now that we were so near the end of our 

 long voyage. 



"Oh, never fear, Toyatte," I replied. "You know 

 we are always lucky — the weather is good. I only 

 want to see the Thunder Glacier for a few minutes, 

 and should the bergs be packed dangerously close, 



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