[52 BIG GAME SHOOTING IN ALASKA chap. 



Nicolai on this occasion was alone in his wonderful little 

 bidarki, which easily went clean away from us in the first few 

 miles. That evening we camped on a large island about 

 one and a half miles from the mainland. This place had 

 formerly been a favourite haunt of caribou, which at certain 

 seasons of the year would swim from the mainland to the 

 island, and we found a great number of old shed horns lying 

 all over the ground. Here also I came across fresh bear- 

 tracks, showing that the bears also did not mind a long swim. 

 Not a sign of any brushwood was to be found growing, and 

 once more it was a case of hunting for driftwood for cooking 

 purposes. Early on the following morning we crossed over 

 to the mainland, and skirting the shore for some distance 

 camped in sight of the walrus island. The wind was blowing 

 from there towards the shore, and as it is absolutely necessary 

 to get a favourable wind in order to approach walruses, owing 

 to their very keen power of smelling danger at a great 

 distance, I determined to explore the island that evening. 

 I feared the result would be a blank, since the island lay 

 barely two miles away, and we were certain that if there had 

 been any walruses on it we should have heard them making 

 a noise. 



Taking both natives and the bidarki, I crossed to one end 

 of the island, and here from a small knoll surveyed the whole 

 of it with the glasses. As we expected, no sign of a walrus 

 was to be seen. The island was rather over a mile in length 

 and about 200 yards wide, being merely a long low sand- 

 bank with high rough grass growing all over it. The 

 walruses always hauled out on a sandspit at one end of the 

 island, and on a closer inspection of this place it was evident 

 that none had as yet visited the island during that season, 

 since there were no great holes in the sand where they had 



