96 HUNTING IN THE ARCTIC 



At a seemly hour after breakfast the captain, mate 

 and Chukchi sailors started work. Most of the morning 

 was spent in placing it on trestles and rigging shears and 

 tackle for turning it over. The day shift also chipped 

 ofif a strip along the lower part of the steel plate so that 

 the stock would project down deep enough to fashion 

 into a pintle. Aside from this the captain spent much of 

 the day in making cold chisels from steel obtained on the 

 "Bear," but they proved too brittle and broke against 

 the extremely tough metal of the rudder. None of them 

 proved serviceable. 



During that afternoon we made the acquaintance of 

 an old man, J. H. Wood, the United States Commis- 

 sioner, who formerly lived in New York State and now 

 kept the principal store in this village. He had recently 

 lost his wife and was lonely. As I came out of the store 

 Kleinschmidt casually asked me if he could raise five 

 hundred dollars among the four of us. But it happened 

 that we did not have that amount of cash altogether. I 

 heard no more of this and presumably Kleinschmidt had 

 to break into his letter of credit in order to replenish the 

 provisions for our journey into the Arctic. 



After supper the night shift went to its job in high 

 spirits, directed by Larsson. 



It was remarkable how nearly the picked-up rudder 

 fitted the "Abler." The steel stock, three and a half 

 inches thick, was exactly the right size, but about three 

 feet too long at the top; the lower end, which fitted into 

 a hole in the skeg, had to be trimmed down to a two- 

 inch diameter for about three inches of its length, and a 

 strip must be sheared off the plate across the bottom of 

 the whole rudder about four feet distance (which was 

 done by the day shift on the first day). Then a square 



