180 HUNTING IN THE ARCTIC 



"For ten days we lay in Fort Gibbon waiting for a 

 steamer to come along. We had hardly anything to eat 

 and naturally no money to pay for steamship fares. 

 Finally, however, we managed to work om- way down 

 as far as Kaltag. Here they threw us off. After we 

 had tried uselessly to get down on the river to St. Michael 

 we mushed across overland to Unaliklik, about ninety 

 miles of the worst roads you could find because the 

 tundra was all soft in summer. There were a half dozen 

 of us. We found some Eskimos who had a boat and 

 promised to take us to Nome if we would work our way 

 for them. They treated us badly and did not give us 

 enough to eat. We were blown around by the wind 

 for several weeks, but at last we got there and I spent 

 a month on the beach at Nome. Nome was as bad as 

 Fort Gibbon and there was no job that could be had." 



Fritz, the other sailor, broke in here: ''Why didn't 

 you eat dried salmon and the other good things that you 

 can find on the beach at Nome?" 



"I have no taste for that," replied Ed. ''Our first 

 thought was to break into a bank, but we could not find 

 one that looked easy enough. I expect my father has 

 disinherited me by this time," he concluded gloomily. 



"Well," said Fritz, when Ed had finished his sad 

 story, "I never was so down on my luck and black in the 

 face about it as you were, you lazy bum. I ran away 

 from my home in Bremerhafen, Germany, when I was 

 twelve years old, because my father apprenticed me to a 

 farmer who treated me badly. I just stuck a sandwich 

 in my pocket and went off and got on a ship belonging 

 to some Danish sailors and cruised around England for a 

 few years, finally landing in Sweden. I have always had 

 great faith in sandwiches. 



