©Ip Harbor 



found the current running very hard and with a choppy sea besides, but the 

 wind was too strong for us to get back to the southern shore. So there was 

 nothing to do but to take the chance and keep on the course. 



Immediately as we struck the current the waves began to wash over the 

 gunwales of the boat and before we had time to throw any of the load 

 overboard it filled and sank. The dory got rid of its heavy load of camp 

 supplies and came to the surface and we clung to it. It was the 8th of 

 September and the temperature of the water surely very near the freezing 

 point, and as we drifted along, more in the water than above and five miles 

 from the nearest shore, our position was almost beyond hope. First we had 

 to witness the drowning of my faithful greyhounds, that had followed us 

 all the way from Australia. They could not get on the boat with us, and 

 refusing to leave us and swim ashore, they kept swimming around and 

 around till they got numbed and finally drowned before our eyes. 



We spent hours with the wrecked boat, and as the darkness came on 

 and the cold increased Jensen got more and more numbed and began to lose 

 his grip and slip off into the water. I chanced to get hold of him every 

 time and pulled him up on the boat again, but discovered soon, to my grief, 

 that he would not last till we drifted on shore. And so the time came when 

 he vanished forever into the darkness. 



I shall not try to describe my feelings in the long hours spent alone on 

 the wrecked boat, but only state that by mere chance of luck I drifted past 

 a spit of the northern shore close enough to be heard by natives who came 

 to my rescue in a large skin boat. I figured then to have spent nearly six 

 hours in the water and was unable to walk. The natives had to carry me 

 from their boat to their skin-house, where I was helped to undress and bed- 

 ded in deerskin robes. 



Next morning, after a weary sleep, I found the ground covered with 

 snow. Of course I had now to give up my plan of wintering in Siberia. Be- 

 sides the loss of my sole companion, the most of my provisions, guns and 

 ammunition were gone and the only thing to do was to seek the Northeast- 

 ern Siberian Co's station at the mouth of the bay and wait for the first ship 

 to take me to some American port. What was left of provisions, etc., in my 

 camp I gave to my friends, the Tchoukchees, for service and hospitality ren- 

 dered me, and decided to spend the winter in Nome, Alaska, and in spite of 

 my bad luck this year to return next spring, I took passage with the Amer- 

 ican gasolene schooner, P. J. Abler, arriving at Nome on October 5, 1908. 



(To be Continued.} 



