176 BIG GAME SHOOTING IN ALASKA chap, x 



The first evening we camped on the river-bank, and the 

 second we pitched the tents on a long strip of land which 

 runs out into the lake. Yet another day was spent mostly 

 in hard rowing, as we encountered the usual Alaskan head 

 wind, which soon kicked up a big sea. Kussiloff Lake is over 

 thirty miles long, and on the third evening after leaving 

 Kussiloff we reached the farthest end. Here there is the 

 headquarters of a mining company, and also the cabin of a 

 man called Andrew Berg, who is the most celebrated hunter 

 on the Kenai Peninsula. We had previously met him at 

 Kussiloff, and he kindly offered me the use of his cabin, of 

 which we availed ourselves, as it was then empty. The cabin 

 contained a number of trophies of the chase, and many 

 curious and ingenious appliances made by Berg himself for 

 use in his various occupations. 



Here we held a council of war, and it was decided to 

 divide our parties, Little and Glyn with two natives going 

 across the lake in a westerly direction. They intended to 

 pack some miles into the mountains, and hunt the ground on 

 which Little and Colonel Cane had killed their sheep in the 

 previous season. 



Taking the other two natives, whose names were Pitka 

 and Simeon, I started on the following morning in the 

 opposite direction, making for the head of a stream called 

 Indian Creek, where both Little and my natives had hunted 

 in former seasons, and where the sheep were said to inhabit 

 fairly easy ground. It was this last consideration which 

 decided me to go there, as I am a very poor hand at scaling 

 dangerous places, and am utterly unable to negotiate a 

 typical bit of ibex or chamois country owing to that deadly 

 feeling of giddiness which no amount of practice seems to 

 lessen. 



