224 THE LAST VOYAGE OF THE KARLUK 
In a moment another Russian came along; his 
ability to speak English intelligibly proved to be 
less than the first man’s. By paying careful at¬ 
tention to what he was saying I was able to tell 
approximately what he was trying to say, and thus 
we managed to surmount the barrier of language. 
I gathered that he had been a longshoreman in 
Seattle and that he knew that Mr. Taft had been 
president of the United States. He asked me, in 
fact, if I knew him. 
While we were standing there Kataktovick 
came up and asked me what he should do. 
“You take out the dogs,” I said, “and come with 
me.” 
In the excitement at seeing a white stranger come 
along in this unexpected way no one thought for 
the moment of asking us to come into the aranga; 
there was no intentional inhospitality—they all 
simply forgot to do the honors. 
After a few more attempts at conversation be¬ 
tween the Russians and myself, a native came along 
and said, “You old man?” 
His question puzzled me at first; presently it 
dawned on me that he was speaking in nautical par¬ 
lance and wanted to know if I was a captain. 
“Yes,” I replied. 
“You come below in my cabin, old man,” he 
said, meaning that I was to go into his aranga. 
