282 THE LAST VOYAGE OF THE KARLUK 
then made our way ashore on foot. It was about 
eight o’clock in the evening when, with a feeling of 
great relief, I set foot at last on American soil. 
Captain Pederson had given me some American 
clothing to take the place of the furs I had been 
wearing for so many months. He accompanied 
me to the wireless station, but when we got there 
we found that the office was closed. 
We walked on in the direction of the town of St. 
Michael’s and on our way I was overjoyed to meet 
Hugh J. Lee, the United States Marshal. I had 
met him in Nome the previous summer, which was 
the first time I had seen him since 1896. He had 
been with Peary on his Greenland ice-cap trip in 
1892 and had been on the Hope in 1896 when she 
touched in at Turnavick on the Labrador, my 
father’s fishing-station, where I was spending a 
summer vacation. He was astonished to see me in 
St. Michaels and wanted to know what on earth 
I was doing there. A few brief explanations put 
him in touch with the situation and I felt that I was 
in the hands of a good friend. 
Lee took me to the agent of the Northern Com¬ 
mercial Company, which has a large trading-house 
at St, Michael’s, and I was given a good room in 
the winter hotel where the company’s employees 
are quartered. The summer hotel was closed. 
Lee and I sat up until late that night, talking over 
