290 THE LAST VOYAGE OF THE KARLUK 
Later on I was with him on many of his ornitho¬ 
logical expeditions and learned a good deal about 
ducks from him. He could tell at a glance the 
sex and species of a bird; to the average man, even 
to many a fairly experienced hunter, a duck is a 
duck. On the Bear I found another ornithologist, 
an enthusiast named Hershey, who left us later on 
and went over to the mouth of the Yukon. 
The latter part of June I went over to Nome to 
wait for the Bear. I was feeling better all the time, 
and looked forward to being on my way to Wrangell 
Island before many weeks. 
At Nome I was the guest of Mr. Japhet Linder- 
berg, mine-owner and operator, who in many ways 
might be called the Cecil Rhodes of Alaska. There 
was no limit to his kindness and generosity to me. 
Though he has made a fortune in gold-mining he 
works as hard as ever and attends personally to a 
vast number of details. The forty-two-mile ditch¬ 
line that conveys water to his sluices is the result of 
an idea of his own and he still gives it his personal 
attention, going over it frequently to see that every¬ 
thing is all right. The season is short in Nome 
and the expense of mining is great; whatever is to 
be done must be done between the middle of June 
and the middle of September, and without water 
very little could be done at all. 
