298 THE LAST VOYAGE OF THE KARLUK 
way north, for in addition to being the mail-boat, 
she had to bring help to the needy, act as a kind 
of travelling law-court, carry school-teachers and 
missionaries around from place to place and make 
herself generally useful. It was a great relief to 
me to be really doing something at last, after so 
many weeks of inaction. My thoughts were con¬ 
stantly on the castaways and I wondered how things 
had been going with them since the middle of 
March. 
We had a pleasant ship’s company. I slept in 
the captain’s cabin. On the port side in a ham¬ 
mock was the Reverend Doctor Hoar, who was ac¬ 
companying us as far as his mission station at 
Point Hope. In another hammock was Mr. 
Shields, the Alaskan Superintendent of Educa¬ 
tion, an able young man who has done wonders 
with the means at his disposal to foster the spirit 
of thrift among the Eskimo in their reindeer-herd¬ 
ing. He knows every nook and cranny from 
Nome to Point Barrow and has won the respect 
and admiration of the Eskimo everywhere. On 
the starboard side were Hershey and E. Swift 
Train, who was taking motion-pictures and gather¬ 
ing material for the use of schools. 
Just across the way was the wardroom and a 
finer set of men than the officers of the Bear I never 
met. They had the latchstring always out. I was 
