326 THE LAST VOYAGE OF THE KARLUK 
Eskimo on its hands during the winter, so the 
easiest way out of the difficulty was to get the Bear 
to take them aboard and carry them to their home 
at King Island, seventy miles away. When we 
reached there we found that the Eskimo lived in 
clefts in the rocky cliffs; they were cliff-dwellers. 
It was a dreary view that met our eyes that cold, 
windy September morning, but the Eskimo were 
delighted for to them it was home. 
Leaving King Island we called at the school¬ 
master’s at St. Lawrence Island, to leave mail and 
provisions from Nome. The latter were badly 
needed, for short rations had been the order of the 
day for some time. Steaming around the western 
end of the island through a smooth sea under bril¬ 
liant sunshine, we were at last definitely bound 
south. 
With St. Matthew’s Island a-beam, the next 
morning, our wireless reported that all the boats 
from the Tahoma had been picked up; we had 
heard the S. O. S. call from the Tahoma a day or 
so before. As we afterward learned, the Cordova, 
anchored in the roadstead at Nome, had picked up 
the Tahoma 3 s call and had gone to her assistance. 
The Tahoma had struck an uncharted shoal about 
a hundred miles south of Agattu Island, one of 
the western Aleutians, and had become a total loss. 
The officers and crew had reached land in the ship’s 
