Thursday, October seventeenth.
Yesterday in Seward was about as every other day. We spent it between letter-writing in our hotel room and visiting from store to store. It poured rain and blew from the southeast. We spent our evening with the German. We have planned with him to signal back and forth from Seward, particularly to send me the news of peace. If I can distinguish, with glasses a high-powered electric light that he will show from a house on the highest point in the town, then, by means of the Morse code with which I am furnished and which he knows, I’ll receive messages on appointed days.
To-night Rockwell and I went a quarter of a mile down our beach to a point that commands a view up the bay to Seward and lighted a bonfire there. Boehm, the German, was regarding us, we presume, through a telescope. On Sunday night, if it is clear, we are to look for his light. The difficulty will be to distinguish it from others.
We left Seward this morning at 9.45, our dory laden with about one thousand pounds of freight—including ourselves. The little three and one half horse-power motor worked splendidly and carried us to the island in a little over two and a quarter hours. The day was calm, to begin with, with a rising north wind as we crossed from Caine’s Head. On the island we found a visitor. There had been two other men but they were gone to Seward the night before. All had been on Monday forced by the rough sea to turn back from attempting to go around the westward cape. The old fellow who is still here told me to-night that in the twenty years that he had been in Alaska he had never seen such weather. That’s good news. At Seward the mountains are covered with snow to within a few hundred feet of the town’s level. I’m tired. This ends to-day. Incidentally my dates proved to be correct when I reached Seward.
ADVENTURE
Oh, I’ve almost forgotten our loss. The poor magpie lay dead on the floor of his cage. So we found him, killed, I believe, by the storm, for Olson neglected to cover him. Rockwell, who straight on landing had run there, wept bitterly but finally found much consolation in giving him a very decent burial and marking the spot with a wooden cross.