WE ARRIVE AT EAST CAPE
The next morning, April 19, we started off with the two sledges. I had our own dogs harnessed in the team that drew the sledge on which I rode and had with me the pemmican that we had left and other essentials, so that about all that we finally left behind was our sledge. I should have liked to keep the sledge and bring it all the way home with me, but the Chukches liked the looks of it and they would find it useful in travelling over the rough ice. I could get along without it, and I was beginning now to feel the long strain and wanted to hurry on by the fastest means possible.
As we travelled, two to each sledge, one man would ride while the other walked. The sledges used by the natives, from Cape North east, are about sixteen feet long, two-and-a-half feet wide and eight inches high. The framework is light and rather crudely made. The runners are four inches wide. When the snow is hard they do not use steel shoes; instead they coat the runners with ice. They always keep a bottle of water inside their clothing and carry a piece of bearskin with them. At frequent intervals during the day they pour water on the bearskin and rub it over the runners; it freezes quickly and forms a coating of ice which reduces the friction, whereas a steel shoe in extreme cold has a tendency to cling to the snow. When the weather gets warm enough so that the snow is at the melting stage they use the steel shoes.
They seldom use a whip; instead they are more likely to use a stick about three feet long with a heavy spear-point on the end. Along this stick are several rings which jingle and rattle against each other and make the dogs quicken their speed. They use this stick as a brake when the sledge is going down hill, setting it up at the forward end and letting the spear-point scratch along; in this way they keep the sledge from running over the dogs. They have large teams of dogs and can get over the ground rapidly. If all went well we should now be able to make far greater progress than had been possible with our small number of worn-out dogs.
We went back across the entrance to Koliuchin Bay to Cape Onman and followed the bay shore to a point about fifteen miles from Mr. Olsen’s place. About two hours before we reached the aranga where we were to spend the night my guide stopped the sledge and informed me that he was not going to East Cape with me. He said he would go on to the aranga and the other man would take us on to Mr. Olsen’s place and then we could go on by ourselves.
“How about the forty dollars?” I asked. “Don’t you want it?”
He had been thinking things over, he said, and he had decided that as he had a lot of deerskins back in the country and must get them before some one else did, the money I had agreed to pay him was not enough to compensate him for the risk he would take, for if he went clear through to East Cape he would get back too late. The fact was, as I could easily see, that he knew that forty dollars was much too high a price for the job he had undertaken, and he was afraid that if I got to a place where I could talk with some white man about it, I would learn that and refuse to pay. Apparently he had little confidence in a white man’s word.
I listened to the explanation he offered about the deerskins and said, “All right,—we will let it go at that.”
We came to our stopping-place on the western shore of Koliuchin Bay late in the afternoon. The man who lived in the aranga came out and asked me in. I saw to it that everything that I had on the sledge was taken off and put in the aranga and that our five dogs were fed and cared for. I was just pulling off my boots and stockings when the man from Koliuchin Island came in and said, “Me want money to bring you here.”
“Not a cent!” I answered. He was silent for some time. Then I decided that I would show him that I could be a good sport, so I said I would give him five dollars. I showed him the forty-five dollars that I carried with me and said that if he had taken me to East Cape he would have had the four ten-dollar bills. He said never a word but took the five-dollar bill that I handed over to him and without waiting to thank me started back over the road. And now we had no sledge.