Baron Kleist had a fine house at Emma Harbor. It was well built of heavy timbers, the materials having been brought from Vladivostock five years before. It cost about fifteen thousand dollars, I believe, and was warm and comfortable. The baron had an excellent chef and we enjoyed a substantial breakfast, which in almost no time after our arrival had been prepared for us. Then the baron’s own physician, Doctor Golovkoff, who had been with him through the Russo-Japanese War, looked after my legs and throat. He took me under his especial care during my stay and had me in pretty good condition by the time I left.
It was a pleasure for me to find myself once more in a comfortable home. The baroness was spending the winter visiting her relatives in Russia but the numerous touches of a feminine hand were unmistakable throughout the establishment.
At Emma Harbor I met Mr. Thompson, who had a trading-store there. Born on the Baltic, he had been a sea-faring man in his earlier days, serving in German, French and English ships, and could speak English very well. He told me that Captain Pederson had been in the neighborhood with his new ship, the Herman, and through him I got a Chukch to take a letter to the captain, telling him where I was and asking him if it would be possible for him to call for me and take me across to the American shore.
Mr. Caraieff had a brother at Indian Point and the latter came over from his trading-station there to see us. He stayed a day or two and when he went home he took a letter for Captain Pederson. I sent out several other letters by Chukches to catch Captain Pederson and, in this way, the news of my desire to get in touch with him spread among the natives along the coast.
CHAPTER XXVIII
IN TOUCH WITH THE WORLD AGAIN
On the morning of May 19 an Eskimo whom we had sent over to John Holland Bay came back and said that the Herman had been there, but had left for Cape Bering, so I sent word there to see if I could catch the captain. While he was on his way there, however, he heard through the natives of my being at Emma Harbor and on the afternoon of the twenty-first I was delighted to see the Herman come steaming in.
I did not need to be told that she was there for me and went aboard at once. The captain greeted me hospitably and made no demur when I told him how anxious I was to be set ashore at Nome as soon as possible. I cannot express too strongly my warm appreciation of the kindness of the captain and his crew, for it meant a considerable delay in his trading voyage and consequent loss to the men who, according to the established custom, were working entirely on shares. He told me that ever since he had been on this coast the weather had been bad. He had got the natives aboard again and again, to trade with them, only to have the wind spring up and make it necessary for him to up-anchor with all speed and put to sea again.
I bade good-by to the baron and to my other kind friends at Emma Harbor and we started for Alaska. The distance across Bering Sea at that point is about 240 miles. When we reached the edge of the ice off Nome on the twenty-fourth we found that we could not steam in near enough to the land for me to get ashore. There was nothing to do but to lie off shore about twelve miles and hope for the ice to break up enough to enable the ship to be worked in nearer the town. There is no harbor at Nome; it is simply an open shore, unsafe for vessels in any kind of bad weather, and conditions have to be exactly right before a ship can venture in. For three days we lay there, while my patience underwent a severe test; all I could do was to read the magazines and gaze at the shore, twelve miles away.
Finally, during the afternoon of the twenty-seventh the captain decided to go to St. Michael’s, and we got under way again and steamed across Norton Sound. Early the next morning we arrived off St. Michael’s, but on account of thick fog had to anchor and wait. At six P. M. the fog lifted and we steamed in to a point about a mile off shore. The harbor ice was still frozen solid, but we got out a boat and rowed to the edge of the ice and then made our way ashore on foot. It was about eight o’clock in the evening when, with a feeling of great relief, I set foot at last on American soil. Captain Pederson had given me some American clothing to take the place of the furs I had been wearing for so many months. He accompanied me to the wireless station, but when we got there we found that the office was closed.