Leaving a message for whatever ship might follow them here, the Waring Point party joined their companions from Rodgers Harbor on the King and Winge and the rescue was complete. The little Eskimo girl brought on board the black cat which had already had so many vicissitudes that it was a wonder that it had any of its nine lives still left to draw on. Here, as at Rodgers Harbor, the tents were left standing. The party brought with them the three surviving dogs,—all that were left out of the twenty that were still living when we had started for Siberia—and three puppies.

The King and Winge steamed towards Herald Island, as I have previously said, but though she kept alongshore for miles she was prevented by the ice-floes from getting very near and finally, to make sure not to be frozen in for the winter, Mr. Swenson decided to set his course for Nome. The weary and anxious Karluk survivors enjoyed the food that was hospitably placed before them and the opportunity to bathe and put on clean clothes. The beards that adorned their faces came off and it was a greatly transformed company that I observed from the deck of the Bear the next afternoon.

We reached Nome on the Bear, September 13. Our arrival aroused great excitement, even though shipwrecked mariners from the Arctic are not altogether a novelty in Nome. The rescue was more than ordinarily a matter of local interest and pride because of the number of men and ships concerned in it that were well known all through that part of Alaska.

The hospitality of the Alaskan is unstinted, as I had already had occasion to find out, but it seemed to me best to keep the men on board the Bear for a day or two, for in their reduced state they would be more than usually susceptible to contagious diseases. It would be the irony of fate for them to survive six months of semi-starvation and then fall victim to some ailment of the civilization to which they had so longed to return. To walk in shoes again, too, after so many months of wearing skin-boots, would be painful for a while. After a few days however, they had improved so much that I let them go ashore; they realized the necessity of being careful and had no trouble. Kerdrillo and his family, too, went ashore at Nome, to start on their way home to the North.

It was marvellous how quickly the men picked up in health and strength. On account of frost-bite Chafe and Williams were under the doctor’s care, though they were otherwise in good shape. The sickest man was Templeman; he could not have survived many days longer. Munro, McKinlay and Hadley, who was in his fifty-eighth year, were all in good condition and would probably have lived through another winter.

We were in Nome until the nineteenth; on that day we headed for the south, our first stop St. Michael’s. It seemed advisable to keep the men on the Bear, instead of transferring them to any other vessel; there were no mail-boats leaving for the “outside,” and the men were warm and comfortable and well cared for. While on our way to St. Michael’s we heard by wireless of the stranding of the Corwin off Cape Douglas; she was on her way from Wrangell Island to Nome, having heard by her wireless that the men had been safely taken off. About eight o’clock in the morning we came within sight of her. On account of the broken bottom we could not get nearer than a half mile from her, so a boat was lowered and the third lieutenant went on board. The Bear lent some of her crew to help lighten the Corwin; then we went on to the reindeer settlement at Port Clarence for water. Late in the afternoon on the twenty-third we reached the Corwin again and our men were returned to us; she was floated a short time later.

Photograph copyright, 1914, by Lomen Bros., Nome

Munro Hadley Captain Keruk McKinlay Chafe Williams
Williamson Bartlett Helen
Templeman Mugpi Kerdrillo Maurer

THE KARLUK SURVIVORS ON BOARD THE BEAR