The captain knew we had started from Anvik the day before, but our progress on the first day had been so great that he had become uneasy for fear he might have passed us. He had kept the whistle going at frequent intervals, but of course knew that it could not be heard far in such a gale. If we had not yet reached the Mission when he arrived there, he intended to return for us.
We made the Mission that evening at the upper or "opposition" store, which was being torn down, and the best logs of which were to go on board the river steamer to be taken to Andreavsky, the trading station kept by Captain Petersen when not in charge of the boat.
By next morning at nine o'clock we had these securely lashed to the sides and were under way, stopping three miles below at the Mission proper. Here is an old Greek church, presided over by a half-breed priest, which looked strangely enough in this far-away corner of the world. The interior was fitted up with all the ornaments customary in the Greek church, the solid silver and brass of more stately structures in Russia being reproduced in tinsel and trappings of a cheaper kind. The Greek priest is also the Alaska Company's trader, and he came aboard to go to St. Michael's to get a winter's supply of trading material for his store. His handsome little sloop was tied behind the big "barka" to be towed along, while from its stern the line ran to the sloop's yawl, in which an Indian had been allowed to come, he tying his little skin canoe behind the yawl, thus making a queue of vessels of rapidly diminishing sizes, quite ludicrous in appearance. With the St. Michael's alongside in tow, and our guards piled with hewn logs as far as the upper deck, we were a motley crowd indeed when under way. The captain explained his unusual delay on the trip by the fact that the "Yukon" had blown out a cylinder-head just after leaving St. Michael's Bar and while trying to make Belle Isle, for which reason their return voyage had to be made under reduced steam in order to avoid a repetition of the accident.
A serio-comic incident connected with this mishap deserves to be recounted. Among their Eskimo deckhands was a powerful young fellow, deaf as a post, who always slept in the engine-room when off duty, with his head resting on a huge cross deck-beam as a pillow, at a point in front of the engine that had broken down. Whenever he was wanted, as there was no use in calling him, they would walk up and tap him with the foot, or, as they soon learned, a stout kick on any part of the beam would suffice; whereupon he would sit up, give a great yawn, stretch his arms and be ready for work. When the cylinder-head of the engine blew out, it struck the beam directly opposite his own head, and buried itself until the spot looked afterward as though a chain-shot had struck it; but with no more effect on the deaf Eskimo than to make him rise up and yawn, and begin to stretch himself, when the rush of steam from the next stroke of the engine completely enveloped him, before the engineer could interfere, and he comprehended that he was not being awakened to go to work. He got off with a trifling scald on the back of his neck; but his escape from death seemed miraculous.
All that day we stopped about every couple of hours to take on wood, which fortunately had been cut for us beforehand in most places, so that the delays were not very long. In ascending or descending the river, the steamer finds a considerable quantity of the wood it requires already cut at convenient points, the natives of course being paid for their labor. This is the case between the river's mouth and Nuklakayet, or thereabouts, but above this point, and even at many places below it the captain is obliged to go ashore near a great pile of driftwood, and send a dozen axmen to do this duty. The greater part of the huge stockade of old Fort Yukon and some of its minor buildings have for several years supplied them with wood when in the neighborhood. We stopped the night of the 25th near a native village, and as we were to start very early in the morning, the doctor and myself, at the captain's invitation, made our beds under the table, on the dining-room floor of the steamer, that being the first time we had slept under a roof since leaving Chilkat; although the doctor made some irrelevant remarks about a table not being a roof, evidently wanting to extend back the period of our claim.
On the 26th, running about twelve hours, less our time at "wooding" places, we made Andreavsky, and nearly the whole of the next day was spent in unloading the logs, mooring the St. Michael's in winter quarters, and washing down decks, for it was to this point that the "Yukon" would return for the winter after making St. Michael's. The hills of the right bank rapidly diminish in height as one approaches Andreavsky, and in the vicinity of that place are only entitled to the name of high rolling ground. Near the river the trees disappear and are replaced by willow-brake, although the up-stream ends of the numerous islands are still covered with great masses of drift timber, containing logs of the largest dimensions. Before Andreavsky is reached we come to the delta of the Yukon, an interminable concourse of islands and channels never yet fully explored. From the most northerly of these mouths to the most southerly is a distance of about ninety miles, according to local computation.
Late as it was when we started on the 27th, we reached a point half way to Coatlik, where wood was cut by our crew for the morning's start. All semblance of rolling country had now disappeared, except in the distance, and the country was as flat as the lower delta of the Mississippi.
Coatlik, seven miles from the Aphoon or northernmost mouth, was reached next day at 1 P.M., and we spent the afternoon in preparing the boilers for the change to salt water, and in taking on another log house, which was to be transported to St. Michael's, there to be used in completing a Greek church in course of erection.
Starting at early daylight on the morning of the 29th, a steam-valve blew out, and it looked as if we should be delayed two or three days for repairs, but the captain fixed up an ingenious contrivance with a jack-screw as a substitute, and at half-past nine in the morning we again proceeded. Soon afterward we reached the Aphoon mouth of the river, where we commenced the slow and tedious threading of its shallow channels between their mud banks. For untold ages this swift, muddy river has deposited its sediment upon the shallow eastern shores of Bering's Sea, until mud and sand banks have been thrown up for seventy or eighty miles beyond the delta, making it unsafe for vessels of any draft to cross them even in moderate weather. St. Michael's is the nearest port to the mouth at which vessels of any size can enter and anchor. The heavy wind still raging made it difficult to steer the boat through the winding channels, and this, coupled with the heavy load of logs that weighed us to the guards, sent us a dozen times on the low mud flats, to escape from which gave us much trouble. Our delay at Coatlik had also lost us some of the tide, there being about two feet of water on the bar at ebb and nearly as much more at flood tide. So shallow is the stream that the channel is indicated by willow canes stuck in the mud, at convenient intervals, serving the purpose of buoys. Near the Aphoon mouth comes in the Pastolik River, and once across the bar of mud near the confluence, the channel of the latter stream is followed to deep water. This muddy sediment is very light and easily stirred up, and when a storm is raging the whole sea as far as the eye can reach resembles an angry lake of mud. From the Pastolik River on, the westerly wind gradually increased to a gale, the sea running very high and making many of us quite sea-sick. Fearing to round Point Romantzoff, the captain put back and anchored in a somewhat sheltered cove, returning about half way to the Pastolik. A flat-bottomed river boat anchored in Bering's Sea during a gale, loaded with a log-house and towing a number of craft, certainly did not seem a very safe abiding place.
Early on the morning of the 30th we got under way, the weather having moderated considerably during the night, and constantly improving as we proceeded. We rounded Cape Romantzoff about the middle of the forenoon, and as we passed between Stuart and St. Michael's Islands, shortly before noon, nothing was left of yesterday's angry sea but a few long ground-swells, which disturbed us but little. At noon we rounded the point that hid the little village of St. Michael's, and were received by a salute of three discharges from as many ancient Russian carronades, to which we responded vigorously with the whistle. All eyes swept the bay for signs of the "Corwin," but a boat putting off from shore told us that she had left on the 10th of August, nearly three weeks before.