Wednesday, the 22nd.—Perfect weather again. Shorty had sold the rifle he bought from W. to Sub-chief George, and Finn E.’s to Frank, a friend of Ned’s. This breach of the law rather annoyed us, as we naturally thought the men had purchased the rifles to keep, but we saw no good in interfering, now that the deed was done. Our four Indians came over about breakfast-time to take E. salmon-spearing, and reported that Ned had not taken his departure last night, so I said I would go with him and take Finn to look after me. H. then proposed that I should take our Indians, who were eating their heads off to no purpose, and Shorty suggested that we might buy a canoe and all go down together, so we went over to Yakutat to make inquiries. De Groff admitted that all agreement with him was over on the 20th, and seemed to have but little hope of the ‘Alpha’s’ turning up now, but believed that the ‘Leo,’ or even the ‘Pinta,’ would come for us. Canoes were to be bought for a hundred and twenty or a hundred and fifty dollars, but H. was rather unwilling to go in one, so we came back at two o’clock for E.’s opinion, but he had not returned.

We began boiling bacon, and started Finn on a big batch of bread. E. came back at four with a fair lot of fish; unable to quite settle, though against the canoe idea on the whole, he and H. went over to Yakutat to decide and to fetch Shorty, while Finn and I went on cooking. They returned at 7.30, having concluded not to go, and the Siwashes refused to come in the canoe unless H. did, saying they had not made an agreement with me but with him. As they were all accustomed to canoes, and Matthew had done the trip twice before, I do not think they were afraid (except perhaps of hard work), but merely that they found themselves in very comfortable quarters at Yakutat, drawing full pay and doing very little for it, and wished to prolong that happy state of things as long as possible. Ned was willing to take any number of passengers to Juneau for ten dollars each, but after much discussion it was at last settled that I should take Lyons, Shorty, and Finn, and try to get Ned to go to Sitka; so I went over about ten o’clock with the two former and routed out Ned, who agreed to take us to Sitka for eighty dollars, half down. As most of the people in the Chief’s house were asleep, we curled up sub Jove frigido on the stoop, and were soon asleep.

CHAPTER VIII
YAKUTAT TO SITKA

Thursday, the 23rd.—Up at sunrise, the blankets dripping with dew. As the morning was perfectly lovely, and the mountains quite clear, I roused De Groff to photograph, and then we went over in the big canoe to fetch Finn and our things, and said good-bye to the other two and to the missionaries. We then returned to the island and cooked our breakfast on De Groff’s stove, who was rather sad at our departure, but brightened up before we went. We managed to purchase a little hard tack and rice in the village, but could not get away till after nine o’clock, as Ned, in his delight at the prospect of such a lucrative voyage, was boozing with a few select friends on ‘hoochinoo,’ a vile decoction they distil from sugar, and was only got away when about half-seas over. At 8.30 H. came across with a letter for his brother Alfred, and went back just before our departure.

We pulled to Ocean Cape, which we reached at eleven o’clock, and then set both sails ‘wing and wing’ as the wind was dead aft though very light. The result of Ned’s potations was that we gybed with some frequency, and, apparently becoming aware of this, he transferred the steering-lines to his young brother Jack, who, with Ned’s wife and another Indian named Frank, made up the crew, and composed himself to sleep. We sailed steadily on all day, keeping five or six miles from the shore, which is here a low sandy beach on which the Pacific surf continually breaks, so that it is always difficult to land, and in bad weather becomes quite impossible, and therefore this was the most dangerous part of our canoe journey. At sunset we were nearly opposite the western end of Dry Bay, and as the wind died we pulled for a bit, but a land breeze from the north then came, and though, as it was on the beam, we were sure to make a lot of leeway, we kept the sails up, and proceeded to arrange ourselves as best we could for sleep. This is not very easy in a canoe even when forty feet long, as the seats and cross-pieces prevent any extension movements of the body, but Ned’s bedding was allotted to me, and nicely filled the space aft of the stroke thwart. This canoe was fitted with four oars and, mirabile dictu, a rudder with yoke-lines, the only one I ever saw on a canoe, all the others being steered by paddles. Wash-boards had also been put on her for this ocean cruise, and we had had to cut holes in these for the oars.

Friday, the 24th.—Splendid weather, almost too hot. At sunrise we had hardly cleared Dry Bay, but were some ten or twelve miles from land. About nine o’clock the west wind came again, but it was very light, and our progress was slow in the extreme. Swarms of little divers kept appearing all round us, and in the afternoon, when all were asleep but Ned and me, two small plover came on board and stayed for some time. At three o’clock the breeze died, and then a puff from the south-east rather alarmed us, and made us pull in for land, then about eight miles off, but it vanished again, and we pulled steadily on till just at sundown we reached the Indians’ regular camping-place, about four miles north of Cape Fairweather.

Though somewhat protected, the landing is through surf, and we had accordingly to unload the cargo, consisting of a few sea-otter skins and rather over a ton of seal-oil in square boxes, and then to pull up the canoe. We soon had a fire going, and cooked some soup and salmon, the former being much appreciated by Finn, who had been more or less sea-sick all day and got terribly chaffed by the Indians. The night was so fine that we did not pitch the tent, but just rolled it round us as we lay on the sand, with the roar of the surf lulling us to sleep.