In making long trips the natives frequently have to cache a part of their provisions along the way for use on the return trip. They make a little scaffold on the stumps of trees or between two or three living trees. Even though not set up very much above the snow line, the snow is so deep that by the time summer has melted it away the goods are high and dry. No one except the owner would ever think of touching these provisions.
Upon my return I found that the snows were fast melting, and green tints were beginning to appear on the hillsides. I thought, however, that there would be enough snow to allow me to take a little run down the peninsula that lies between the two northern arms of the Okhotsk Sea in search of a deposit of cinnabar of which I had heard rumors; but after two days of hard work, urging the dogs over bare tundra, I gave it up and came back in disgust. By June 1 the snow was quite gone, except upon the highest hills and in the secluded nooks where deep drifts had lain. The river was still very high, and filled with floating ice. The sun was now visible twenty hours out of the twenty-four.
Expedition on march—"Konikly" in foreground.
I was soon ready for a summer trip. The services of my old friend Chrisoffsky and half a dozen of his horses were secured, and, taking along my two Koreans, who had wintered at Ghijiga while I was making my trip to the shores of Bering Sea, I started out, sitting in the saddle which had been left in the village thirty years before by Mr. George Kennan. He was then a leading spirit in the American Russian Telegraph Company, whose object was to build a line across Bering Strait and connect the two continents. Of this saddle there was nothing left but the tree and a little leather on the cantle, bearing a San Francisco stamp. Mrs. Braggin said that Mr. Kennan had given it to her when he left; I rigged it up with stirrups and used it all summer.
Plodding northward, we reached Chrisoffsky's place about bedtime, soaked with mud and water. The tundra was like a great marsh, through which we had to flounder. We tried to keep to the beds of the little creeks in which the water had worn away the moss and turf. Where this was not possible, we had to wade through almost bottomless mud. Even though lightly loaded, the horses kept sinking to the girth, and it was only by sheer hard work that we were able to average fifteen miles a day. Some days we made only five.
Our objective point was the Uchingay, which means "Red," River. It is a comparatively small stream, flowing into the Paran, near its head. The natives had told me that at the head waters of this stream there were two red mountains where the rocks were filled with shiny yellow points. This place lay about three hundred miles north of Ghijiga.
As we neared the foot-hills the trail became better. The tundra was one mass of brilliant flowers, like the wrecks of rainbows. There were plants of almost infinite variety, and the ground was like a great expanse of variegated carpeting. But the flowers! They were indescribably beautiful. Turning the shoulder of a hill, we would come upon a broad expanse of solid pink or scarlet, acres in extent, and this would give way to a blue, a yellow, or a lavender, either in solid color or in various blends. We enjoyed these beauties of nature, but, at the same time, did not fail to notice the fine beds of wild onions, which we pulled and ate with great gusto. We craved vegetables in summer as keenly as we had craved fat in winter. Hardly an hour passed that we did not have a shot at a duck or a goose, and our journey was consequently a continual feast. Konikly and Howka accompanied us. They lived like princes on the tundra rats, which swarmed about us. The dogs caught them cleverly, and after one good shake, bolted them whole. These rodents were the size of a small house rat.