CHAPTER XVI
A TEN-THOUSAND-MILE RACE
Persistent rumors of gold in the Tchuktche peninsula—Count Unarliarsky—I am called to Vladivostok to fit out an expedition—Our vessel arrives off Indian Point—Charging through the ice-floes—A meeting with Eskimos—Our prospecting proves fruitless—We meet the rival expedition in Plover Bay—Their chagrin—The end.
The winter following my explorations in Northeast Siberia I spent in the United States, during which time the papers contained frequent reports of rich finds on the Siberian coast, opposite Cape Nome. The company that had employed me still believed that there was gold to be found in this region, and were determined to test the matter thoroughly. The papers stated that the Russian Government had granted to Count Unarliarsky the mining rights to the whole Tchuktche peninsula, which is the extreme northeastern portion of Siberia, between the Anadyr River and the Arctic Ocean. From St. Petersburg we learned that the Count must present the papers of his franchise to the Governor at Anadyr before he could legitimately take possession. Any claims staked out before that time would be valid, according to Russian law. In order to present his papers before the Governor, the Count would have to wait till navigation opened up late in May, for the town of Anadyr lies far up the river of that name, and is ice-locked till well into the summer.
Russian Miners.
I received a cablegram to hurry out to Vladivostok, and make ready to start at an hour's notice. It was the intention of our company to charter a steamer for four months, and, with thirty Russian miners, steam with all speed toward the north, make a hasty examination of the beaches in question, and even though there might be American miners there (who would be without Government permission), we were to stake out claims and then hurry to Anadyr and file our papers before the Governor should have so much as heard of the existence of the Count. In all this we were well within the law, and, as our company had already spent a large sum of money in the work, it was but right to use every legal means to establish a claim to at least a portion of the field.