er Pushkareff's losses of ten men on this island, Drusenin
exchanges a letter or two with the commanders of those other three
Russian vessels. Then he laid his plans for the winter's hunt. But so
did the Aleut Indians; and their plans were for a man-hunt of every
Russian within the limits of Oonalaska.

A curious story is told of how the Aleuts arranged to have the uprising
simultaneous and certain. A bunch of sticks was carried to the chief
of every tribe. {90} These were burned one a day, like the skin wick
in the seal oil of the Aleut's stone lamp. When the last stick had
burned, the Aleuts were to rise.

Now, the northeast coast was like the fingers of a hand. Drusenin had
anchored between two mountain spurs like fingers. Eastward, across the
next mountain spur was another village--Kalekhta, of some forty houses;
eastward of Kalekhta, again, ten miles across, another village of
seventy families on the island of Inalook. Drusenin decided to divide
his crew into three hunting parties: one of nine men to guard the ship
and trade with the main village of Captain Harbor; a second of eleven,
to cross to the native huts at Kalekhta; a third of eleven, to cross
the hills, and paddle out to the little island of Inalook. To the
island ten miles off shore, Drusenin went himself, with Korelin, a
wrecked Russian whom he had picked up on the voyage. On the way they
must have passed all three mountains, that guard the harbor of
Oonalaska, the waterfalls that pour over the cliffs near Kalekhta, and
the little village itself where eleven men remained to build huts for
the winter. From the village to the easternmost point was over quaking
moss ankle-deep, or through long, rank grass, waist-high and
water-rotted with sea-fog. Here they launched their boat of sea-lion
skin on a bone frame, and pulled across a bay of ten miles to the
farthermost hunting-grounds. Again, the natives overwhelm Drusenin
with kindness. The Russian keeps his sentinels as {91} vigilant as
ever pacing before the doors of the hut; but he goes unguarded and
unharmed among the native dwellings. Perhaps, poor Drusenin was not
above swaggering a little, belted in the gay uniform Russian officers
loved to wear, to the confounding of the poor Aleut who looked on the
pistols in belt, the cutlass dangling at heel, the bright shoulder
straps and colored cuffs, as insignia of a power almighty. Anyway,
after Drusenin had sent five hunters out in the fields