With an almost animal innocence of wrong,
the Indians tried to steal the small boat of the _Discovery_,
flourishing their spears till the white crew mustered. At another
time, when the _Discovery_ lay anchored, few lanterns happened to be on
deck. No sailors were visible. It was early in the morning and
everybody was asleep, the boat dark. The natives swarmed up the ship's
sides like ants invading a sugar canister. Looking down the hatches
without seeing any whites, they at once drew their knives and began to
plunder. The whites dashed up the hatchway and drove the {191}
plunderers over the rails at sword point. East and north the small
boats skirted the mist-draped shores, returning at midnight with word
the inlet was a closed shore. There was no Northeast Passage. They
called the spider-shaped bay Prince William Sound; and at ten in the
morning headed out for sea.

Here a fresh disappointment awaited them. The natives of Prince
William Sound had resembled the Eskimos of Greenland so much that the
explorers were prepared to find themselves at the westward end of the
American continent ready to round north into the Atlantic. A long
ledge of land projected into the sea. They called this Cape Elizabeth,
passed it, noted the reef of sunken rocks lying directly athwart a
terrific tidal bore, and behold! not the end of the continent--no, not
by a thousand miles--but straight across westward, beneath a smoking
volcano that tinged the fog ruby-red, a lofty, naked spur three miles
out into the sea, with crest hidden among the clouds and rock-base
awash in thundering breakers. This was called Cape Douglas. Between
these two capes was a tidal flood of perhaps sixty miles' breadth.
Where did it come from? Up went hopes again for the Northeast Passage,
and the twenty thousand pounds! Spite of driftwood, and roily waters,
and a flood that ran ten miles an hour, and a tidal bore that rose
twenty feet, up the passage they tacked, east to west, west to east,
plying up half the month of June in rain and sleet, with the heavy pall
of black smoke {192} rolling from the volcano left far on the offing!
At last the opening was seen to turn abruptly straight east. Out
rattled the small boats. Up the muddy waters they ran for nine miles
till salt water became fresh water, and the explorers found themselves
on a river. In irony, this point was called Turn-Again. The whole bay
is now known as Cook's Inlet. Mr. King was sent