ite rocks of the
shore, where she smashed to pieces like the broken staves of a dry
water-barrel. Led by the indomitable Baranof, who seemed to meet the
challenge of the very elements, the half-drowned crew crawled ashore
only to be ordered to save the cargo now rolling up in the wave wash.

{320} When darkness settled over the sea on the last night of
September, Baranof was in the same predicament as Bering--a castaway
for the winter on a barren island. Instead of sinking under the
redoubled blows of an adverse fate, the little Russian rebounded like a
rubber ball. A messenger and some Indians were at once despatched in a
skin boat to coast from island to island in an effort to get help from
Kadiak. Meanwhile Baranof did not sit lamenting with folded hands; and
well that he did not; for his messengers never reached Kadiak.

Holes were at once scooped out of the sand, and the caves roofed over
with the remnants of the wreck. These underground huts on an island
destitute of wood were warmer than surface cabins, and better withstood
the terrible north winds that swept down from the Arctic with such
force that for two months at a time the men could go outside only by
crawling under shelter of the boulders. Ammunition was distributed to
the fifty castaways; salmon bought from the Indians, whom Baranof's
fair treatment won from the first; once a week, rye meal was given out
for soup; and for the rest, the men had to depend on the eggs of
sea-birds, that flocked over the precipitous shores in myriads, or on
the sea-lions roaring till the surf shook on the rocky islets along the
shore.

If there is one characteristic more than another that proves a man
master of destiny, it is ability not only to meet misfortune but to
turn it to advantage when it {321} comes. While waiting for the rescue
that never came, Baranof studied the language of the Aleuts, sent his
men among them to learn to hunt, rode out to sea in their frail skin
boats lashed abreast to keep from swamping during storm, slept at night
on the beach with no covering but the overturned canoes, and, sharing
every hardship, set traps with his own hands. When the weather was too
boisterous for hunting, he set his people boiling salt from sea-water
to dry supplies of fish for the summer, or replenishing their ragged
clothes by making coats of birds' skin. The last week before Easter,
provisions were so low the whole crew were compelled to indulge in a
Lenten fa