a sledges, and we spent another
night and another long dreary day in the smoky _yurt_ at Shestakova,
waiting for transportation. Late in the evening of December 2d, Yagor,
who acted in the capacity of sentinel, came down the chimney with
another sensation. He had heard the howling of dogs in the direction
of Penzhina. We went up on the roof of the _yurt_ and listened for
several minutes, but hearing nothing but the wind, we concluded that
Yagor had either been mistaken, or that a pack of wolves had howled
in the valley east of the settlement. Yagor however was right; he had
heard dogs on the Penzhina road, and in less than ten minutes the
long-expected sledges drew up, amid general shouting and barking,
before our _yurt_. In the course of conversation with the new
arrivals, I thought I understood one of the Penzhina men to say
something about a party who had mysteriously appeared near the mouth
of the Anadyr River, and who were building a house there as if with
the intention of spending the winter. I did not yet understand Russian
very well, but I guessed at once that the long-talked-of Anadyr River
party had been landed, and springing up in considerable excitement, I
called Dodd to interpret. It seemed from all the information which
the Penzhina men could give us that a small party of Americans had
mysteriously appeared, early in the winter, near the mouth of the
Anadyr, and had commenced to build a house of driftwood and a few
boards which had been landed from the vessel in which they came. What
their intentions were, who they were, or how long they intended to
stay, no one knew, as the report came through bands of Wandering
Chukchis, who had never seen the Americans themselves, but who had
heard of them from others. The news had been passed along from one
encampment of Chukchis to another until it had finally reached
Penzhina, and had thus been brought on to us at Shestakova, more than
five hundred miles from the place where the Americans were said to be.
We could hardly believe that Colonel Bulkley had landed an exploring
party in the desolate region south of Bering Strait, at the very
beginning of an arctic winter; but what could Americans be doing
there, if they did not belong to our expedition? It was not a place
which civilised men would be likely to select for a winter residence,
unless they had in view some very important object. The nearest
settlement--Anadyrsk--was almost two hundred and fifty miles distant;