s were distributed around among the different sledges, and
everything which Gregorie, Dodd, and I could think of was done to
insure the success of the expedition.

On Monday morning, Jan. 22d, the whole party assembled in front of
the priest's house. For the sake of economising transportation, and
sharing the fortunes of our men, whatever they might be, Dodd and I
abandoned our _pavoskas_, and drove our own loaded sledges. We did not
mean to have the natives say that we compelled them to go and then
avoided our share of work and hardships. The entire population of the
village, men, women, and children, turned out to see us off, and
the street before the priest's house was blocked up with a crowd
of dark-faced men in spotted fur coats, scarlet sashes, and
fierce-looking foxskin hoods, anxious-faced women running to and fro
and bidding their husbands and brothers good-bye, eleven long, narrow
sledges piled high with dried fish and covered with yellow buckskin
and lashings of sealskin thongs, and finally a hundred and twenty-five
shaggy wolfish dogs, who drowned every other sound with their combined
howls of fierce impatience.

Our drivers went into the priest's house, and crossed themselves and
prayed before the picture of the Saviour, as is their custom
when starting on a long journey; Dodd and I bade good-bye to the
kind-hearted priest, and received the cordial "s' Bokhem" (go with
God), which is the Russian farewell; and then springing upon our
sledges, and releasing our frantic dogs, we went flying out of the
village in a cloud of snow which glittered like powdered jewel-dust in
the red sunshine.

Beyond the two or three hundred miles of snowy desert which lay before
us we could see, in imagination, a shadowy stove-pipe rising out of a
bank of snow--the "San greal" of which we, as arctic knights-errant,
were in search.

[Illustration: Ceremonial Masks of Wood]

CHAPTER XXVIII

A SLEDGE JOURNEY EASTWARD--REACHING TIDE-WATER--A NIGHT SEARCH FOR
A STOVE-PIPE--FINDING COMRADES--A VOICE FROM A STOVE--STORY OF THE
ANADYR PARTY

I will not detain the reader long with the first part of our journey
from Anadyrsk to the Pacific Coast, as it did not differ much from
our previous Siberian experience. Riding all day over the ice of the
river, or across barren steppes, and camping out at night on the snow,
in all kinds of weather, made up our life; and its dreary monotony was
relieved only by anticipations of a jo