he flag on a pole over our little log house,
made a whisky punch out of the liquor which had traversed half
north-eastern Siberia, and drank it in honour of the men who had lived
sixty-four days with the Wandering Chukchis, and carried the stars and
stripes through the wildest, least known region on the face of the
globe.

Having now accomplished all that could be done in the way of
exploration, we began making preparations for a return to Gizhiga. The
Major had directed me to meet him there with Macrae, Arnold, Robinson,
and Dodd, as soon as the first of April, and the month of March was
now rapidly drawing to a close.

[Illustration: A CHUKCHI RUG OF REINDEER SKIN]

On the 20th we packed up our stores, and bidding good-bye to the
kind-hearted, hospitable people of Anadyrsk, we set out with a long
train of sledges for the coast of the Okhotsk Sea.

Our journey was monotonous and uneventful, and on the second of April,
late at night, we left behind us the white desolate steppe of the
Paren, and drew near the little flat-topped _yurt_ on the Malmofka,
which was only twenty-five versts from Gizhiga. Here we met fresh men,
dogs, and sledges, sent out to meet us by the Major, and, abandoning
our loaded sledges and tired dogs, we took seats upon the light
_narts_ of the Gizhiga Cossacks, and dashed away by the light of a
brilliant aurora toward the settlement.

About one o'clock we heard the distant barking of dogs, and in a few
moments we rushed furiously into the silent village, and stopped
before the house of the Russian merchant Vorrebeof (vor'-re-be-off')
where we had lived the previous fall, and where we expected to find
the Major. I sprang from my sledge, and groping my way through the
entry into a warm dark room I shouted "Fstavaitia!" to arouse the
sleeping inmates. Suddenly some one rose up from the floor at my feet,
and, grasping me by the arm, exclaimed in a strangely familiar voice,
"Kennan, is that you?" Startled and bewildered with half-incredulous
recognition, I could only reply, "Bush, is that you?" and, when a
sleepy boy came in with a light, he was astonished to find a man
dressed in heavy frosty furs embracing another who was clad only in a
linen shirt and drawers.

There was a joyful time in that log house when the Major, Bush,
Macrae, Arnold, Robinson, Dodd, and I gathered around a steaming
samovar or tea-urn which stood on a pine table in the centre of the
room, and discussed the adventures, ha