We kept well out to sea,
passing close to the mountainous mass of Besborough Island, plainly
riven by some ancient convulsion from the sheer bluffs of the mainland.
Our only trouble was in keeping the dogs well enough out, for, not being
water-spaniels or other marine species, they had a hankering after the
land and a continual tendency to edge in to shore.

So from headland to headland we made rapid, easy traverse, thoroughly
enjoying the ride, munching chocolate and raisins, speculating about the
seasons when it had been possible to cross direct from Nome to Saint
Michael on the ice, and exchanging stories we had heard of the disasters
and hairbreadth escapes attending such overbold venture. Only this
winter three men and a dog team were blown out into Bering Sea by a
sudden storm, and lay for four days in their sleeping-bags drifting up
and down on an ice cake, until at last they were blown back to the shore
ice and made their escape. And there is a fine story of a white man
rescued in half-frozen state by his Esquimau wife, and carried for miles
on her back to safety.

At last we turned a point and drew in to the shore, and, not seeing the
little town till we were almost upon it, arrived at Unalaklik early in
the afternoon. We had made the two hundred and forty miles, as it is
called, from Nome, in six days. In the last twelve days of travel we had
covered five hundred miles, an average of nearly forty-two miles per
day, far and away the best travelling of the winter. The preceding five
hundred miles had taken twenty-two days.

We were in time to attend the Esquimau services at the mission both
afternoon and night, and I found them very much the same as at
Kikitaruk, with the exception that the singing was much more advanced
and was very good indeed. There was an anthem of the Danks type sung by
a choir--the parts well maintained throughout, the attacks good, the
voices under excellent control--that it pleased and surprised me to
hear, and there was a long discourse most patiently and, as I judged,
faithfully interpreted by a bright-looking Esquimau boy. It is well for
those who speak much through an interpreter to listen occasionally to
similar discourse. Only so may its unavoidable tediousness be
appreciated.

[Sidenote: GOVERNMENT SCHOOLS]

The school next day pleased me still more, and I was glad that I had a
school-day at the place. I heard good reading and spelling, saw good
writing, and listened with re