e marshy "tundras" swarming
with mosquitoes, only to return, every night, to his walrus-hide hut
with growing despair. For although the streams teemed with fish, not a
glimmer of gold rewarded his labours. Time crept away and the coming
winter had shown her teeth with a cutting blizzard, while ice was
forming around the coast, when one gloomy October day the Revenue cutter
anchored, for the last time that season, off the settlement. And Billy
regarded her hopelessly, knowing that desertion from his ship had
rendered him an outlaw. To board the _Bear_ would mean irons and
imprisonment, and the deserter dared not face an ordeal which, a few
months later, he would gladly have undergone to escape from Siberia.
Billy watched the Government vessel sink below the horizon with some
uneasiness, for his sole property now consisted of the furs he stood up
in. His boat, clothes and even mining tools had all been bartered for
food, and the discomfited prospector was now living practically on the
charity of his savage hosts. The reflection, therefore, that nine long
months must be passed in this Arctic prison was not a pleasant one,
especially as the natives had already indulged in one of the "drink
orgies" which were afterwards resumed at intervals throughout that
terrible winter.

How the man survived is a mystery--treated as a rule like a slave,
clothed in ragged furs, nourished on disgusting food, and ever at the
beck and call of every man, woman and child in the settlement.
Christmas-time found Billy suffering severely from scurvy, and covered
from head to foot with painful boils. Throughout this period, however,
he received every attention and care from the women, who, however,
without medical appliances, could do little to alleviate his sufferings.
Billy said that at times these strange people showed a consideration and
kindness only surpassed on other occasions by their brutality and
oppression. One day gifts of food and furs would be showered upon the
white man, and nothing be too good for him; on the next he would be
cursed and reviled, if not actually ill-treated by all. On drink-nights
Billy concealed himself, even preferring to sleep in the snow rather
than brave the drunken fury of the revellers, which, as the reader will
presently see, was one of my greatest anxieties during our sojourn on
these barren shores. All things considered, our arrival on the scene
was a godsend to this poor castaway, who averred that another