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man skin hunting boat) would he better so he built one, covering
it with sealskins. Later we wished we had an umiak instead, for
when we had nothing to do and could get no more ducks we could see
walrus drifting by offshore by the hundreds sleeping on the ice
cakses. The Eskimo was too scared to go after them, in the kayak,
for he was always used to hunting them from an umiak. With an
umiak there is no trouble about getting meat in Wrangell Island.
We had not tried to save or bring ashore the big umiak on the
Karluk. It had been the intention to let her sink with the ship,
but after the Karluk sank she was floating around in the water and
I had got permission from the Captain to cut out of her a few
pieces of leather for boot soles. These proved very useful later
in Wrangell Island, but if we had brought with us the boat itself
we would have had no trouble in killing walrus enough to support us
for years, on Wrangell Island.

About this time I made a ladder from driftwood to
get eggs from the cliff, but after I packed it over to the rookery
I found it about twenty feet too short and could get only twenty-
five eggs. Later I made another which was about the right length
and McKinlay, the Eskimo and I took it over and tried to raise it,
but it was too heavy for us and we had to abandon the idea. Tens
of thousands of eggs and we could not get one of them! I used
the short ladder in every place that I could and got small lots of
fifteen and twenty and twenty-five eggs.

July third the wind turned to the southwest, blowing
strong. The ice went off from the beach and disappeared, ending
our sealing and duck shooting. The ammunition was getting low and
we could not afford to shoot small game, so we got a net that we
had been using for fish, though we never got caught any, and brought it