When the last stick had
burned, the Aleuts were to rise.
Now, the northeast coast was like the fingers of a hand. Drusenin had
anchored between two mountain spurs like fingers. Eastward, across the
next mountain spur was another village--Kalekhta, of some forty houses;
eastward of Kalekhta, again, ten miles across, another village of
seventy families on the island of Inalook. Drusenin decided to divide
his crew into three hunting parties: one of nine men to guard the ship
and trade with the main village of Captain Harbor; a second of eleven,
to cross to the native huts at Kalekhta; a third of eleven, to cross
the hills, and paddle out to the little island of Inalook. To the
island ten miles off shore, Drusenin went himself, with Korelin, a
wrecked Russian whom he had picked up on the voyage. On the way they
must have passed all three mountains, that guard the harbor of
Oonalaska, the waterfalls that pour over the cliffs near Kalekhta, and
the little village itself where eleven men remained to build huts for
the winter. From the village to the easternmost point was over quaking
moss ankle-deep, or through long, rank grass, waist-high and
water-rotted with sea-fog.
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