For four days he followed the very shore that the
four escaping men were to cruise in an opposite direction. About forty
miles from the anchorage he met Drusenin himself, leading twenty-five
Russian hunters out from Captain Harbor. Surely, if ever hunters were
safe, Korovin's were, with Medvedeff's forty-nine men southwest a
hundred miles, and Drusenin's thirty sailors forty miles northeast.
Korovin decided to hunt midway between Drusenin's crew and Medvedeff's.
It is likely that the letters exchanged among the different commanders
from September to December were arranging that Drusenin should keep to
the east of Oonalaska, Korovin to the west of the island, while
Medvedeff hunted exclusively on the other island--Oomnak.
By December Korovin had scattered twenty-three hunters southwest,
keeping a guard of only sixteen for the huts and boat. Among the
sixteen was little Alexis, the hostage Indian boy. The warning of
danger was from the mother of the little Aleut, who reported that sixty
hostiles were advancing on the ship under pretence of trading
sea-otter.
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