These were the tribes, whom the Russians had hunted
with dogs fifty years before; and who in turn had slain all Russians on
the Island. A better understanding now prevailed.
In the morning Ledyard looked over the fur establishment; galliots,
cannon-mounted in the harbor for refuge in case of attack; the huge
lemon-yellow, red-roofed store-room that might serve as barracks or
fort for a hundred men; the brigades of eight, of nine, of eleven
hundred Indian hunters sailing the surfs under the leadership of
Ismyloff, the chief factor. Oonalaska was the very centre of the
sea-otter hunt. Here, eighteen thousand otter a year were taken. At
once, {252} Ledyard realized how he could pay the cost of exploring
that unclaimed world between New Spain and Alaska: by turning fur
trader as Radisson, and La Salle, and the other explorers had done.
Ismyloff himself, who had been out with his brigade when Ledyard came,
went to visit the Englishman; but Ismyloff had little to say, little of
Benyowsky, the Polish pirate, who had marooned him; less of Alaska; and
the reason for taciturnity was plain.
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