By the autumn they were across
the Barbary Desert, three thousand miles from St. Petersburg. Here
Brown remained, and Ledyard went on with the Cossack mail carriers.
All along the endless trail of two continents, the trail of East and
West, he passed the caravans of the Russian fur traders, and learned
the astonishing news that more than two thousand Russians were on the
west coast of America. Down the Lena next, to Yakutsk, the great
rendezvous of the fur traders, only one thousand miles more to the
Pacific; and on the great plain of the fur traders near Yakutsk he at
last overtook the Billings explorers on their way to America. Only one
guinea was left in his pocket, and the Cossack commandant reported that
the season was too far advanced for him to cross the Pacific. What did
it matter? He would cross the Pacific with Billings in spring. He was
nearer the realization of his hopes than ever before in his life; and
surely his success in tramping twice the length of Sweden, and in
crossing two continents when almost destitute augured well for his
success in crossing from the Pacific to the Missouri.
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