The new fur was the sea-otter,
as peculiar to the Pacific as the seal and destined to lead the
Cossacks on a century's wild hunt from Alaska to California. Cossacks,
Siberian merchants, exiled criminals, banded together in as wild a
stampede to the west coast of America as ever a gold mine caused among
civilized men of a later day.
The little _kotches_ that used to cruise out from Siberian rivers no
longer served. Siberian merchants advanced the capital for the
building of large sloops. Cargo of trinkets for trade with American
Indians was supplied in the same way. What would be fifty thousand
dollars in modern money, it took to build and {298} equip one of these
sloops; but a cargo of sea-otter was to be had for the taking--barring
storms that yearly engulfed two-thirds of the hunters, and hostile
Indians that twice wiped Russian settlements from the coast of
America--and if these pelts sold for one hundred and fifty dollars
each, the returns were ample to compensate risk and outlay.
Provisions, cordage, iron, ammunition, firearms, all had to be brought
from St.
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