ck. It was the word brought back by these free-lances of the sea
that induced Peter the Great to send Vitus Bering on a voyage of
discovery to the west coast of America; and when the castaways of
Bering's wreck returned with a new fur that was neither beaver nor
otter, but larger than either and of a finer sheen than sable, selling
the pelts to Chinese merchants for what would be from one hundred and
fifty to two hundred dollars each in modern money, the effect was the
same as the discovery of a gold mine. 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. Petersburg, seven thousand miles to the Pacific coast. From
St. Petersburg to Moscow, Kasan, the Tartar desert and Siberia, pack
horses were used. It was a common thing for caravans of four or even
five thousand pack horses employed by the Russian fur traders of
America to file into Irkutsk of a night. At the head waters of the
Lena, rafts and flatboats, similar to the old Mackinaw boats of
American fur traders on the Missouri, were built and the cargo floated
down to Yakutsk, the great rendezvous of Siberian fur traders. Here
exiles acting as packers and Cossacks as overseers usually went on a
wild ten days' spree. From Yakutsk pack horses, dog trains, and
reindeer teams were employed for the remaining thousand miles to the
Pacific; and this was the hardest part of the journey. Mountains
higher than the Rockies had to be traversed. Mountain tor