Page:Silversheene (1924).djvu/182

 At Valdez he went ashore and saw the town, once the most important entry port for Alaska. Here he reshipped on a tramp steamer for St. Michael and the far north. Then came more days of wonderful sailing. The icebergs, the seals, the walrus bellowing off shore, and the phosphorescent seas all made a fascinating and ever changing picture. Finally, the ship came to anchor at the mouth of the Yukon river, and the serious part of Dick's adventure began.

At St. Michael, Richard transferred his camping outfit to a small river steamer bound up the Yukon. For the first four hundred miles the Yukon winds its way leisurely through the great tundra. Beveral herds of government reindeer were seen feeding near St. Michael, also small herds belonging to the Eskimos. These domestic reindeer were brought to Alaska by the government about twenty-five years ago, and the numbers have now reached nearly fifty thousand head. The tundra is a vast barren waste, four hundred miles