I got my walrus in this fashion: Captain K., Dr. Elting and I were in the _oomiak_ with "Eskimo Prank." Dr. E. had got a fine head, and we were cruising about, when we spied a bunch of seven or eight big walrus on a hummocky berg near the edge of the ice-floe. The swell of the open ocean came in here with considerable force, and long, smooth topped billows heaved among the ice-floes, washing far up on the shelving bergs. We pushed our boat into a narrow passage and the swell took it and landed the bow on the ice right in the midst of the walrus. The captain and the doctor took the hazardous chance and leaped on the ice, placing the muzzles of their rifles almost against the heads of their selection. I was not quick enough to make the jump, but as the _oomiak_ surged back with the receding wave I saw a walrus charging down the sloping ice diagonally from me. Both he and I were moving rapidly and in opposite directions and I could only take a hasty "wing" shot. It was the most difficult shot of all my experience. I was standing uncertainly in the plunging _oomiak_, swaying and tottering as the light craft shot down the receding wave away from the iceberg; while the frightened walrus was humping himself for all he was worth, trying frantically to get off the ice-floe into the ocean, his head bobbing up and down with his rapid motion. I was wobbling in one direction and he in another, and the space between us was widening fast. There was no time to be lost. Balancing most unsteadily, I swung up my rifle for a snap shot. It was a great moment. I had little hope of hitting the mark; but my walrus fell to the crack of the rifle, with his nose in the water. A delay of one-tenth of a second and I would have lost him. I had my gavels.
The closing scene of our walrus drama was a comedy scene, and possessed what every drama ought to have--human interest. We had pounded our way southeast again through the fast thickening ice-floe driven upon us by a strong northwest wind. At one time to the least experienced of the party it seemed as if there was no possible way out, as if we must spend the winter on the bleak shore of Northern Siberia. But always the narrow leads opened before us, and after two or three days of slow and careful work through the ice we emerged from it, and before a strong, fair wind we bowled along towards Bering Strait. The early morning of August twenty-fifth found us anchored in the harbor of East Cape, after a hard struggle against wind and tide.