A DKIVE IN A GALE. 289 



mail had vseen a vessel drifting about in the North 

 Water among the ice, and finally it was sunk in the 

 mouth of Wolstenholme Sound. This was four sum- 

 mers ago. Another had seen the same vessel, but the 

 event had happened only two years before ; while still 

 another had accidentally set fire to the brig and 

 burned her up where she lay in Van Rensselaer Har- 

 bor. No two of them gave the same account. In- 

 deed, one of them asserted quite positively that the 

 vessel had drifted down into the bay below, was there 

 frozen up the next winter, and he had there boarded 

 her when on a bear-hunt. Kalutunah had nothing 

 positive to say on the subject, but he rather inclined 

 to the story of the burning. 



Ever}^ object around me was filled with old associa- 

 tions, some pleasant and some painful. I visited the 

 graves of Baker and the jovial cook, Pierre, and 

 looked for the pyramid which Dr. Kane mentions as 

 "our beacon and their tomb-stone," but it was scat- 

 tered over the rocks, and the conspicuous cross which 

 had been painted on its southern face was only here 

 and there shown by a stone with a white patch 

 upon it. 



On our homeward journey we camped again at 

 Cairn Point, and made there a long halt, as I desired 

 to get another view, from a loftier position than be- 

 fore. Jensen was fortunate enough to shoot a deer, 

 and our weary and battered dogs were refreshed with 

 it. Thence to the schooner was one of the wildest 

 rides that I remember ever to have made. A terrible 

 gale of wind set upon us, and, with the thermometer 

 at — 52°, it carried a sting with it. The drifting snow 

 was battering us at a furious rate ; but the dogs, with 

 then- heads turned homeward, did their best, and the 

 thirty miles were made in three and a half hours. 



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