October, 1865.] Severs Exposures 205 



to have been a marked element in his character, and whicli liis stead- 

 fast companion, Ebierbing, has uniformly claimed for him. 



On the 20th of October, at 8 a. m., in the midst of a gale with 

 snow and flj'ing drift, the two w^ent out to make deposits of the deer 

 which they had killed the day before. With rifles in hand, they 

 crossed hill and valley to Hall's own favorite deer-pass, where he had 

 been accustomed to watch for the animals behind his stone wall. The 

 first labor was to recover here his double-barreled gun from a deep 

 snow-drift, and this required of both, a laborious shoveling of twenty 

 minutes. Following the ridge of high land from the deer-pass south 

 toward Gibson's Cove, they came upon their five slain animals, the 

 last one they had shot being a big buck. It had been left unskinned, 

 and the legs only were frozen. The skin was taken off, and the car- 

 cass disemboweled and cut into the three principal pieces, which were 

 dragged a little way further to a stony spot, where the weight of a ton 

 and a half of rock was piled upon them; the bristling antlers were 

 left projecting above to mark the cache To find rock and stones for 

 covering the other three animals, Hall climbed the highest part of the 

 ridge, where, by heavy pounding, he and Ebierbing secured two and 

 a half tons. When they had dragged two of the deer up this hill, a 

 rest was made for lunch on some of the unfrozen legs and for a smoke; 

 but to light their pipes a match w^as struck after many trials only, and 

 by their crowding down into a deep snow-bank and bending their 

 bodies and heads over for a roof against the storm. As they sat enjoy- 

 ing their puffing, the sight and the noise around them were such as 

 w^ould have struck terror and dismay into the heart of any one inex- 

 perienced in Arctic life. The darkening clouds of sharp, cutting, 

 blinding snow flying on the wdngs of the gale, the howling of the 



