“Trembling with anxiety,” writes Dr. Kane, “we prepared to crawl down upon him. Petersen, with a large English rifle, was stationed in the bow, and stockings were drawn over the oars as mufflers. As we neared the animal, our excitement became so intense that the men could hardly keep stroke. He was not asleep; for he reared his head when we were almost within rifle-shot; and to this day I can remember the hard, careworn, almost despairing expression of the men’s thin faces as they saw him move; their thin lives depended on his capture. I depressed my hand nervously, as a signal for Petersen to fire. McGary hung upon his oar, and the boat seemed to me within certain range. Looking at Petersen, I saw that the poor fellow was paralysed by his anxiety, trying vainly to obtain a rest for his gun against the cut-water of the boat. The seal rose on his fore flipper, gazed at us for a moment with frightened curiosity, and coiled himself for a plunge. At that instant, simultaneously with the crack of our rifle, he relaxed his long length on the ice, and, at the very brink of the water, his head fell helpless to one side. I would have ordered another shot, but no discipline could have controlled the men. With a wild yell, each vociferating according to his own impulse, they urged their boats upon the floes. A crowd of hands seized the seal, and bore him up to safer ice. The men seemed half crazy. I had not realized how much we were reduced by absolute famine. They ran over the floe, crying and laughing, and brandishing their knives. It was not five minutes before every man was sucking his bloody fingers, or mouthing long strips of raw blubber. Not an ounce of this seal was lost.” A few days later the familiar cadence of a “halloo” fell upon the ears. “Listen, Petersen! oars, men!” “What is it?”—and he listened quietly at first and then, trembling said, in a half whisper, “Danne markers!”