Whether on shipboard or on land, Woon never failed to do a lion's share of the work in hand, and was always the first to cheer and help a tired comrade. An indefatigable and successful hunter, he was familiar with the white wolves that so menaced the safety of individuals. On one occasion, going for a deer shot that day, he killed at a distance of a hundred yards a gaunt wolf who was greedily devouring the precious carcass. This monster wolf, with a thick coat of pure, unstained white, weighed eighty pounds, was three feet four inches high and five feet ten inches in length. It was Sergeant Woon also who had distinguished himself in killing, under thrilling circumstances, two infuriated and charging musk-oxen, as elsewhere related in the sketch, "Pim's Timely Sledge Journey." Altogether he was a man quite able to care for himself, though not coming to the ship with such a reputation for woodcraft, hunting skill, and physical activity as had Seaman Anderson. Able Seaman Charles Anderson was a man of powerful build and great muscular strength, who had made himself a leader among the seamen by his success in athletic sports, in which he easily excelled any other man on the ship. A Canadian by birth, his color and his personality disclosed in his veins deep strains of Indian or other alien blood. Inured to the hardships and labors of a hunter's life in the Hudson Bay territory, where he claimed to have been an employee, he displayed in his social relations the mercurial and attractive qualities which distinguish the French half-breeds, the famous _coureurs de bois_. At the evening meal there was more or less chaffing between the marines and the seamen as to where were Woon and Anderson and what success they were having in the field. With a trace of that special pride of corps which goes so far to make the various arms of the military services so efficient, the seamen said that it was a pity that the absent men were not together so that Woon's safety might be better assured by the skill and strength of his friend Anderson. To these jests the royal marines answered, as was their wont, in kind, enlarging ludicrously by side remarks and flings on the reputed helplessness of sailors on land, especially on _deer-back_. At eight o'clock that night affairs took a different turn, when it was known that M'Clure and the other officers felt serious alarm over the continued absence of two hunters who were said to be in the field apart. The fog had given place to a bright sky, with feeble light and rapidly falling temperature, so that disaster to one or both was thought to be probable. The presence and boldness of the prowling bands of ravenous wolves in the immediate neighborhood of the ship was viewed as one of the greatest dangers to a single disabled man.