I bent down--there, in the soft earth, was the impression of a little shoe, dainty and small, as though its wearer had touched earth for a moment here, as she bent to quaff the waters of the spring. It was plainly the shoe of a patrician, a lady from its size. No Indian ever wore such a shoe as that; it could have been made by no one but a white woman, unless it was the track of a small child. The Indian straightened himself up with a grunt. "It is the beautiful one," he said gravely; "let my brother look." I eyed him in wonder and astonishment. Was he daft that he should make such a statement as this, and expect me to believe it? I had received his declaration that this was the print of the shoe of a white woman without question, but that he should go further, and say that it was the shoe of one maid, and she the "beautiful one," as the Indian with the poetry of his race called Margaret Carroll--impossible!--I had left her safe in England, and we had seen no vessel pass us. So with fast-beating heart and bewildered brain, I turned to Manteo. "How knowest thou that it is the beautiful one?" I asked. "'Tis but a track, and might be that of any one of a thousand ladies." "How canst thou know that the summer draweth nigh?" replied the chief, his arms folded upon his brawny chest. "By the flowers. So know I that the beautiful one has passed." "It may be so," I answered incredulously. "We will follow the trail on the morrow, be it who it may." Manteo, his head bent near the earth, had traced what might have been to him a trail, but, as I followed behind him, search as I would, I could perceive nothing. 'Twas true that here a twig was bent, a tuft of grass might have been stepped upon, but that could have been the work of some deer or other wild animal as they trod by. The Indian would turn here and there, now zigzagging from left to right, now retracing his steps and starting afresh, his head ever bent near the ground, scanning with his dark eye the earth. Finally, after we had followed the faint track for some one hundred yards he stopped, and with a guttural "Ugh!" pointed to the ground again. "Two white men passed this way four suns ago with the beautiful one," he said. "And after them only on last eve, the pale one with a red man hurried to overtake them." He straightened himself up in the moonlight and looked at me. "It is well, Manteo," I answered. "Shall we follow after them to-night?" "No, my brother," he replied. "The hearts of the men are faint within them; to-morrow we will follow them." And with that he retraced his steps to the camp, I by his side. I dreamed that night that the Lady Margaret struggled with Dunraven, and stretching out her hands, cried out for me to save her. As I sprang forward to her aid, lo! with a start I awoke.