The eight seamen lived in this strangely simple and solitary manner until seven months had passed, and then they concluded to make another attempt to escape from the bondage of circumstances. Not an Indian had been seen, and there was no reason to believe that they had been discovered or observed. They merited good fortune, did these stanch and courageous castaways, but the curse of the _Wager_ had followed them. While they were getting together supplies for another journey toward Buenos Aires, Samuel Cooper, John Andrews, John Duck, and Isaac Morris went some distance along the beach to hunt seals. Late in the day they were returning to the hut when the dogs were seen to be running and barking in much agitation. The four men hurried to the hut, which was empty and plundered of muskets, powder, and ball, sealskin clothes, dried meat--everything they possessed. Scouting outside, one of the sailors shouted to Morris: “Aye, Isaac, something much worse has happened, for yonder lie poor Guy Broadwater and Benjamin Smith murdered.” One poor fellow was found with his throat cut, and the other had been stabbed in the breast. Their bodies were still warm, and, afraid the assassins might be somewhere near, the four men ran hard and hid in a rocky bight a mile away until next morning, for they had no firearms left. Of the four who had been overtaken in this tragedy, Joseph Clinch and John Allen had vanished, nor was any trace of them discovered. It was sadly agreed that Indians must have killed two and carried the two others away with them. The four survivors were deprived not only of their comrades, but of their precious muskets and the means of making fire. Never were men left more naked and defenseless in a hostile wilderness. In this plight Samuel Cooper, John Andrews, John Duck, and Isaac Morris trudged off for the third time to look for the mouth of the River Plate and Buenos Aires. With them trooped sixteen dogs and two pigs, and it must have been an odd caravan to behold. They carried their provender on the hoof this time. By following the sea-coast, they found pools of fresh water among the sand-dunes, where the heavy rains had not yet filtered into the ground, and a dead whale washed up on the beach served for several hearty meals. They got along without great difficulty until ten days of travel found them mired in endless swamps and bogs, which they could find no way of crossing. Again they retreated to the starting-place at the hut, but the amiable pigs were no longer in the troop. There were not so many dogs, and their number steadily dwindled; for there would have been no bill of fare without them.