He arrived about noon, having started rather sooner than had been agreed upon. On being informed of the tracks which had been discovered, he said that we ought at once to trace them as far as we were able. "We must not rest," said he, "until we know something more of this, even if we have to traverse every inch of ground on the island." Browne was inclined to infer from the foot-prints, that the interior, and the eastern part of the island, of which we as yet knew nothing, were inhabited, and that our companions had fallen into the hands of the natives. "Let us, in the first place, find, if possible, where they are. We can then judge what is to be done, if indeed we can do any thing," said Morton, "and now for the place where the tracks you speak of are to be seen." Grasping our weapons, which were no longer to be regarded as a useless incumbrance, we once more proceeded up the brook, and soon reached the piece of low ground before mentioned. We again narrowly inspected the tracks: Morton measured them with a twig, and concluded, as we had previously done, that these were the foot-prints of at least seven persons--there being that number of clearly different sizes. Three of these were without doubt the tracks of Arthur, Johnny, and Eiulo. The impressions made by the moccasins of the two former led only in one direction, (_from_ the stream), while those of the naked feet, (or of some of them), were in two opposite directions. Following these tracks eastward along the rocky ridge, we soon came to firm dry ground, where footsteps could no longer be traced. But by a minute scrutiny, we were still able to detect slight but decisive indications of the course of the party whose trail we were endeavouring to follow. In one place, a bunch of spreading ferns had been trodden down, and the long graceful fronds bruised and broken: in another, a cluster of crushed wild-flowers betrayed a recent footstep. A little further on, we came to a wide, meadow-like expanse, where the grass and weeds grew rank and tall, and through this the path of a considerable party could be readily traced. Gradually becoming accustomed to this species of minute investigation, as we continued carefully to practise it, we soon grew so expert and skilful, that things very slight in themselves, and which would ordinarily have altogether escaped notice, sufficed to guide and direct us.