After twenty minutes, the trail, intersected by a gully which ran across it, escaped him for a time. He found it again and followed it, skirting the base of a chain of rather high sand-hills, which ended suddenly in a sort of craggy cliff. On rounding this cliff Simon started back. On the ground, flat on its face, with the arms at right angles to the body, lay the corpse of a man, curiously dressed in a very short, yellow leather waistcoat and a pair of trousers, likewise leather, the ends of which were bell-shaped and slit in the Mexican fashion. In the middle of his back was the hilt of a dagger which had been driven between the shoulder-blades. What astonished Simon when he had turned the body over was that the face was brick-red, with prominent cheek-bones and long, black hair: it was the undoubted face of a Redskin. Blood trickled from the mouth, which was distorted by a hideous grin. The eyes were wide open, and showed only their whites. The contracted fingers had gripped the sand like claws. The body was still warm. "It can't be an hour since he was killed," said Simon, whose hand was trembling. And he added, "What the deuce brought the fellow here? By what unheard-of chance have I come upon a Redskin in this desert?" The dead man's pockets contained no papers to give Simon any information. But, near the body, within the actual space in which the struggle had taken place, another trail of footsteps came to an end, a double trail, made by the patterned rubber soles of a man who had come and gone. And, ten yards away, Simon picked up a gold hundred-franc piece, with the head of Napoleon I. and the date 1807. He followed this double trail, which led him to the edge of the sea. Here a boat had been put aground. It was now easy to reconstruct the tragedy. Two men who had landed on this newly-created shore had set out to explore it, each taking his own direction. One of them, an Indian, had found, in the hulk of some wreck, a certain quantity of gold coins, perhaps locked up in a strong-box. The other, to obtain the treasure for himself, had murdered his companion, and reëmbarked. Thus, on this virgin soil, Simon was confronted--it was the first sign of life--with a crime, with an act of treachery, with armed cupidity committing murder, with the human animal. A man finds gold. One of his fellows attacks and kills him. Simon pushed onwards without further delay, feeling certain that these two men, doubtless bolder than the rest, were only the forerunners of others coming from the mainland. He was eager to see these others, to question them upon the point whence they had started, the distance which they had covered and many further particulars which as yet remained unexplained.