he pointed with one
hand eagerly to the sea and with the other to the shore; "bin men down
dare!--look, got suffin'! Oh!"

A prolonged groan of despair escaped the child as he fumbled in a
trousers-pocket and pushed three fingers through a hole in the bottom of
it.

"It's hoed through!"

"What's hoed through?" asked Sally, with quick sympathy, trying to
console the urchin for some loss he had sustained.

"De knife!" exclaimed little Dan, with a face of blank woe.

"The knife! what knife? But don't cry, dear; if you lost it through
that hole it must be lying on the track, you know, somewhere between us
and the beach."

This happy thought did not seem to have occurred to Matt, whose cheeks
at once resumed their flush and his eyes their blaze.

Taking his hand, Sally led him down the track.

They looked carefully as they went, and had not gone far when Matt
sprang forward with a scream of delight and picked up a clasp-knife. It
was by no means a valuable one. It had a buckhorn handle, and its
solitary blade, besides being broken at the point, was affected with
rust and tobacco in about equal proportions.

"Oh, Matt, where did you find it?"

"Come down and you see," he exclaimed, pointing with greater excitement
than ever to the beach below.

They were soon down, and there, on the margin of the woods, they found a
heap of cocoa-nut shells scattered about.

"Found de knife dere," said Matt, pointing to the midst of the shells,
and speaking in a low earnest voice, as if the subject were a solemn
one.

"Oh!" exclaimed Sally, under her breath.

"An' look here," said Matt, leading the girl to a sandy spot close by.
They both stood transfixed and silent, for there were _strange
foot-prints_ on the sand.

They could not be mistaken. Sally and Matt knew every foot and every
shoe, white or black, in Pitcairn. The marks before them had been made
by unknown shoes.

Just in proportion as youth is more susceptible of astonishment than
age, so was the surprise of those little ones immeasurably greater than
that of Robinson Crusoe in similar circumstances. With awestruck faces
they traced the foot-prints down to the water's edge. Then, for the
first time, it struck Matt that he had forgotten something.

"Oh, me forget de sip--de sip!" he cried, and pointed out to sea.

Sally raised her eyes and uttered an exclamation of fresh astonishment,
as well she might, for there, like a seagull on the blue wave, was