inson kept to his own side of the
island, and employed his time chiefly in working on his land, and in
making dishes and pots of clay. These he had now learned to burn
properly. Pipes, too, he made, and they were a great comfort to him,
for he managed to cure very good tobacco from the wild plants that
grew around. And as he feared lest his powder might begin to run
short, he thought much over ways whereby he could trap goats for food,
instead of shooting them. After many trials, the best plan, he
decided, was to dig holes, which he covered with thin branches and
leaves, on which he sprinkled earth, so that when anything heavy
passed over, it must fall into the pit. By this means he caught many,
and the kids he kept and tamed, so that in no great time he had quite
a large herd of goats. These he kept in various small fields, round
which from time to time he had put fences.

V

ROBINSON SEES A FOOTPRINT ON THE SAND, FINDS A CAVE, AND RESCUES
FRIDAY

All this time Robinson had never gone near his canoe, but now the
longing came on him to go over to where he had left her, though he
felt that he should be afraid again to put to sea in her. This time,
however, when he got to the hill from which he had watched the set of
the current the day that he had been carried out to sea, he noticed
that there was no current to be seen, from which he concluded that it
must depend on the ebb and flow of the tide. Still, he was afraid to
venture far in the canoe, though he stopped some time at his
country-house, and went out sailing very often.

One day when Robinson was walking along the sand towards his boat,
suddenly, close to the water, he stopped as if he had been shot, and,
with thumping heart, stood staring in wonder and fear at something
that he saw. The mark of a naked foot on the sand! It could not be his
own, he knew, for the shape was quite different. Whose could it be?

He listened, he looked about, but nothing could he hear or see. To the
top of a rising ground he ran, and looked all around. There was
nothing to be seen. And though he searched everywhere on the beach for
more footmarks, he found none.

Whose footprint could it be? That of some man, perhaps, he thought,
who might come stealing on him out from the trees, or murder him while
he slept.

Back to his house he hurried, all the way in a state of terror,
starting every now and again and facing round, thinking he was being
followed, and fancying often