Accidents > Dangers of the deep, or, Narratives of shipwreck and adventure at sea

140 DESERTION or CAPTAIN CHEAP.
mal, yet our fatigue and heaviness were great¬
er than our fears; and we once more com¬
posed onrselves to rest, and slept the remain¬
der of the night without any further distur¬
bance. In the morning we were not a little
anxious to know how our companions had
fared; and this anxiety was increased upon tra¬
cing the footsteps of the beast in the sand, in
a direction towards the bell tent. The im¬
pression was deep and plain, of a large round
foot, well furnished with claws. Upon our
acquainting the people in the tent with the
circumstances of onr story, we found that
they too had been visited by the same unwel¬
come guest, which they had driven away by
much the same expedient. We now returned
from this cruise, with a strong gale, to Wager s
Island, having found it impracticable to make
farther discoveries in the barge, on so danger¬
ous a coast, and in such heavy seas- Here
we soon discovered, by the quarters of dogs
hanging up, that the Indians had brought a
fresh supply to our market. Upon our en¬
quiry, we found that there had been six ca¬
noes of them, who, among other methods of
taking fish, had taught their dogs to drive the
fish into a corner of some pond, or lake, from