the junk had been. I was not on the island. I must have left it
by one or the other of those two tracks. He had just been over the
one to his skiff, and was certain I had not left that way.
Therefore I could have left the island only by going over the
tracks of the junk landing. This he proceeded to verify by wading
out over them himself, lighting matches as he came along.

When he arrived at the point where I had first lain, I knew, by the
matches he burned and the time he took, that he had discovered the
marks left by my body. These he followed straight to the water and
into it, but in three feet of water he could no longer see them.
On the other hand, as the tide was still falling, he could easily
make out the impression made by the junk's bow, and could have
likewise made out the impression of any other boat if it had landed
at that particular spot. But there was no such mark; and I knew
that he was absolutely convinced that I was hiding somewhere in the
mud.

But to hunt on a dark night for a boy in a sea of mud would be like
hunting for a needle in a haystack, and he did not attempt it.
Instead he went back to the beach and prowled around for some time.
I was hoping he would give me up and go, for by this time I was
suffering severely from the cold. At last he waded out to his
skiff and rowed away. What if this departure of Yellow
Handkerchief's were a sham? What if he had done it merely to
entice me ashore?

The more I thought of it the more certain I became that he had made
a little too much noise with his oars as he rowed away. So I
remained, lying in the mud and shivering. I shivered till the