Robinson Crusoe Told to the Children

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?