The Disappearance of Ben Boyd.

The Wanderer lay at anchor in a sheltered inlet of Guadalcanar now marked on the chart as Wanderer Bay. Early on the morping of October 15, 1851, Mr. Boyd had a dinghy lowered and with a Kanaka sailor went on shore to shoot pigeons; he had been on shore with his gun on the previous day. There was some sporting rivalry between him and Webster, and he got up early to anticipate his friend: When Webster went on deck he saw his friend half way to the shore, and he hailed him. Boyd had taken a powder-flask and sholbelt which Webster had left handy on the cabin table intending to go on shore himself that morning. Boyd, laughing, held up the flask and belt, and called out that he would lie back to breakfast with some birds. “That,” said Webster, “was the last I ever saw of my friend Ben Boyd.”

The Wanderer's owner went round a wooded point, intending to go up a valley near the landing. Shortly afterward's those on board the schooner heard two shots fired at short intervals. They thought Boyd was using his double-barrel gun on the pigeons. But nothing more was heard.