"To be sure," said Mark, still speaking very seriously. "But why is it, then, that he will not say anything about it? He only shakes his head and goes away when one tries to get him to show where he got his bangles from." "Well, I don't quite know, sir. There's a something behind it all. They're sort of jealous like about having the old things meddled with, I think. Mak showed us the way here, but I never see him begin to sarch like to find anything the old people left, and if you remember he tried all he could to keep us from meddling and looking for the place where we found that old man." "Oh, the doctor said that was superstition," said Mark. "Then that's what it was, sir, if the doctor said so, for he'd know, of course." "Yes," said Mark. "I should like to go with you, Buck, but I couldn't. Whom should you choose?" "Well, sir, I should like to have little Dan." "Yes, he'd be a capital companion; but--but--but--" "Yes, sir; that's it. Them buts are a t'r'ble bother sometimes. I know he couldn't be spared, so I made up my mind for Bob Bacon. He's a very good sort of chap, and one you can trust. I'd go to sleep if it was him," and the man looked very fixedly at Mark and meaningly closed one eye. "He wouldn't go to sleep and let the fire out, sir." Mark said nothing, but he returned Buck's fixed look and did not close one eye. "I say, Buck," he said, "it will be a case of spade and shovel and billhook to-morrow." "Eh? Will it, sir?" "Yes; the doctor says he won't keep you men clearing up any more for the present, for he wants to begin digging in one of the likely places he had marked down, to see what we can find." "That's right, sir. I am ready, and I know the others are, for we all talk about it a good deal, and as Dan says, seeing what thousands of people must have lived here they couldn't help leaving something behind." CHAPTER TWENTY NINE. AMONG THE OLD STONES. In the clearing away of the abundant growth and selecting a position for their camp, a great stretch of wall was laid bare, one portion of which displayed the chequered pattern and another the herring-bone ornamentation adopted by the ancient people in building up what seemed to be the remains of a great structure which might have been temple, fort, or store. "It is impossible to say what it was until we have cleared away all this crumbled down stone and rubbish that has fallen from the top," said the doctor. "You see, this is one side of the building; there's the end; and those two mounds will, I think, prove to be the missing side and end." And it was here by the chequered wall that the next morning, directly after a very early meal, the first researches were made. The bullocks and ponies had been taken down to the river to drink and driven back into the ruins where they could be under the eye of Dunn Brown and the blacks, and so not likely to stray.