Jack stared at the bundle, wondering how long it had been here, who
it had been, and thinking of the life that it had led so long ago.
Meantime, the other two had turned aside and were looking about the
cave, which was only ten or twelve feet wide. Hugh picked up an
earthenware pot, which stood at one end of the bed of stones, and
calling Jack, showed it to him. By the light of the lantern it seemed
to be dark red and grey, and it had once held something, as its sides
and bottom, within, were dark with crusted dust. "I expect when they
buried this fellow," said Hugh, "they left some grub for him to eat,
in this pot." Near the pot, but resting on the floor of the cave, was
a small sack made of what seemed like leather. This, when Jack felt
of it, seemed heavy. The covering was hard and dry.
On the walls at either side of the cave were scratched in the rock,
rude figures of men, a great circle with lines starting out from it,
which Hugh said meant the Sun, and a rude figure of a bird with a
great hooked beak--the Thunder Bird.
After they had satisfied their curiosity, Mr. Sturgis and Hugh turned
to go, but Jack lingered behind. "Oh, Hugh," he called, "can't we
take this bundle with us? I'm sure it would be a greater curiosity,
back east, than the mummies from Egypt that I have seen in the museum
there."
"Well now, son," said Hugh, "I don't reckon I'd bother that fellow,
if I was you. Fetch the pot and that little sack along with you, if
you want 'em, and then come out here in the sunshine, and we'll talk
about it." They sat down by the mouth of the cave, and Hugh and Mr.
Sturgis filled their pipes.
"Now, look here, son," said Hugh, "how would you like it if
some day some fellow was to come along to the place where your
great-great-grandfather had been buried, and should talk about
carrying off his bones for a curiosity?"
"Well," said Jack, "I don't suppose I'd like it very much."
"I don't expect you would," said Hugh, "and the Indians feel the same
way about their dead grandfathers that you might feel about yours.
You don't want that bundle in there for anything except because
it's a curiosity, and if I was you, I wouldn't bother it. It can't
do no one any harm for you to take these other things; they're real
curiosities, because they're the old-time things the Indians used to
make and use; but I wouldn't bother them bones. Let's see what you've
got."
They opened the sack carefully, but the covering of hide tore to
pieces as they tried to unwrap it. Hugh spread out his coat, so that
nothing might be lost and all bent eagerly forward to see what the
relics might be. The largest thing was a great pipe made of black
carved stone; then there were eight arrow heads of black, white and
brown flint, finely worked, and one smaller piece of flint, shaped a
little like an arrow head, but which Hugh said was used in painting
skins.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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