"Why, what a big knife," said Jack. "It's almost like a sword; but it
isn't very sharp."
"Not very," said Hugh, "but notice how it's whetted, round on one
side and flat on the other. That's the way Indians always whet their
knives. Queer, isn't it? Let's look around for something more. Let
your horse go, after you've thrown down the reins; he won't move."
The two separated and began to look over the ground, and in a moment
Jack called out in a solemn way. "Oh, Hugh, look here; see what I
have found!" and as the old man came up to him, he pointed out a
human skull that lay half buried in the dirt in a little washout.
"That's one of 'em," said Hugh, as he picked it up. It was very old,
grey with weather, and all the teeth had fallen out. Higher up the
hill were splinters of bones and even some whole bones of legs and
arms, and sticking out of the ground among them was a long piece of
iron, which when dragged from its resting-place, proved to be a rifle
barrel.
"Well, now," remarked Hugh, "if we keep this up we'll have a
horse-load of truck to pack home with us."
They looked further, gathering up one thing after another, and at
length when they were ready to go home they had five Indian skulls,
the rifle barrel, the knife, an old-fashioned T. Gray axe, such as
was used in trade with the Indians in early days, some pieces of the
wood of saddles, a couple of elk-horn fleshers and a stone scraper.
All these things were very old; the iron deeply rusted, the bones
and wood grey and split with age and weather.
Hugh bundled these things into his coat and tied it on behind his
saddle, and they set out for the ranch. Just as they got to the
corral, the dinner horn sounded, and after unsaddling and putting
their treasures upon the roof, which Hugh easily reached from the
ground, they went to the house. Jack thought that he had never tasted
a dinner quite as good as that one, and when he had finished he felt
quite uncomfortable.
A little while after dinner, Hugh said to Jack: "Now, son, go in and
bring out your rifle, and let's see how it's sighted and how it pulls
off. A man always must learn how his gun shoots before he can expect
to kill anything. I've seen young fellows from the States come out
to hunt, and start in and shoot away a heap of ammunition without
hitting anything, and come to find out, they had never sighted their
guns, and didn't know anything about where they shot. 'Course they
couldn't hit anything. You get a box of ca'tridges and your gun, and
we'll try to find out just what it can do, and afterwards what you
can do."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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