A couple of feet below the surface he discovered several flat pieces of stone, on one of which the words "Washington" and "J. Hildreth" were rudely cut, also a line separating them, and underneath: "December tenth" and "J. M., 1850." On another was carved the name "J. H. Shell," with other characters that could not be deciphered. On a third stone were the initials "H. R., 1847"; underneath which was plainly cut "J. R. Boyd," and still beneath "J. R. Pring." At the very bottom of the excavation were found the lower portion of the skull, one or two ribs, and one of the bones of the leg of a human being. The piece of skull was found near the centre of the grave, for such it certainly was. At the time of the discovery I was in Larned, and I immediately consulted my book of notes and memoranda taken hurriedly at intervals on the plains and in the mountains, during more than half my lifetime, to see if I could find anything that would solve the mystery attached to the quiet prairie-grave and its contents, and I then recalled Uncle John Smith's story of the quail as related to me at my camp. I also met Colonel A. G. Boone that winter in Washington; he remembered the circumstances well. Thorp was working for him, as Smith had said, and was killed by an Apache, who, in scalping him, tore the half of his head away, and it was thus found mutilated, so many years afterward. Uncle John was in one of his garrulous moods that night, and as we were not by any means tired of hearing the veteran trapper talk, without much urging he told us the following tale:-- "Well, boys, thirty years ago, beaver, mink, and otter was found in abundacious quantities on all the streams in the Rocky Mountains. The trade in them furs was a paying business, for the little army of us fellows called trappers. They ain't any of 'em left now, no mor'n the animals we used to hunt. We had to move about from place to place, just as if we was so many Ingins. Sometimes we'd construct little cabins in the timber, or a dugout where the game was plenty, where we'd stay maybe for a month or two, and once in a while--though not often--a whole year. "The Ingins was our mortal enemies; they'd get a scalp from our fellows occasionally, but for every one they had of ours we had a dozen of theirs.