And indeed it was, although the skeleton proved, according to the decision of the professor of science at Carleton College, for whose inspection the boys sent the relics, to be that of a modern Indian, who had been buried probably not over an hundred years. He also wrote the boys that of the various things they had dug up, only the broken pottery could with probability be assigned to the time of the moundbuilders. He added, however, that the large amount of fragments of burned bones went to confirm the theory that the mounds of that class had been used as places in which human bodies had been burned, either in sepulchre or sacrificial rites.
Other excavations were planned by the boys, but the strenuous duties of their pioneer life crowded in upon them, and the trips were put off from time to time, until it so came about that their first exploration into the affairs of the lost race, proved to be their last.
CHAPTER XIII
COOKING IN CAMP
As Robert and Ed Allen had no elder sisters, and the health of their mother was far from robust, they were early trained to the simple duties of the home. Rob, especially, prided himself that “there was no woman who could beat him in plain cooking,” and, indeed, his bread was voted, even by Mr. Allen, to be “almost as good as Mother’s.”
As the frosts began to increase, and November clouds hung gray and heavy, tote teams, with their winter supplies for the camps in the big woods, would frequently stop at Mr. Thompson’s for the night. With one of these outfits there was a crew of twenty men with their cook, bound for the upper waters of the Wisconsin river to get out a special contract of “pumpkin pine,” a good sized tract of these forest giants having been located during the previous summer. This variety of pine was very white, exceedingly soft, and grainless, and not infrequently would yield three cuts of logs of sixteen feet each in length, entirely free from knots. These logs would saw into planks sixteen feet long, with a width of from three to six feet. Of course such timber was very valuable, even in those days of timber prodigality.
The Allen boys heard that the crew boss was young Medford, whom they had met in Necedah. He was a clean, energetic young fellow, just out of college, and, destined to take his father’s place in the great lumbering operations of the state, was winning his way up in practical service. But this morning, while his greeting was pleasant, young Medford’s face showed a considerable anxiety to the boys. Pete Lateur, the cook, while wholly dependable once within the big woods, had broken faith with the boss, and had smuggled a flask of whiskey in with his dunnage. During this, their first night’s stop, the liquor had provoked a brawl in which the cook emerged with a broken arm. After the rude surgery that he was able to give, Mr. Thompson would take him back to the town for a month’s lay up. But there was no one else among the crew who could take his place, and no time to send a team back to hunt a cook in town.
“Rob,” said Ed, “you’re always bragging about your cooking, why don’t you take the job?”
“What’s that?” exclaimed Medford, overhearing what had been spoken in jest, “Can you cook, Rob?”