“The dry air and all--” suggested Beatrice.
Stern nodded.
“Yes,” he answered. “Intact, so far. But--”
He stirred the skull with his foot. Instantly it vanished into powder.
“Just as I thought,” said he. “No chance to give a decent burial to this or any other human remains we may come across here. The slightest disturbance totally disintegrates them. But with this it's different!”
He picked up a revolver, hardly rusted at all, that lay near at hand.
“Cartridges; look!” cried Beatrice, pointing.
“That's so, too--a score or more!”
Lying in an irregular oval that plainly told of a vanished cartridge-belt, a string of cartridges trailed on the concrete floor.
“H-m-m-m! Just for an experiment, let's see!” murmured the engineer.