"Ha!" said Hugh.
"What is it, Hugh?" said Jack.
"Why don't you see?" said Hugh. "This here cave is a grave and that's the body of a person that was buried here."
"It must have been a little bit of a child, then," said Jack.
"Not so," Hugh answered, "that's a grown person, either a man or a woman. That's the way they tie 'em up in bundles when they bury 'em. I expect that Indian was put here a long time ago." Hugh put down his lantern, bent forward and took hold of the bundle by either end, and lifted it from the ground. It seemed to weigh very little, and as he replaced it on its bed of stones, he repeated, "A long time ago. Why, that bundle don't weigh nothing. There can't be nothing in it except just the very driest kind of bones, and that hide that it's wrapped in is just like paper; when I lifted it, my fingers went right through it."
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?"