In a short time he had deepened it sufficiently to insert his fingers. One mighty heave—the stone yielded and came free. He raised it from the depression and tossed it to one side.
The hollow in which the stone had lain embedded, was filled with dirt. Pic set about to remove this by loosening and scraping it out with his fingers. While so doing, his knuckles encountered something hard and sharp. He pried the dirt from around the object, plucked it forth and held it to the light.
The object was a large flint-blade, flaked and chipped with edges so straight and keen, Pic could only stare and marvel. His experienced eye noted not the large flaking but the fine marginal chipping which gave the flint its finely-finished lines. It was a counterpart—a duplicate of his own ax so recently destroyed—the blade of Ach Eul.
Pic’s breath came loud and fast. The hot blood mounted to his temples. He set the flint carefully down beside him and turned once more to the hollow from whence it came. The dirt was soft and easily removed with his fingers. The ground beneath where the stone had lain, was a cavity filled with loose earth—and other objects as he discovered when once the loose material was removed.
The objects were flints—similar in form and finish to the first. The cavity was filled with them. He brought them forth one by one until he had secured more than could be counted upon the fingers of his two hands. Further search disclosed the cavity’s hard bottom but no more flints; nothing but a piece of bone.
“Part of the Cave Lion’s fare,” thought Pic. “It shows his tooth-marks and where he has licked it clean and smooth.” He was about to cast it aside, then checked the impulse and set it on the rock beside him where it soon passed from his thoughts. He turned again to the flints. The treasure of Moustier was now in his possession.
And it was indeed a treasure which had long lain buried in the floor of the grotto. Pic made a grimace as he thought of how many times he had stood, squatted, reclined over the very spot where it lay concealed. The stone—the guiding mark—had become buried in some unaccountable manner, thereby throwing him off the scent. It was but natural, he reflected, that Moustier—his father’s former home—should have been the cave which concealed the treasure; but who would have thought that the stone itself as well as the treasure might be hidden from sight?
Pic chuckled softly as he meditated over the element of chance that had brought about his good-fortune. But for the Cave Lion, he might have vainly hunted the world over until his dying day. He could thank Grun Waugh for this one thing, if nothing else. The treasure had been laid bare—or rather the stone which covered it—by a scratch of his big paw.
Pic gathered up the flints and carried them to the ledge outside. Here he squatted to feast his eyes on a dozen or more of the finest blades ever seen by mortal man—great almond-shaped flints, the size and form of his own hand—a sight to make the hunter and warrior’s heart beat fast with wonder at their great size and beautiful finish. The treasure of Moustier was priceless and beyond compare.
His first excitement having passed, Pic devoted himself to a more detailed inspection of the flints. They were all very much alike—great hand-axes; pointed and edged on one end; blunt on the other to accommodate the grip of the hand. They differed little from each other, in size, form, manner of chipping and even the material from which they were made. All bore the same evidence of retouch—the tiny chipping which made the margins so straight and keen. In them was none of the rude flaking and that, only on one side as characterized the wavy, irregular edges of Mousterian blades.