“That’s not the same shaped skull as the first,” said Bourne quickly.
“Certainly not,” replied the doctor. “I should say it belonged to a fiercer, more savage race of man, who might have been an ancestor of the present Indians of the plains.”
“Then that was one of the enemy, father,” said Chris decidedly, “and he got it in the attack.”
“Possibly,” said the doctor, looking strangely at his son. “He seems to have got it, Chris, but that doesn’t sound to me a very scientific way of describing the antique remains.”
Chris turned very red, and pressed some of the dust aside with his foot, laying bare the side of another of the ghastly relics.
“And that’s like the first,” cried the doctor, bending forward to pick it up, a skull looking whiter than either of the others. “Certainly this is of a different race, Bourne, and the owner died in the same way, the brow crushed.—Look at that.”
The rest were already looking, and saw what caused the doctor’s abrupt exclamation, for as he took up the skull the back portion fell away and the front dropped apart into so much crumbling dust.
“We’re looking down at the remains of a desperate fight, sir, I should say,” said Griggs thoughtfully. “It’s just as if there had been a stand made here.”
“Come on into the next place,” said the doctor eagerly; “but keep close to the wall, following my steps. Ah! it’s impossible to avoid crushing the remains,” he continued, as he sidled along, leaving his footprints in the soft dust which lay thick.
“I say, Chris, isn’t this very horrid?” whispered Ned, as the boys followed last towards the low doorway opposite to that by which they had entered.