The lone guardian of the cave was emaciated. Clay-brown parchment-like skin seemed barely to encase his bones.
“He’s one of ’em,” exclaimed Weston, who was visibly affected by the sight. “He’s one o’ them Lost Injuns. An’, ef I ain’t mistook, he’s the last uv ’em.”
[The Last of the Lost Indians]
“[The last of the Lost Indians],” exclaimed Roy half aloud.
The man was bald and toothless. About his loins he wore an almost black breech-clout of some sort of skin. A brown blanket, woven of some vegetable fiber, lay beneath his extended form. And the eyes—they resembled those of no Indian Roy had ever seen—had the slant of the Asiatic.
But there was the spell of the apartment. Did it contain the treasures described by the veteran westerner? Although the sympathetic boy was held by the sight of the ancient Indian, he heard Weston springing forward. Roy turned. The plainsman was already hastening toward a group of strange objects at the side of the apartment opposite the entrance. Roy followed—his mind full of the tale of silver and gold vessels.
To the right and left of the objects toward which Weston was making his way, were two decorated columns of wood wedged between the floor and the ceiling. Designs on them caught the boy’s eye. As he sprang toward the nearest one, a shadow shot across the ray of light falling through the door. The boy had just time to turn and make out the tottering form of the old Indian.