In these remains, both shell and the jewel of the southwest—turquoise—had been freely used. Battered and worn samples of each of these periods of craftsmanship were found in the tomb of the unknown race. Most of them, and the best preserved, were found in the cave where the last survivor came to his death.
Apparently the tribe neither cremated nor mummified its dead. In one of the deepest recesses of a far gallery a burial chamber was discovered. At the foot of a carved post, over a foot in diameter and resembling an Alaska totem pole, there were found in this catacomb some of the most curious and valuable relics. At the urgent request of Mr. Cook, Roy counted the human skulls in this sepulchre and found there were four hundred and twenty-three. In this work the acetylene headlight was useful.
After the complete survey of the caves had been made, and detailed maps made, showing their ramifications and apartments, Mr. Cook was carried back to Bluff. For five days the Parowan was in truth an Aeroplane Express. Three hundred and eighty-five objects, large and small; gold, silver, copper, wood, ivory and shell; worn textile fabrics, feather decorations, and the few pieces of pottery found were all carried to Mr. Cook’s bungalow in Bluff. The four immense wooden posts or “totem poles,” as Mr. Cook called them, were hauled to Bluff two months later by wagon.
Then came the question of dividing the treasure. There was nothing avaricious in Roy.
“It belongs to Weston,” he repeatedly insisted. “Weston suffered for it, and he found it. He ought to have it all.”
“A contrack is a contrack,” Weston would declare. “Ef I found it, I lost it, too. An’ you and Mr. Cook is the gents as really diskivered it. Hep yourselves. They’s a plenty fur all!”
A few of the simpler and best preserved pieces were what interested Mr. Cook most. These he consented to accept. And, at Mr. Weston’s and Roy’s joint request, he finally took for himself one of the prize specimens. This was a heavy copper bowl—eighteen inches across the top—with a beautifully carved silver lid. In the top of the lid, as a handle, was set an oblong piece of ivory in each side of which was traced the outlines of a seal. Around the edge of the lid, set deep in the silver, was a continuous band of turquoise almost imperceptibly joined.
Roy’s first selection was a bowl of dark odorous wood, almost a duplicate of the silver-copper vessel in size and shape. The inside of this, when it had been cleaned, was found to be almost as smooth as glass. The outside was a mosaic of tiny bits of iridescent Abalone shell set in a hard, pitch-like substance.
When Weston and Roy returned to Bluff an agreement was reached that their joint treasure was to be sent east in one shipment in care of President Atkinson, of the aeroplane company in Newark. Before this was done, an inventory was made of each item. Copies of this were kept by Weston and Roy, and when the treasure had been carefully packed and boxed, a third copy was forwarded to Mr. Atkinson. It had been finally arranged that Roy was to receive a third of the value of the remarkable find.