On removing the covering stones, they found very little beneath them, but every object was taken out and Lisle, measuring quantities and guessing weights, carefully enumerated each in his notebook. Neither he nor Nasmyth said anything of import then; both felt that the subject was too grave to be lightly discussed; and walking back silently along the shingle, they pitched the tent and prepared supper. After the meal, Jake, prompted by an innate tact, sauntered away down the beach, and the other two, lounging beside the fire, took out their pipes. A full moon hung above the lonely gorge, which was filled with the roar of the river, and the shadows of the cedars lay black upon the stones.
Some minutes passed before a word was spoken; and then Nasmyth looked up.
“Well?” he said briefly.
Lisle moved a little, so that he could see his companion’s face.
“In the first place,” he explained, “Clarence Gladwyne came down this bank. One could locate the cache by the blazed tree, even with snow upon the ground—and it has been opened. Apart from the signs of this, no party of three men would have thought it worth while to make a cache of the few things we found.”
“Mightn’t it have been opened by some Indian?”
“It’s most unlikely, because he would have cleaned it out. A white prospector would certainly have taken the tobacco.”
Nasmyth knit his brows. He was deeply troubled, because there were respects in which the matter would hardly bear discussion, though he recognized that it must now be thrashed out.
“Well,” he admitted reluctantly, “what we have discovered has its significance; but it isn’t conclusive.”
His companion took out from a pocket the palm and wrist portion of a fur glove. It was badly rotted, and the rest had either fallen away or been gnawed by some animal, but a button with a stamp on it remained.