“I remember! You mean that piece of paper or letter, or whatever it was, that they were so afraid I’d see!”
“And don’t you recollect how curious they were to know all we could tell them of Nesbit, and how he was killed, but especially where? As sure as shootin’ they have one half of that paper telling where some one buried a fortune, and they must have known that Ichabod Nesbit had the other half! Why, it is as plain as day!”
Five minutes later the boys had completely uncovered the bones of a man. That they were those of their one-time enemy, Ichabod Nesbit, there could be no doubt. John recognized the remnants of a blue homespun shirt which Nesbit had worn, but Ree clinched the matter by making the discovery that the skull of the skeleton was missing. For they recalled how Black Eagle had journeyed to this western country and carried away the skull to convince another Indian that he had really killed Nesbit.
“It’s too bad,” said Ree, quite sorrowfully. “Nesbit might have been a prosperous man if he had but used his gifts in the right way. And here he lies!”
“Thunderation! He would have killed us, if Black Eagle hadn’t killed him,” John broke out, almost indignantly.
“But we ought to give his bones as decent a burial as possible, ’way off here; that is what I was thinking of,” Ree made answer. “Yet, we haven’t time to do it now. Our friend up there may have taken a delirious spell and fallen out of the cart before we get back, as it is.”
Meanwhile the boys were searching the ground about the skeleton carefully. They found nothing, however, and rightly judged that Black Eagle had taken all of Nesbit’s property which was in sight, for which he cared, at the time he killed the man.
The manner in which their dog had chanced to find the snuff box—the one thing which had not been carried away—was plain. It had fallen away from the rotted clothing still clinging to the bones, at which unknown animals had been gnawing, and was brought to light when Ring tried to get at these burrowing creatures in their holes.
Returning the stones and brush to the position in which they had found them, but agreeing to return some day and bury the skeleton properly, Ree and John lost no time in hastening back to their camp. The mystery of the snuff box and the writing in it had been partially solved, and now their thoughts were again chiefly of reaching their long-deserted cabin as speedily as possible.
Within an hour after their discovery of the lonely, last resting place of Ichabod Nesbit’s body, they were again making their way farther and deeper into the wilderness, one of whose manifold gloomy and terrible secrets had that morning been revealed to them. They little knew at that time what others were in store.