At last Phil, with all his strength, dragged something out of the ground, and with a shout put it down beside the other things. It was a small iron pot, which had been used for cooking. It was now full of earth, and Phil, seizing the colter, began to pick it out.
“This is the famous pot,” cried Phil, with a laugh; “but the money inside has all turned to dust because we dug it in the daytime.”
“Money?” cried Arthur. “Don’t laugh about money. What do you say to that?”
And he held out on his open palm three very dirty coins. What they were they could not tell, whether silver, or iron, or what. They looked like very dirty round stones. The boys took them and examined them carefully. Bart drew his knife, and scraped off the rust and canker.
“More of old Benedict Bellefontaine,” said he, at last. “We can’t make anything out of him. See here!”
And holding out the coin, he showed where he had scraped it. There they could read, faintly marked, letters, which formed the following:—
UN SOU
They were somewhat disappointed at this, and scraped the other coins, but found them all copper.
“Pooh!” said Arthur; “what’s the odds? To an archaeologist isn’t a copper coin as precious as a gold one? Of course it is. Hallo, Phil! Haven’t you got that pot cleaned out yet? I’ve got an idea. I’ll put these sous in the pot, and then we can say that we’ve found a pot of money. We’ll be generous, too—we’ll give it all to the Museum.” Phil’s pot by this time was empty, and Arthur laughingly threw the sous into it. After this they began their search again, and enlarged the hole in hopes of finding more around the sides. And in this they were successful, for they found, near, a dozen more copper coins, which made a very respectable appearance in the pot, and in addition to these, about a dozen bits of iron—nails, spikes, and bolts.
“Hallo, boys! look here!” cried Bart, suddenly. He held in his hand an old, discolored bone. “Talking about relics,” said he, “here’s a relic of the original owner. The question is though, is it a human bone?”