Using a flat rock with a sharp edge as an improvised spade, he began to dig. The ground was hard, and the rock was not the best of tools. It took him half an hour to reach the first bone, and another half-hour to uncover the rest.
Mark had come up behind him and was watching with no sign of revulsion. He said, "I—I was afraid there might be a body, Pop."
"So was I. It looks as if the man died so long ago that everything else has rotted away, except for a few metal clasps. No other sign of shoes or clothes. And no indication of how this happened."
"You think he was the dog's master?"
"Evidently."
They both stared at the sleeping animal. Then Sam shrugged, and began to fill the shallow grave again. Mark helped him push in the dirt and stamp it down into place. Finally they moved the stones back.
They were about to leave when Mark cried out, "Look at that rock!"
Staring where his son pointed, Sam saw a gray column about four feet high, with four smooth lateral sides. Rectangular prisms of this size were rare in nature. This was obviously the work of human hands, and of a blasting rod as well, to judge by the sides, which showed evidence of having been fused before weathering had cut into them. At first he had thought the column was a gravestone. But there was no inscription upon it. There was nothing but a thin deep groove that ran horizontally around the four sides, several inches from the top.
"What does it mean, Pop?"