Now those by the fire seemed to have finished their supper, for they arose, and the more boyish looking of the pair picked up the box again. It looked as though they might be about to hunt for some hiding-place, where it could be placed, and safely kept until it was wanted again.
“Get that sharp-pointed stick, Jenks,” he remarked, pointing as he spoke, “that might do in place of a spade. You see, we didn’t bring that sort of tool along, because we never thought we’d need one. But you ought to be able to scratch out a deep enough hole to cram this in. I hope nobody disturbs it again, that’s all. I’d hate to know that was so. Now, come over this way, Jenks. It won’t take any great length of time.”
He spoke with a slight lisp that made him seem much more effeminate than might otherwise have been the case. And to the alarm of Buster the pair actually started toward the quarter where the six lads were flattened out as close as they could get to the ground.
But then the shadows lay thick, and besides, before there was any real danger of discovery they heard him say again:
“I imagine this ought to do as well as anywhere, Jenks, just behind this bush, you notice. Now, see how you can root out the earth with that stick and your hands. I should think that a hole some fifteen or eighteen inches deep would be enough. There, it seems to work all right, doesn’t it, Jenks?”
The heavy-set man said that it did, and continued to labor on, throwing the dirt out of the cavity he was making, by a liberal use of the sharp-pointed stick, then following it up by scooping with his bent hands.
But not a thing did the aristocratic partner in the team seem to do in order to assist. He must be the recognized brains of the crowd, and as such was entitled to sit by, and give orders in a rather supercilious way, while the other did all the real hard work.
When Jenks had scooped out a hole that he thought deep enough, he paused to wipe his brow with a red bandanna handkerchief. Meanwhile the other carefully laid the box in the cavity.
“It fits first-rate, Jenks,” he announced, “and now you can cover it up again. Just push the earth in, you know, like that,” and with the toe of his shoe he managed to cause some of the dirt to fall upon the top of the box.
When presently Jenks seemed to have patted down the disturbed earth the other spoke again.