“Yes, digging.” Then, “Brent, had me that shovel!”
We went over to Tom and watched him as he took a few shovelsfull of loose dirt from the left side of the grave. It came away like sand.
“You see?” he said, shoving the sharp spade into the earth. Lifting his foot up on the top edge he rested it heavily there. With the movement, we heard plainly the hollow sound that falling stones and dirt will make when hitting some solid object.
“And did you hear that?” Brent almost whispered it.
“Certainly I did,” Tom said, tersely. He moved his foot and tried to pull the shovel out.
He couldn’t get it out. It seemed stuck fast into something, and we each took a turn at it without any success. It wouldn’t budge an inch.
“Wait a minute,” Tom said. He got down on his knees and started scooping up the dirt around the spade by the handful and flung it aside.
In a few moments we saw to our bewilderment that the shovel was wedged tightly in a slight fissure of some wooden obstruction, directly underlying the few layers of earth.
“We might as well uncover this,” said Tom, grimly, and gradually loosened the spade from the wood.
It was hardly five minutes’ work. Brent and I scooping up the dirt with our hands and Tom with the shovel, uncovered what proved to be a rough board.