"He wouldn't be carryin' a gun or a watch," observed Kiddie, "and Injuns ain't in the habit of keepin' pocket diaries."
"Injuns?" repeated Rube questioningly. "D'you reckon this yer chap was a Injun, then?"
"Certainly," Kiddie answered, "an Injun, young an' tall."
"H'm!" murmured Rube, not satisfied. "You just guessin' all that, Kiddie, or have you figured it out?"
"I've figured it out," returned Kiddie. "Look at his thigh bone—the only bone that's left intact. It's longer'n mine, an' I ain't a pigmy. Must have been taller'n I am. Look at the teeth: they're not an old man's teeth. There ain't a speck of decay on 'em, they're not worn down any, an' they're well separate one from another, not crushed together like an old man's. Must sure have been young."
"Yes," said Rube, "but all that don't prove he was Injun. White men c'n be tall; white men c'n have good teeth. How d'you make out he was Injun?"
"By the shape of his skull for one thing," explained Kiddie—"the square jaw, the high cheek bones, the slopin' forehead. But more'n all I argue he was Injun because I calculate he was fixed tight in the tree, and was well on the way to bein' a naked skeleton long before any white man opened his eyes on the Rocky Mountains—yes, even perhaps before the Pilgrim Fathers landed in New England. That's why he didn't carry a gun. He didn't know there was such a thing as a gun, or a watch either."
"Git!" exclaimed Rube incredulously. "D'you expect me ter swaller a tall yarn like that? Why, the tree couldn't have bin more'n a seedlin' all them years ago!"
"Well," returned Kiddie. "I'm not prepared to declare that it was hollow, the same's it is now, in the time of the Pilgrim Fathers. But it was already an old tree. I guess it was an old tree even before Christopher Columbus discovered America. What's the girth of it, anyhow? Measure the girth of it, just above the base."
Rube made the tour of the forest veteran, estimating its circumference with outstretched arms.