“Anyway,” the other said, “we’ve got to get up there and down on the other side, where they live. We’d better start as soon as possible. Be dark before we get over the ridge, as it is.”
“We’ll start at once,” the other agreed. Then they disappeared into the cabin.
“Treasure!” Jeanne was saying at that moment. “He called that treasure—four big slabs of copper beaten out of the rocks, probably by Indians, and hidden here perhaps two hundred years ago. It may go well in your museum, but how is it going to help with that boat of yours?”
“It won’t help much,” Vivian agreed with a sigh.
Flashlights in hand, they had entered the rocky cavern. It was neither very wide nor deep. Well toward the back of it they had come upon these irregular slabs of pure copper. The marks of fire and Indians’ stone hammers were still to be seen upon them. Here at least was proof that wild tribes did mine copper here in centuries gone.
“Copper,” said Vivian slowly, “is worth eight cents a pound, if you have it near a smelter. Up here it is worth very little.
“But there have been times,” she added in defense of the unknown one who had left that note in the ancient churn, “when this pile of copper would have been considered a treasure. It would have sold for two hundred dollars, and that much money would buy a house in a city, or a pretty good farm, way back in the long ago. It all depends—”
She did not finish, for at that moment Jeanne exclaimed from the deepest and narrowest corner of the cavern: “Vivian! Come here quick! See what I’ve found!”
“Oh—oh!” Vivian cried. “How strange!” Her flashlight played over a narrow shelf-like ledge of rock. On that shelf rested several pieces of crockery.
These were not like any Vivian had seen before. Moulded from bluish clay, then fired to a bright glaze, they bore on their sides strange markings.