“Trying to read.”
“Read what?”
“Well,” smiled Attatak, as she placed the bit of ivory in Marian’s hand, “long ago, before the white man came, my people told stories by drawing little pictures on ivory. They scratched the pictures on the ivory, then rubbed smoke black in them so they would see them well. This cow-drill handle is square. It has four sides. Each side tells a story. Three are of hunting—walrus, polar bear and caribou. But the other side is something else. I can’t quite tell what it says.”
Marian studied it for a time in silence.
“Mr. Cole would love that,” she said at last, and her thoughts were far away. For the moment her mind had carried her back to those thrilling days aboard the pleasure yacht, The O’Moo. Since you have doubtless read our other book, “The Cruise of The O’Moo,” I need scarcely remind you that Mr. Cole was the curator of a great museum, and knew all about strange and ancient things. He had done much to aid Marian and her friends in unravelling the mystery of the strange blue face.
“Bring it along,” Marian said, handing the piece back to Attatak. “It tells us one thing—that the man who built that fire was an Eskimo. It is worth keeping. I should like to take it with me to the Museum when I go back.
“Now,” she said briskly, “let’s go all over the cave. There may be things that we have not yet discovered.”
And indeed there were. It was with the delicious sensation of research and adventure that the girls wandered back and forth from wall to wall of the gloomy cavern.
Not until they had passed the spot where they had spent the night, and were far back in the cave, did they make a discovery of any importance. Then it was that Marian, with a little cry of joy, put out her hand and took from a ledge of rock a strange looking little dish no larger than a finger bowl. It was so incrusted with dirt and dust that she could not tell whether it was really a rare find of some ancient pottery, or an ordinary china dish left here by some white adventurer. However, something within her seemed to whisper: “Here is wealth untold; here is a prize that will cause your friend, the museum curator, to turn green with envy.”
“Sulee!” (another), said Attatak, as she took down a larger object of the same general shape.