"If you want the run of the Injun forts," said the Captain, as he stood beside me on the Texas, "there's Abel Steadman aboard. He knows 'em better than anybody hereabouts,—an' knows nothin' else," dropping his voice. "I'll bring him up," which he did accordingly.
Steadman was a lank, yellow-haired country-lad, habited in a suit of blue Kentucky jeans, ill-fitting, and ragged besides. He talked acutely and intelligently, however, on this subject, and gave me a clear idea of the discoveries made in Indian antiquities in that region. "The trouble was," he said, "people who had means cared nothing about the matter."
The next day we naturally came together again: he had precisely the information I needed. About noon he touched me on the elbow, as I stood by the deck-railing,—
"There is where I live," pointing to a tumble-down old shanty back in a field. "There is a small mound to be opened in the adjacent farm next week. Would it interest you to see it? If so, come ashore, and stay with me for a few days."
The invitation was given so simply, and as a matter of course, that I accepted it without further parley. The Steadmans were miserably poor; the young man, in his queer, blunt way, said as much, though by no means apologetically.
"You are afraid of encroaching? No. We live by what we shoot or fish, Matt and I. Matt's my brother. It's not much; but if you choose to throw a line with us, it will make you easy about staying as long as you please."
There was a straightforward delicacy in this that I liked. I remained with the Steadmans, therefore. We went over to see the mound in the evening, which proved to be much smaller than that at Elizabethtown, thirty miles farther down the river, in which was found the famous "mound-stone" that so puzzled French savans. Our mound was covered with a thick undergrowth, when we first saw it; was oval in shape, and about twelve feet in height. The next morning it was opened by the farm-owner, (who wanted it out of the way to plant potatoes,)—Abel and I assisting and digging with the best of them. After half a day's work we came to an incrustation of clay, baked hard, as by internal heat. After this had been penetrated and carefully removed, we discovered a stone block or altar, immediately in front of which lay a skeleton, and the ornaments, tomahawk, etc., of a chief. Forming a complete half-circle with this, and in front of the altar, were thirteen other skeletons, their heads towards the chief, the bones of the arms crossed as in obeisance. The pith of our discovery lay in the fact, that about these inferior bones was heaped a lightish, oily, brown dust,—burnt human flesh, in a word,—proving that these skeletons belonged to criminals or prisoners sacrificed at the death of the chief.
Abel Steadman kicked the bent skull and folded arms of one of them aside.
"Even those savages made masters and slaves of each other," he said, pettishly. "The costliest wampum made the chief then, as nowadays, I suppose."
I remember I looked at him, thinking it an odd train of thought for a carter's son.