It was only when they reached the depth of about four feet, nearly at the level of the surrounding ground, that their spades struck unmistakable evidences of fire--discolored earth, small coals, ashes, and some brown fragments, the nature of which they could not at once determine. “We have found it, Hurray!” shouted Rob. “They cached their goods and built their fire over them just like our Indians did.”
“Now, boys,” counseled Dauphin, “let’s not be too hasty. Let’s examine every spadeful carefully as we dig.”
Now the finds became more numerous: A stone mortar and pestle, such as the Indians now use for preparing their meal from maize; a red, stone pipe, curiously carved; several pure white arrow-heads, others coal-black; a stone axe, grooved near the head for its fastening to the handle; some broken earthenware vessels, decorated with queer, spear-point designs; and most valuable of all, a copper knife in fairly good state of preservation.
Then they came to a great quantity of brown fragments, which upon examination, proved to be charred bone.
Down through the burned earth they dug in feverish haste toward the treasure they believed to be hidden there. But alas! although they toiled until dark, they were forced to acknowledge to themselves that the ground beneath the fire had never been disturbed before.
“Well,” said Ed, “We didn’t find the ‘key’ to unlock the history of these mounds, but we’ve got one of the old fellows, with some of his dishes, his axe, his pipe, his spears and arrows, and his wife’s grist mill. That’s pretty good for one day.”
And indeed it was, although the skeleton proved, according to the decision of the professor of science at Carleton College, for whose inspection the boys sent the relics, to be that of a modern Indian, who had been buried probably not over an hundred years. He also wrote the boys that of the various things they had dug up, only the broken pottery could with probability be assigned to the time of the moundbuilders. He added, however, that the large amount of fragments of burned bones went to confirm the theory that the mounds of that class had been used as places in which human bodies had been burned, either in sepulchre or sacrificial rites.