Chapter XII: Ancient Treasure

With a hand that trembled slightly, Marian held the candle that was to light their way in the exploration of the mysterious mountain cavern. As if drawn by a magnet, she led the way straight to the spot where but a few hours before she had been so frightened by finding herself standing in the burned out ashes and bones of an old camp-fire.

She laughed now as she bent over to examine the spot. There could be no question that there had once been a camp-fire here. There were a number of bones strewn about, too.

“That fire,” she said slowly, “must have burned itself out years ago; perhaps fifty years. Those bones are from the legs of a reindeer or caribou. They’re old, too. How gray and dry they are! They are about to fall into dust.”

She studied the spot for some time. At last she straightened up.

“Not much to it, after all,” she sighed. “It’s interesting enough to know that some storm blown traveler who attempted the pass, as we did, once spent the night here. But he left no relic of interest behind, unless—why—what have you there?” She turned suddenly to her companion.

Attatak was holding a slim, dull brown object in her hand.

“Only the broken handle of an old cow-drill,” she said slowly, still studying the thing by the candle light.

“It’s ivory.”

“_Eh-eh._”

“And quite old?”

“Mebby twenty, mebby fifty years. Who knows?”

“Why are you looking at it so sharply?”

“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.

A few feet farther on was a ledge fairly covered with curious objects; strange shaped dishes; bits of ivory, black as coal; pieces of copper, dulled with age. Such were the treasures of the past that lay before them.

“Someone’s pantry of long ago,” mused Marian.

“Very, very old,” said Attatak, holding up a bit of black ivory. “Mebby two hundred, mebby five hundred years. Ivory turn black slow; very, very slow. By and by, after long, long time, look like that.”

As Attatak uttered these words Marian could have hugged her for sheer joy. She knew now that they had made a very rare find. The objects had not been left there by a white man, but by some native. Broken bits of ancient Eskimo pottery had been found in mounds on the Arctic coast. Those had been treasured. But here were perfect specimens, such as any museum in the world would covet.

And yet, had she but known it, the rareness and value of some of these were to exceed her fondest dreams. But this discovery was to come later.

Drawing off her calico parka, Marian tied it at the top, and using it as a sack, carefully packed all the articles.

“Let’s go back,” she said in an awed whisper.

“_Eh-eh_,” Attatak answered.

There was a strange spookiness about the place that made them half afraid to remain any longer.

They had turned to go, when Marian, chancing to glance down, saw the bit of ivory they had found by the outer camp-fire. At first she was tempted to let it remain where it lay. It seemed an insignificant thing after the discovery of these rarer treasures. But finally she picked it up and thrust it into her bag.

Well for her that she did. Later it was to prove the key to a mystery, an entirely new mystery which had as yet not appeared above their horizon, but was, in a way, associated with the mystery of the purple flame.

“Listen!” said Marian, as they came nearer to the mouth of the cave, “I do believe the storm is passing. Perhaps we can get off the mountain to-day. Oh, Attatak! We’ll win yet! Won’t that be glorious?”

It was true; the storm was passing. Attatak was dispatched to investigate, and soon came hurrying back with the report that they could be on their way as soon as they had eaten breakfast and packed.

Marian was possessed with a wild desire to inspect her newly discovered treasure—to wash, scrub and scrape it and try to discover how it was made and what it was made of. Yet she realized that any delay for such a cause would be all but criminal folly. So, after a hasty breakfast, she rubbed as much dust as she could from the strange treasures and packed them carefully in the folds of the sleeping bags.

Soon the girls found themselves beside their deer, picking their way cautiously forward over the remaining distance to the divide; then quite as cautiously they started down the other side.

During the day they halted for a cold lunch while their reindeer fed on a broad plateau, a protected place where they were safe from the wild blizzards of the peaks that loomed far above them.

“From now on,” said Marian, “there will be little rest for us. Our bold stroke has saved us nothing. It is now a question of whether reindeer are trustworthy steeds in the Arctic; also whether girls are capable of solving problems, and of enduring many hardships. As for me,” she shook her fist in the general direction of Scarberry’s herd, “I’ll say they are. We’ll win! See if we don’t!”

To this declaration Attatak uttered an “_Eh-eh_,” which to Marian sounded like a fervent “Amen!”