Meanwhile, Will stepped out of the pile of brushwood and said, somewhat foolishly, “Now, George, don’t be foolish; you know well enough there are no rattle-snakes in this part of the country. Put up your instruments of cauterization, and let us all take a squint under these ‘brambles.’”

Poor George looked so crestfallen that Will almost relented. “Didn’t you get bitten?” the former asked blankly.

“What could bite me, George!” Will asked mildly.

“Well, I don’t know what,” George said savagely, “But Charles Goodfellow declares this is a jungle; and we all know, I hope, that poisonous lizards, and reptiles, and centipedes, and tarantulas, and all hideous creatures, live in just such a place as this—I mean in jungles. So, what disturbed you in that brush-heap! Answer that question!—Botheration!” he continued furiously, “here you’ve led me into this horrible place, made fun of me, and contradicted me—you, who have no practical knowledge. And now, to cap it all, I’ve lost my jack-knife, the best jack-knife in these regions, and I got it only yesterday!”

Poor George! One thing after another had happened to irritate him, and he was now in a savage mood. In fact, he was really angry, and the boys had never seen him angry before.

Charles felt a pang in the region of his heart, and Stephen was very uneasy.

“Never mind George,” Will said soothingly. “I’ll help you to look for your knife as soon as we see what is under the brush.”

He stooped over the brush-heap, groping, and then said with awe, as he supposed: “Boys, here are bones! It was bones that rattled under me!—George,” conciliatingly, “what does that mean?”

[76]

“Well, I don’t care what it means. My knife is worth more than all the bones you can find in a whole summer; and I intend to look for it in spite of everything. You boys may squabble over those bones till—till—any time you choose.”

Charley was dismayed. George was too sullen to catch at the bait, and their little scheme seemed likely to end ingloriously. Was it for this that they had toiled and plotted?

But Marmaduke, who had hitherto held his tongue, now came to the front, saying eagerly, “Bones! Bones! Let me see!”

He rummaged among the branches, and while Will, Charles, and Stephen, crowded around him, George looked on “askance.”

“O-o-h!” gasped Marmaduke, “what a horrible discovery we have made! Bones! Bones of a mortal! Boys,” with emotion, “Some one was Foully Murdered Here.”

“O-o-h!” echoed all the boys, as in duty bound.

But Steve gave a horrible chuckle, and whispered to Charles, “It works already with him; and,” pointing his elbow at George, “he’ll come around.”

The pain in Charley’s heart was not very deep-seated, and it now made room for exultation. The searcher was left to his own musings, and the rest were absorbed in the discovery.

Marmaduke paused a moment, to realize the awfulness of the word murder; then, snatching up the branches, he nervously tossed them out of the way.

A little heap of white substances was disclosed which—to Marmaduke’s heated imagination—were all that remained of a human skeleton.

Now, the writer has so much respect for the feelings of his readers that he herewith warns them, in all honesty, that what is immediately to follow, borders upon the grisly; and that consequently it would be well for the queasy reader of fashionable fiction to skip the rest of this chapter and all of chapter the twelfth.

Marmaduke was now in his element; he felt somewhat[77] as a philosopher does when a new theory in science bursts upon him; he was happy. All boyish bashfulness forsook him, and he began rapturously:—

“Yes, boys, we have made a great, an appalling, discovery! We have certainly stumbled on a dreadful mystery! It now remains for us to solve this great problem, and gain immortal renown. In the near future, I see us sitting in the courts of law, with the ferret-eyed reporters; the grim lawyers; the shrill-voiced foreman keeping order among the honest and eager jury; the gaping multitude; the venerable judge; and the quaking murderer, found at last, and his crime unearthed and fastened on him by us. Then the grand old judge, in solemn tones, will turn to us and say, “You are now called upon to give your conclusive evidence, and charge the crime—long hidden, but brought to light at last—upon the trembling, cringing wretch—this murderer!” Oh! what a proud day it will be for us! Now, boys, an unpleasant duty lies before us, and if any of you wish to withdraw, do so at once. As for me, I will not drop the matter till the mystery is cleared up, and the murderer gibbeted. But who ever wishes to take a bold part with me, must continue in it till justice is satisfied. Then together we shall reap the fruits of our zeal.”

This neat little speech amply repaid the boys for all the perils they had encountered in penetrating into Charley’s jungle. Their delight is beyond our description. Charley, Will, and Steve, exchanged winks most recklessly.

Marmaduke, however, paid no attention to them, but drew a scrap of paper and a lead-pencil, which he always carried, from his pocket.

“What are you going to do now?” Steve queried of the romance-stricken boy.

“I am going to make a memorandum of this affair,” was the answer.

“Where is Jim?” Will asked, thinking that youth would enjoy the scene.

“Oh,” said Steve, “his old and convenient disorder seized him when George spoke of rattle-snakes, and he skedaddled.”

[78]

“Yes,” supplemented George, who was recovering his temper, “there is a good deal of philosophy in his complaint; for, like most things cold, it vanishes away when heat is applied; and, to generate heat, Jim sets out on a run.”

“Good for you!” Charley said promptly, hoping to induce the boy to examine and pass an opinion on the bones.

But George still felt too sore—perhaps, too obstinate—to yield.

“Look here, Marmaduke,” he said, “how are you going to prove that somebody was murdered here? Perhaps he was gobbled up by an unprincipled and broken-down quadruped—say, a shipwrecked gorilla.”

“Yes,” chimed in Steve, “perhaps a devouring monster of a famished sea-cow fell on him, and gnawed him, and wallowed him around, and extinguished him!”

Marmaduke was now being jeered in his turn. Considering that he was only a boy, he put up with their banter with stoical unconcernedness; but his quivering lips and humid eyes betrayed that he felt it, and turning to Will, he said, “In such a case as this, you always find something to discover the guilty one,—a pet dog’s collar, a monogrammed metal tooth-pick, an old card case, a seal-ring, a gold watch-key, a book-mark, a—a—or something else.”

“Why, have you found anything?” Steve asked quickly.

No answer. Silence, in this instance, was peculiarly golden; more, it was sufficient.

“Then how do you know, and how are you going to prove it was murder?”

Then Marmaduke’s indignation was roused, and he scowled upon Stephen so malignantly that this worthy quailed, unable to bear up under that “steady gaze of calm contempt.”

Turning to Will and Charles, the persecuted boy thus explained himself: “Not long ago, I read in a story how an awful murder was cleared up, simply because a cast-off wig, that had fallen into the murderer’s pocket by[79] accident, and belonged to nobody in particular, fell out again at the fatal moment, and proved the whole crime. You boys might read about such things from to-day till your hair turns gray; and you would find that some little trinket, some trifle, turns the evidence one way or the other, and decides the verdict. Why, where would the romance of romances be, if it wasn’t so?” excitedly. “I mean to hunt for that lost trinket when I get ready; it has been here all this time, and it isn’t going to disappear forever now.”

“How long has it been here?” asked George, laying stress on the word how.

“When we stumbled on this mystery,” pursued Marmaduke, too much absorbed to regard George’s incivilities, “it was about ten o’clock.”

Having made a note of this, he went on, “the scene was a tangled glade in a thick jungle.”

Another note.

“Fit scene for such a tragedy!” Charles commented.

“The bones were hidden under brush-wood, which I removed,” and again his pencil was heard to scribble a note.

We say, scribble. The boy intended to “polish” his notes at a more convenient season.

“I say,” interrupted Stephen, “it isn’t your place to take all these notes; you ought to inform a constable, or, a bailiff,—or, better still, a detective!”

Marmaduke scowled at him again, but held his peace.

“Oh, I see,” continued Stephen, bent on teasing the poor boy; “you’ll hand your notes over to some detective, so that he’ll see how clever you are.”

Then Marmaduke spoke. “Boys,” he said, “I’m astonished at your levity and indifference in such a case as this.”

With that, he laid down his pencil and paper, and again examined the bones, handling them with reverence, and muttering what he supposed to be their names.

For some time a fierce conflict had been raging in George’s mind—curiosity battling with wounded vanity. Which would triumph?

[80]

While Marmaduke mumbled, George took mental notes. Soon a broad grin spread over the latter’s face, and he said, “Look here, boys; Marmaduke has named five thigh-bones, and thirty-one ribs! I know, for I’ve kept count. Now, the skeleton of a common man has no business with so many thighs and ribs; and Marmaduke isn’t supposed to know the name of a bone as soon as he sees it. Now, I’ve studied into the matter, and I ought to know something about it. I’m just going to see them for myself.”

Curiosity had triumphed!

This disconcerted poor Marmaduke. He made room for George, and sat down beside Charles. A look of dismay appeared in his face, and he pondered deeply. “Boys,” he said, “did you ever hear that anybody was ever murdered in this neighborhood?”

“Never!” shouted all four in a breath.

“I don’t care; it is a skeleton!” doggedly. “I know as much about it as he does,” glaring at George, “and I will stick to it, it was a skeleton.”

“Whatever it was it’s not a skeleton now!” roared George.

Do not take alarm, gentle reader: this history is not the register of any squabbles among savants: the writer is too tender-hearted to inflict such a punishment on you.

George resumed: “That is a foolish conclusion; for there are no human bones here at all! Not a skull, nor a radius, nor a—, a—”

At this point Charley interrupted the osteologist by saying, “George, don’t tell off the parts of a skeleton with such disgusting gusto; have a little respect, even for bones.”

“Well, I will;” George assented—the more willingly because he found himself less versed in the matter than he had imagined. “But it was very foolish to think of murder. Boys, do you want to know what it is? I know; I’ve solved your mystery: I’ll reap all the glory!” he cried, so excited that he lost control of his voice.

[81]

“Well, what is it?” Will asked sharply, perhaps afraid that George had detected the fraud.

Groundless fear; George was quite as credulous as Marmaduke.

Wild with excitement, his voice rang out loud and discordant. He shouted, at the top of his voice, “Boys, it’s a fossil!”

“A what?” Charley demanded.

“A fossil! An extinct animal! A mastodon! A gyasticüt?s! (If this word is new to the reader, let him raise his voice and pronounce it according to the accents.) Yes; here is a field for a geologist or naturalist; not for a humdrum, cigar-puffing, bejewelled detective!”

And the Sage’s form dilated with pride and complacency. His day had come. He could have it all his own way now; for what did the others know about geology?

Poor George! his imagination was as powerful as Marmaduke’s; but he could not equal him in oratory.

As for the boys, they were thunder-struck; this exceeded their utmost expectations.

Steve was the first to speak. “Don’t yell so loudly, George; there are no geologists near to hear you;” he said.

Then again the boys, Marmaduke excepted, huddled around the bones, and expressed unqualified astonishment.

“What will you do about it, George?” Will inquired.

“Travel them around the country for a show;” Marmaduke sneered.

But George was too much elated to re............