The Indian Burial Ground Mystery Page 3

  “Oh, Mart,” Trixie said. “You know what I mean.” She turned her attention back to Professor Conroy. He had been assigning most of his students to sections on a large map that lay on the table. The map showed the meadow where they were standing divided into numbered squares. A big, hand-printed label in bright-red ink said, BURIAL GROUND. To the east of the meadow was another, smaller area which was labeled, VILLAGE. While the professor assigned sections, a group of students were driving pegs into the ground and tying lengths of string between them, marking off squares just like the ones on the map.

  The five Bob-Whites stood in line waiting to get their assignments. Di had finally located the group and was standing with them. She’d been delayed by the twins, who refused to eat their lunch, but she’d managed to arrive only a few minutes after Professor Conroy began his speech.

  “Wasn’t that exciting, Trixie?” Di whispered. “Oh, I hope I find something really terrific.”

  Trixie suddenly had a thought. She tapped the girl ahead of her on line and said, “Excuse me, but why are there two different sections to the dig? The map says ‘Burial Ground’ and ‘Village.’ ”

  The girl smiled in a friendly way, and gestured across the meadow toward a path that went off to the east, into the forest.

  “Over there, in the woods, is the place where Professor Conroy thinks the original Indian village was located,” she explained. “The meadow where we’re standing was where the Indians buried their dead. He hopes to find most of the important artifacts here.”

  “Yikes,” Trixie said, starting to hop from one foot to the other. “We’re standing on graves!”

  “We are not,” Brian said calmly.

  “Oh yes we are,” she argued, her voice rising shrilly. “This whole meadow is the Indian burial ground. What if the ghosts of these Indians get angry and come back to haunt us?”

  “That’s what I love about you, Trixie,” Honey began, trying not to laugh. But before she could finish, Professor Conroy was welcoming them to the dig, and assigning them to sections and jobs. Honey and Trixie were assigned to dig in the village site, which was in the woods. They were also asked to help out in the cleaning tent, which was at the burial ground site. Everything found had to be carefully cleaned with soft brushes and placed in marked boxes. Di had been assigned to the drawing group, because she was such a good artist. She was to make a drawing of each find on a three-by-five card. Later, the graduate students would try to date the finds based on where and how deep in the ground they’d been found. Mart and Brian were to help with the packing. Every find would be carefully packed in boxes to take back to the university for further study during the winter. Cataloging and classifying were saved for the more experienced college students. Each item would be identified by its shape and decoration, and then a large catalog would be made from the three-by-five cards.

  “Whew!” Trixie said. “There’s more to this than I thought.”

  Ghosts had apparently slipped from her mind. But she still walked carefully around the edge of the meadow as she and Honey made their way down the wooded path to the village site. All the tents had been put up, and the last of the equipment was being unloaded from the trucks.

  The two girls were surprised when they got to the section of the woods where they were supposed to dig. It was deserted, dark, and forbidding.

  “Who would want to set up a village here?” Honey said in a tremulous voice. “It’s so gloomy. I would think that any Indian would hate it here.”

  “Honey,” Trixie whispered to her friend, “look over there. What’s that man doing?” Honey turned to see a skinny, seedy-looking man pacing and whispering to himself. He would occasionally stop to jot something down in a notebook.

  Honey thought she recognized him. “Wasn’t he one of the delivery men? I wonder what he’s doing off in the woods?”

  Suddenly Trixie saw Charles Miller rush over to the man. Trixie and Honey, standing twenty feet away in the low undergrowth, could hear only snatches of their conversation. Charles called the older man Harry, and they seemed to know each other. Trixie put her finger to her lips, cautioning Honey to remain silent.

  The two men spoke briefly, and Trixie distinctly heard the words “a real treasure trove,” “map,” and “historical society.” Then Charles shook Harry’s hand and said, “We won’t have any problem dealing with those nosy kids. Just leave it to me.”

  When the two girls were finally alone again, Trixie was aghast.

  “Did you hear that?” she whispered, her eyes as round as saucers. “He called us nosy!”

  “How do you know he was talking about us?” Honey asked reasonably.

  “Well, maybe not about us, but certainly about the Historical Society,” Trixie said firmly. “He must have meant something about Brian! Remember, Brian said Charles was interested in the Historical Society. I’d better warn him that there’s something fishy about Charles Miller!”

  “Trixie!” Honey called after her disappearing friend.

  But Trixie didn’t hear. She raced back to the main area of the dig to find her brother. Honey followed her as fast as she could.

  After Trixie had spoken to Brian, he made it clear that she was being much too suspicious.

  “Charles Miller is a very nice, bright guy,” he said. “Your mind is so full of crooks and mysteries that you seem to have lost the ability to see anything else.”

  “You like him because he cozied up to you, Brian,” Trixie wailed. “Can’t you see he wants to use you to get into the Historical Society?”

  “Why shouldn’t he want to get into the Historical Society?” Brian asked in his most rational tone of voice. It was the tone that often annoyed Trixie. “After all, he’s a scholar. That’s what scholars do—research in historical societies.”

  “Not to find out about archaeology and Indians, they don’t,” Trixie huffed back at him. Her hands were placed squarely on her hips as she defiantly faced her brother. “That’s where a person would look for a treasure map—just like the one they were talking about!”

  “Trixie,” Brian said, his voice carrying a slight warning, “please calm down. I think you’re on the wrong track. If it turns out you’re right, though, I’ll buy you a five-course dinner at the fanciest restaurant in town.” With that, he turned back to his work. Honey, who had been listening to the whole exchange, gently took hold of her friend’s elbow.

  “Come on, Trixie,” she said. “It’s 5 o’clock. Let’s head back to the house. Maybe we can get Miss Trask to fix us some lemonade.”

  “I don’t care if he doesn’t believe me,” Trixie muttered hotly. “I’ll investigate on my own!”

  “Not on your own,” Honey said quietly. “Remember, I heard them, too. I’ll help you. But in the meantime, let’s assume they were talking about the buried treasure of archaeology, and a map of the dig site.”

  “I doubt it,” Trixie said. “I really doubt it.” The girls walked back to the main site, where they’d left their bicycles, then continued on to the Manor House.

  4 * Suspicions

  The next morning, Trixie was ten minutes late leaving the house for the hospital. The girls had decided to ride their bikes to and from work each day, so Mrs. Belden wouldn’t have to drive them. But Trixie missed Honey this morning, and had to ride her bike to town alone. She didn’t catch up with her friend until 10 o’clock, when they were already on their rounds.

  “Honey,” she said in a loud whisper as they passed each other, “I have to talk to you!”

  Both Trixie and Honey were pushing book carts through the hall. Part of their job as candy stripers was to bring the little “libraries on wheels” to each patient. There were magazines, newspapers, and paperback books to choose from.

  “I can’t stop now,” Honey said softly. “Is it important?”

  “Of course it’s important,” Trixie said. “But I suppose I can tell you later.”

  “I’ll meet you at 1 o’clock,” Honey said, beginning to push her cart
again. “I hope that’s okay. It’s just that there are so many floors in this hospital.”

  “I know,” Trixie replied with a smile. “I guess the patients are glad to see us, because they all like to chat and then take hours to pick out a book.”

  “Three patients asked me to get them things from the gift shop,” Honey said. “I’ll be running around all morning!”

  “Look,” Trixie said, “I’ll see you after we get off. It’s important!”

  The night before, as Trixie was falling asleep, she’d had a terrible thought. Maybe whoever had been robbing the Westchester estates—the ones she’d read about in the newspaper—were planning to rob the Manor

  House, too. She was worried because Honey and Miss Trask were alone for the next month. I Mr. and Mrs. Wheeler were away on a trip, i and Jim was off being a camp counselor.

  It was true that Regan was still home, but he didn’t live in the main house. He lived in an apartment over the garage, which was separated from the main house by about fifty feet. Regan might not hear burglars if they came snooping around late at night.

  At 1 o’clock, the girls met on the front steps j of the hospital. As they walked around to the bicycle rack at the side of the building, Trixie told Honey about her fears.

  “For one thing,” she was concluding, “there are strange people around and one of them is Harry—and he has a truck. It’s a perfect set- • up, don’t you see? We did overhear Charles Miller and Harry talking about a ‘treasure trove.’ And you remember that Charles spent a lot of time examining the valuables in your living room. It all adds up.”

  “It does and it doesn’t,” Honey said reasonably. “I don’t think that Charles Miller is a burglar—he’s a graduate student, after all. However, it’s true that Miss Trask and I are alone in the house, and it’s also true that people are being robbed. So I guess there is a little something to worry about. Maybe I should mention that article you saw to Miss Trask. She always manages to come up with a good solution.”

  Honey and Trixie pedaled their bikes along Glen Road as fast as they could. Splitting up at the Belden driveway, they agreed to meet on the dirt road in fifteen minutes.

  Trixie rode home, changed into shorts and a T-shirt, had a bologna sandwich and a glass of milk, and climbed back on her bike. Pedaling as fast as she could, she met Honey, and they quickly made their way to the dig site.

  The students and Professor Conroy were just finishing their lunch break. Professor Conroy, after carefully wiping his hands and his mouth, began another of his mini-lectures before they all got back to work.

  “I love this,” Trixie whispered to Honey as they sat down with the group. “I bet this is just what college is like.”

  “Now, before we begin in earnest,” Professor Conroy said, rubbing his hands in anticipation, “I want to refresh your memories about how we dig. We don’t, and I repeat don’t, dig—we scratch! A pick or a shovel is too heavy a tool to use. Mark off a small section for yourself, and carefully scratch the ground away. You might come across a delicate pottery shard, and you don’t want to break it. You also don’t want to miss anything, so go slowly and carefully.

  “If you find something, make a note of where you found it, and how deep down it was before you continue. And don’t throw anything away. What looks like a rock to you could easily be a tool of some sort, or a pipe head encrusted with dirt. That will be the hard part for you, as it is for all of us. Trying to decide what is junk, and what is a junk-encrusted find, is something that torments all archaeologists.

  “I thought I’d show you some pictures of standard pipe heads, so you’ll see what the general shape is. The eastern tribes were the most frequent pipe smokers, and they designed a number of different pipes. One of them, as you can see here, has a flat, oblong base on which is set a round bowl. Because this style of pipe resembles the Civil War battleship, it has come to be called a monitor pipe. Other pipes have very tall bowls set at varying angles near the end of long, flaring bases.

  “A pipe has the general shape of the letter L. This shape is not commonly found in nature. If you find something with this shape, check with the student head of the dig before you throw it away. I’ve assigned that position to Charles Miller.”

  “Oh, no. Not him!” Trixie groaned as Professor Conroy gestured towards Charles. Charles nodded his head and smiled.

  “Now let’s get to work,” Professor Conroy concluded. “We all know what we’re supposed to be doing, and where we’re supposed to be doing it. Good digging—I mean, good scratching!”

  Trixie and Honey trudged away from the beehive of activity at the burial ground site. They followed the path leading east through the woods, away from the busy meadow and the cheerful students, and finally found their section. Gloomily, they surveyed the area. The trees were tall, and closely grown. A thick mat of vines and briars made it difficult to walk around. Several large fallen tree trunks crisscrossed what little clear space there was to be found.

  “I still don’t get it,” Trixie mumbled. “What a dumb place to make a village.”

  “Maybe it wasn’t such an unlikely place five hundred years ago,” Honey said. “We learned in geography that everything changes. What J was once a meadow becomes a forest; what was once a lake becomes a meadow. Who j knows, maybe this used to be a cozy little clearing.”

  “Well, it certainly isn’t a cozy little clearing now,” Trixie muttered. She sat down on a rock disconsolately. “What are we going to find | around here anyway? Probably nothing but a few aluminum flip-tops from soda cans.”

  “They didn’t have soda five hundred years ago.”

  “Honey!” Trixie choked out after a burst of laughter. “You know what I mean!”

  The two girls were so busy giggling, they didn’t hear the sound of approaching foot- j steps. As Trixie wiped tears of laughter from her eyes, she saw that Charles Miller was f standing in front of her.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked gruffly.

  “W-we, uh, we’re working here,” Honey stammered.

  “Well, I don’t want you working here,” Charles said, glancing around nervously.

  “Wait a minute!” Trixie snapped, her hot temper getting the better of her. “Professor Conroy assigned us to work in this section, and this is where we’re going to work.”

  Honey glanced at her friend in amazement. Only a few minutes before, Trixie had been complaining about this spot. Now she was defending her right to stay here as if she loved it more than anything in the world.

  “Well, I’m the head of this dig, and I say you can’t dig here,” Charles told her. As he spoke, his face got red, and he rubbed his palms along the sides of his shorts.

  Why, he’s nervous, Honey thought.

  “We’ll just see about that,” Trixie retorted. “I’m going to check this with Professor Conroy. C’mon, Honey.”

  Charles became more upset, and started to follow Trixie. Then he stopped in his tracks and called after her instead.

  “I wouldn’t bother him if I were you. You high-school kids aren’t serving any purpose on this dig. We don’t need you here at all.” Honey hurried to catch up with Trixie. Reaching out her hand, she touched Trixie’s shoulders softly.

  “Slow down a minute and catch your breath,” Honey said. “You shouldn’t go storming up to the professor. Try to calm down.” Trixie realized her friend was right.

  “In fact,” Honey continued, “he may even assign us to someplace better. Sometimes these things work out for the best, you know.” Trixie took a deep breath. “I know that, Honey, but Charles made me so mad. He really shouldn’t talk to us that way.”

  “No,” Honey agreed, “but for some reason he doesn’t want us working there. Once Professor Conroy reassigns us, though, we’ll be with the other students and we’ll make new friends. It’s the best thing that could have happened.”

  “Maybe,” Trixie said slowly. “But I’ve been thinking about it, and I’d rather work at the village site than, well, o
n the actual burial ground. What about the ghosts?”

  “Trixie! You don’t believe in ghosts any more than I do.”

  Trixie clapped her hand over her mouth. “Oh, rats!” she said, stomping her foot. “I left my pick and my sifter back at the village site. I’ll be right back.”

  “But, Trixie...” Honey yelped.

  “I’ll meet you back at the meadow,” Trixie called over her shoulder. Then she set off running through the woods.

  She was almost at the site, when she heard voices drifting through the trees. Slowing to a crawl, Trixie walked as quietly as she could, trying to catch a glimpse of who was talking— and trying to avoid being seen.

  It was Charles Miller, and he was talking to Harry again.

  “Make a date with that kid from the Historical Society,” Harry was saying, his voice a low whine. “We gotta get that map, and we gotta get it in a hurry.”

  “I don’t see why—” Charles began, but Harry cut him off.

  “Take it from me, kid,” Harry said, “we haven’t got much time. You wanna fool around in the woods with a pail and shovel, be my guest, but—”

  It was at this moment that Trixie, trying to creep closer in order to hear better, tripped over a gnarled tree root. With a cry of dismay, she sprawled flat on her face right in front of the two men.

  “What the...” Harry snapped at the intrusion. “Who’s that?”

  “A troublemaker, that’s who,” Charles said as he looked down at the disheveled girl. “Didn’t I tell you to get lost?”

  “I forgot my tools,” Trixie explained lamely. She could feel herself blushing with embarrassment.

  “Well, hurry up and get them, and then get out of here,” Charles said, scowling at her.

  Trixie scrambled to her feet and walked slowly across the tiny space separating her and Charles. She had to climb over a fallen tree trunk to get to the place where she’d left her tools. “Yes, sir. Your wish is my command.”