The Indian Burial Ground Mystery

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