ho could hardly wait.

"You talk about shoving it aside as if it were a baby carriage," said
the Captain. "Can't you see it's imbedded in the earth?"

And not all their efforts would budge it one particle. So they began to
dig around the base. They dug and they dug; they heaved and they
perspired; they threw out the dirt by shovelfuls until it made a heap
several feet high, and still they did not come to the bottom of the
rock.

"I bet it goes clear through to China," said the Captain disgustedly,
resting on his spade and mopping his brow.

"What sillies we are!" said the Bottomless Pitt. "What are we trying to
dig the blooming rock out for? There wouldn't be anything under it that
far down. If anything's buried here it's in the ground at the base of
the rock."

"Well, there's the ground at the base of the rock," said the Captain,
pointing to the heap of dirt. "We've dug it all up. There wasn't
anything in it."

Slowly but undeniably the fact began to dawn on all of them. The marked
rock was not the burying ground of any Indian relics. Hinpoha held out
the longest, but even she had to admit it at last. Katherine, who had
been skeptical from the first, laughed loud and long.

"What fools these mortals be!" she quoted disgustedly. "Breaking our
backs digging up clay that's like iron and cutting up dozens of
perfectly good angle-worms all on account of an old rock with a mark on
it!"

"But the colonel said there _might_ be Indian relics," said
Hinpoha, "so it wasn't so silly."

"Well, there aren't any," said Katherine.

"Never mind," put in Gladys pacifically, "if we didn't find anything we
didn't lose anything either, and I've worked up such an appetite from
digging that I could eat an ox."

"So could I," said Sahwah. "Let's take the worms home with us and go
fishing this afternoon. Then all our digging won't be for nothing."

"I bet I can catch more than any of you," boasted Anthony, strutting on
ahead as usual.

Thus ended the quest for Indian relics and the excitement over the
marked rock. The elders were very polite on their return and did not ask
too many questions. "Never mind, chickens," said Aunt Clara soothingly.
"You're not the first who dug for treasure and didn't find it, and I've
a notion you won't be the last. Go fishing with you this afternoon? I
certainly will!" If Aunt Clara could be said to love one sport more than
any other that one was fishing. "Where did you get all the worms?"

"Th