Then he ran back to
the hole and directed the beam downward.

The boys crowded around to look. Rick exclaimed in disappointment. The
hole was about eight feet deep and about four feet in diameter. The
walls were coated with green slime and on the bottom there was a mixed
coating of mud and slime and nothing else.

"False alarm," he said sadly.

Tony paid no attention. He went to the truck again, and from his own
crate of supplies he produced rope and two galvanized steel buckets. He
also found boots and rubber gloves, a small hand shovel, and an ordinary
garden hand tool with three prongs. These tools he thrust into his belt.

"I'm going down," he announced.

Rick realized that Tony was not taking for granted the apparent
emptiness of the hole. He realized, too, that Tony knew much more about
such caches than he. "Okay," he said. "Angel, keep a watch. We don't
want to get caught by surprise while Tony is digging."

"I've been watching," Angel said. "And we're also being watched by
Ifugaos, on the terraces above the village."

Chahda looked into the hole doubtfully. "How you get in and out, Tony?
No ladder."

"The rope," Tony said. "You'll have to lower me, or hold the rope so I
can climb down."

"We'll lower you," Scotty said. He took the rope and made a loop for
Tony's foot, then directed the archaeologist to sit on the edge of the
hole. Tony did so, putting his foot through the loop. Then Rick, Scotty,
and Chahda payed out rope while the scientist let himself slide from the
edge into the hole. In a moment the rope went slack. He was on the
bottom.

Rick watched while Tony drove his hunting knife into the wall of the
hole and hung his flashlight on it, the beam shooting downward. Then
Tony took his shovel from his belt and probed the soft earth carefully.
It was so soft that his boots sank in up to the ankles.

Presently Tony called, "Something here. Get a bucket." He worked with
the shovel and unearthed a small, mud-covered object, then another, then
a whole series of them.

Scotty tied a bucket to the rope and lowered it. Tony put the muddy
collection in it and Scotty drew it up.

"Send the rope back for me," Tony called.

The three boys helped to pull him up. He immediately sat down on the
ground with the bucket between his legs and started to clean his
findings.

"Rick," he requested, "get me the bag of cloths and brushes from my
case, please?"

Rick did so. Tony removed most of the mud by wi