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of someone's hand sticking out of the roots." She sat down on the ground, breathing hard to keep from fainting.
    Chief Walker was there in fifteen minutes. He'd looked at the hand and told the Harbinger boys to find a tarp to cover the hole. "Nobody touch anything. I'm going to call for some experts.”
    Chief Walker was lucky. He found two experts that were attending a professional meeting in Fishkill. There was a pathologist from Alb an y and an anthropologist from New York City with a bag of tools he'd been using to demonstrate techniques of detailed, careful investigation.
    On Tuesday they were both at Grace and Favor. The pathologist, a Dr. Meredith, was all for simply digging up the rest of the bones as quickly as possible so he could examine them. The anthropologist disagreed. "Haste in such a case is wrong. He or she has been here a long time. There is no hurry and valuable hints might be lost.”
    He introduced himself as Dr. Sam Toller and set about getting out his equipment from a bag he'd brought along. He was a long-limbed, sandy-haired man in his late thirties. He had a perpetual smile.
    The hole wasn't terribly deep and he and the Harbinger boys got flat on their stomachs with tiny trowels and small brushes he'd brought in the bag. "It's a good thing this is loose soil. It won't take long. All I need is the skull and pelvis to determine the age and sex of the victim.”
    Chief Walker was assigned to sit behind them with an assortment of paper bags in a variety of sizes. Robert went inside, fearing what nasty things might be revealed, but Lily stayed back, fascinated once she'd gotten over the shock. It was tedious work as the expert and the Harbingers kept delicately scooping away soil. Lily was assigned to sift the dirt in a set of sieves. First with large holes, then smaller ones, and then very fine ones. She was the first to notice the beads.
    “Get someone to bring a big pot of warm water, would you, miss?" Dr. Toller said with excitement.
    Dr. Meredith was impatient, but had found a bench not far away to sit and read a textbook he'd had in his automobile.
    Robert was quick to return with a pot. The beads were swished gently and then the water was poured back out through the finest sieve. The beads turned out to be rather pretty balls about the size of a child's fingernail. They were various shades of brown, green, dark red, orange, and yellow, and had holes through them. "Whatever they were strung on at one time has been dissolved. They've been fired to make them this hard and durable," Dr. Toller said. "We'll keep sieving them.”
    The next discovery was a bit of leather about the size of a postage stamp. Toller said, "Probably deerskin that's been heavily oiled or beeswaxed. Otherwise it would have rotted.”
    Are we talking about an Indian?" Chief Walker asked.
    “Most likely. If it had been a white hunter, there probably wouldn't be the beads," Dr. Toller said. "We're progressing well. But I imagine everybody's hungry. At least I am."
    “If Mrs. Prinney were here she'd make us lunch," Lily said.
    “Let's just pack up and go to town to Mabel's," Chief Walker said.
    Everybody went along, Chief Walker with the pathologist and the anthropologist in his police car. Robert, Lily, and the Harbinger boys in the Duesie. They discussed what had already been found with various levels of interest. Lily and Harry were the most enthusiastic about what they might learn about the skeleton. Jim was a bit bored with the chore of sifting and brushing around dirt when there were other things he and his brother needed to do for other customers.
    Robert didn't want to see the rest of the bones. "Bones and bagworms all in one day," he said with a shudder. "It's too much to bear.”
    Lily said, "You've always been afraid of things in nature. Remember the day we first came here and you admitted that you were afraid of trees?"
    “I never said that," Robert claimed.
    “Yes, you did," Lily said, laughing and gently poking