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her elbow into his ribs.
    Since Lily was right, he didn't pursue the conversation.
    CHAPTER SIX
    REFRESHED BY A HEARTY LUNCH, the anthropologist, Dr. Toller, was eager to unearth the rest of the skeleton. "I can see the front and top of the skull now and it's a young person," he said, addressing his remarks to Lily because she seemed the most interested. After delivering the pathologist and anthropologist, Chief Walker had left to investigate a house that had been broken into.
    “How can you tell?" Lily asked Dr. Toller.
    “By the way the various parts of skull come together. They don't entirely knit together until a person is close to eighteen or twenty. I'd guess the subject was perhaps early teens. Possibly as young as fifteen or even younger."
    “You can't tell anything else from the skull?”
    “Yes, the teeth indicate it's an American Indian."
    “They have different teeth?"
    “Yes, the front ones are 'shoveled.' That means that they—" He thought for a moment how to describe it to a stranger. "The calcium they're made of goes around the sides and they are a bit concave at the back. Sort of like a little shovel."
    “That's fascinating. I'd have never guessed front teeth weren't always the same," Lily responded.
    He nearly preened. It wasn't often that an attractive young woman found his information interesting. He'd never had a young woman sign up for his classes, and most of the young men who took the class did so because they thought it would be easy to get a good grade. He'd only had two young men, on average, each year, who seemed genuinely interested in the subject that fascinated him.
    “What's more," he went on, knowing he was showing off, "the molars, as far as I can see before the skull is totally released from the soil where it is resting, aren't worn down at all.”
    And what does that mean?"
    “Most of the tribes in this part of the country ate a lot of corn, ground to powder between two stones. Some of the stone dust gets into it. It gradually files down the molars. But let's get back to work. I'll try to get the entire skull out. And Harry and Jim, you can get on with pulling the other stump out. But go easy, if you can. We don't want to destroy any evidence.”
    The Harbinger brothers soon eased the stump out of its hole with the chain and the truck. Dr. Toller looked over the bottom of the ball of roots and said, "There don't seem to be any bones attached to this one. But just put it aside. I want to look more carefully at it later.”
    He stared into the hole, obviously anxious to see what they'd find under the dirt. But he doggedly went back to unearthing the skull.
    Harry thought this was interesting, but even he was becoming a bit annoyed at how long it was taking. He'd expected to be finished with this easy job in one morning and then get back to other higher-paying jobs. They had two people right now waiting for Harry and Jim—one with a sagging, dangerous porch, and another customer with a leaking roof.
    When Emmaline Prinney arrived, flushed with victory, the bake sale having made a record amount of money, she was slightly alarmed by all the people in front of Grace and Favor, most of them looking at two holes. One of the two people she didn't recognize was on his stomach doing something in the hole.
    As she watched, he pulled up a big ball of dirt, washed it off in a bucket, and brought out a dirty skull.
    She joined the group and touched Lily's arm. "What in the world is going on here?"
    “The Harbinger boys pulled up a stump of a bush yesterday, and there was a skeletal hand sticking out of the roots. Didn't anyone tell you?"
    “No. I guess I was in the kitchen baking all day. Why didn't anyone mention it over dinner?"
    “I don't know," Lily apologized. "I guess we were all just too hungry to mention it."
    “I'll need to go back to town to get things to make late-afternoon sandwiches for this crowd," Mrs. Prinney said, not sounding the least put out. She always loved to feed a