st can't be far away," remarked Tom, and they
commenced poking around with the ends of iron-shod sticks. They had been
twenty minutes at their task when a boy in charge of some goats planted
himself on a rock not far away and keenly watched the Sahibs at work.

"Don't you think it would be a good plan, Doctor, if we got a few
coolies to loosen the subsoil and turn over some of these loose stones
about here?--it would be easier for us to search," suggested Tom.

"Yes, we may as well make a thorough search now we are at it," replied
the Doctor, who at once sent the servant to the village near the camp
for some coolies and tools.

The boy had disappeared before the coolies arrived, for he had received
a signal from a man who was secretly watching the search-party from the
top of a cliff some seventy yards away.

The natives had not been long at work when one of them slipped, and his
puggari pitched off exactly on to the spot where the next coolie had
turned over a stone. The man picked up his puggari and moved a few yards
off to wind it round his head again, and almost immediately the goat-boy
appeared and asked him if he had seen a stray goat.

Tom Ellison happened to be standing up examining a strange fossil he had
found, and as he casually glanced at the boy he saw the coolie hand him
something, which he promptly hid in the folds of a kind of scarf hanging
over his shoulder.

In a moment a suspicion flashed into Tom's mind, and he rushed forward
and seized the boy before he could make off, and no sooner had he felt
the lad's kupra (cloth) than he discovered that the youngster had hidden
a newly found piece of the slab which had been picked up by the coolie.

The Doctor and Mark were at once by Tom's side examining the fragment
and listening to Tom's explanation. In their excitement they forgot
about the boy, and when they looked round became aware that both he and
the coolie had disappeared.

The sides of the hills all about were covered with low shrubs, large
stones, and nullahs, or ravines, and, although a quick search was made,
neither man nor boy could be seen.

When the day was over they had met with no further success as regards
finding parts of the slab, but they took away several other stones which
they thought might possibly prove to be of some interest, and most of
the evening after dinner was spent in discussing the reason which
prompted the theft from the Museum, and the attempt to steal the stone