The Indian Burial Ground Mystery

you, Trixie,” Honey began, trying not to
laugh. But before she could finish, Professor Conroy was welcoming them to the
dig, and assigning them to sections and jobs. Honey and Trixie were assigned to
dig in the village site, which was in the woods. They were also asked to help out
in the cleaning tent, which was at the burial ground site. Everything found had
to be carefully cleaned with soft brushes and placed in marked boxes. Di had
been assigned to the drawing group, because she was such a good artist. She was
to make a drawing of each find on a three-by-five card. Later, the graduate
students would try to date the finds based on where and how deep in the ground
they’d been found. Mart and Brian were to help with the packing. Every find
would be carefully packed in boxes to take back to the university for further
study during the winter. Cataloging and classifying were saved for the more
experienced college students. Each item would be identified by its shape and
decoration, and then a large catalog would be made from the three-by-five
cards.
    “Whew!” Trixie said. “There’s more to this than I thought.”
    Ghosts had apparently slipped from her mind. But she still walked
carefully around the edge of the meadow as she and Honey made their way down
the wooded path to the village site. All the tents had been put up, and the
last of the equipment was being unloaded from the trucks.
    The two girls were surprised when they got to the section of the woods
where they were supposed to dig. It was deserted, dark, and forbidding.
    “Who would want to set up a village here?” Honey said in a tremulous
voice. “It’s so gloomy. I would think that any Indian would hate it here.”
    “Honey,” Trixie whispered to her friend, “look over there. What’s that
man doing?” Honey turned to see a skinny, seedy-looking man pacing and
whispering to himself. He would occasionally stop to jot something down in a
notebook.
    Honey thought she recognized him. “Wasn’t he one of the delivery men? I
wonder what he’s doing off in the woods?”
    Suddenly Trixie saw Charles Miller rush over to the man. Trixie and
Honey, standing twenty feet away in the low undergrowth, could hear only
snatches of their conversation. Charles called the older man Harry, and they
seemed to know each other. Trixie put her finger to her lips, cautioning Honey to
remain silent.
    The two men spoke briefly, and Trixie distinctly heard the words “a real
treasure trove,” “map,” and “historical society.” Then Charles shook Harry’s
hand and said, “We won’t have any problem dealing with those nosy kids. Just
leave it to me.”
    When the two girls were finally alone again, Trixie was aghast.
    “Did you hear that?” she whispered, her eyes as round as saucers. “He
called us nosy!”
    “How do you know he was talking about us?” Honey asked reasonably.
    “Well, maybe not about us, but certainly about the Historical Society,”
Trixie said firmly. “He must have meant something about Brian! Remember, Brian
said Charles was interested in the Historical Society. I’d better warn him that
there’s something fishy about Charles Miller!”
    “Trixie!” Honey called after her disappearing friend.
    But Trixie didn’t hear. She raced back to the main area of the dig to
find her brother. Honey followed her as fast as she could.
    After Trixie had spoken to Brian, he made it clear that she was being
much too suspicious.
    “Charles Miller is a very nice, bright guy,” he said. “Your mind is so
full of crooks and mysteries that you seem to have lost the ability to see
anything else.”
    “You like him because he cozied up to you, Brian,” Trixie wailed. “Can’t
you see he wants to use you to get into the Historical Society?”
    “Why shouldn’t he want to get into the Historical Society?” Brian asked
in his most rational tone of voice. It was the tone that often annoyed Trixie.
“After all, he’s a scholar. That’s what scholars do—research in historical
societies.”
    “Not to find out about archaeology and Indians, they don’t,” Trixie
huffed back at him. Her hands were placed squarely on her hips as she defiantly
faced her brother. “That’s where a person would look for a treasure map—just
like the one they were talking about!”
    “Trixie,” Brian said, his voice carrying a slight warning, “please calm
down. I think you’re on the wrong track. If it turns out you’re right, though,
I’ll buy you a