There was
men, and women, and children. They was dried by the sun and dark and
shriveled and leathery, like the pictures of mummies you see in books.
And yet they looked just as human, you wouldn't 'a' believed it; just
like they was asleep.
Some of the people and animals was partly covered with sand, but most of
them not, for the sand was thin there, and the bed was gravel and hard.
Most of the clothes had rotted away; and when you took hold of a rag, it
tore with a touch, like spiderweb. Tom reckoned they had been laying
there for years.
Some of the men had rusty guns by them, some had swords on and had shawl
belts with long, silver-mounted pistols stuck in them. All the camels had
their loads on yet, but the packs had busted or rotted and spilt the
freight out on the ground. We didn't reckon the swords was any good to
the dead people any more, so we took one apiece, and some pistols. We
took a small box, too, because it was so handsome and inlaid so fine; and
then we wanted to bury the people; but there warn't no way to do it that
we could think of, and nothing to do it with but sand, and that would
blow away again, of course.
Then we mounted high and sailed away, and pretty soon that black spot on
the sand was out of sight, and we wouldn't ever see them poor people
again in this world. We wondered, and reasoned, and tried to guess how
they come to be there, and how it all happened to them, but we couldn't
make it out.
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