For some time the
search was fruitless. Once the searcher stooped and picked up what
turned out to be a fragment of decayed wood; then the remains of a
long-deceased jay were discovered, examined, and rejected. Suddenly the
man bent down by the side of a small pool that had been left in one of
the deeper hollows, stared intently into the mud, and stood up.
"There's something here that looks like a bone, sir," he sang out.
"Don't grub about, then," said the inspector. "Drive your shovel right
into the mud where you saw it and bring it to the sieve."
The man followed out these instructions, and as he came shorewards with
a great pile of the slimy mud on his shovel we all converged on the
sieve, which the inspector took up and held over the tub, directing the
constable and labourer to "lend a hand," meaning thereby that they were
to crowd round the tub and exclude me as completely as possible. This,
in fact, they did very effectively with his assistance, for, when the
shovelful of mud had been deposited on the sieve, the four men leaned
over it and so nearly hid it from view that it was only by craning over,
first on one side and then on the other, that I was able to catch an
occasional glimpse of it and to observe it gradually melting away as the
sieve, immersed in the water, was shaken to and fro.
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