After that I noticed that Edmund was far more gentle than
before in his relations with the people of the caverns.
Not long after this painful incident we made a discovery of extreme
interest. It was nothing less than a big smithy! Edmund had foretold that
we should find something of the kind.
"Those braziers and cooking pots," he had said, "and the tools that must
have been needed to build the steps and to dig their graves, prove that
they know how to work in iron. If it is not done in these caverns, then
they get it from some other similar community. But I think it likely that
we shall come upon some signs of the work hereabouts."
"Maybe they import it from Pittsburg," was the remark that fun-loving
Jack could not refrain from making.
"Well, you'll see," said Edmund.
And, as I have already told you, he was right. We did find the smithy,
with several stout fellows pounding out rude tools with equally rude
hammers of iron. Of course we could ask them no questions, for their
language was only a kind of squeak, and they seemed to converse mostly by
means of expressive signs. But Edmund was not long in drawing his
conclusions.
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