The dealer knew what happened to the sheath after that, and directed Bourcier to the website of a private New York museum, which had its Native American artifact collection images online.

“I looked at the two images on the screen and immediately knew that was it,” he said.

Bourcier and staff traced the sheath, with help from the New York museum, which received it as a donation from someone who bought it from a person who bought it from a “known associate” of David Wooley.

“Once we heard the name of the person from whom the dealer got it in New Mexico, we said ‘oh yeah’ and this was a name that came up during the investigation time and again,” said Bourcier.

According to an appraisal, the recovered sheath is a pre-1850 example of a northern Plains artifact with “seed beads as well as pony (larger) beads, and demonstrates a direct trading market between the northern Plains and the Great Lakes.” “Pony” beads are so-called because they were commonly used on horse gear arriving by pony trade with the first French fur trappers.

The sheath was donated to the Wisconsin Historical Society in 1963 by Mary Land of Newark, N.J.