128 Life of a Fossil Hunter 



greatest deposit of fossils that I have ever dis- 

 covered. 



I shall never forget how, carried away with en- 

 thusiasm, I took possession in the name of Science 

 of the largest bone bed in Kansas. I did not stop 

 to ask whether anyone else had any interest in the 

 land, nor did I think it necessary. I had grown so 

 used in my own case to putting aside every other 

 consideration for the sake of the advancement of 

 science that it did not occur to me that anyone else 

 might take a different view. But one day, as I was 

 working in the ravine, an old man, plowing corn, 

 drove up to its eastern edge. When he made the 

 turn, he chanced to look across and saw me, pick in 

 hand, diligently uncovering the skull of a rhinoceros 

 from the sandbank on the other side. He instantly 

 shouted with all the strength of his lungs, " What 

 are you doing ? " 



" Digging up antediluvian relics," I shouted back. 

 We both shouted as if we were a hundred yards 

 apart. 



" Well," he called, " get out of there ! " 



" All right," I answered in the same loud tones, 

 and kept on working. 



The old man, whose name I learned later was Mr. 

 Overton, disappeared, and I heard no more of him 

 until I went into Long Island for food, or grub as 

 they say in the West, and was told that he had come 



