The Loup Fork Beds 139 



tion of life that now is or of the remains of life that 

 once was, is wicked, some man had chopped it all 

 to pieces with a mattock. 



Passing on in a not very pleasant frame of mind, 

 I came upon another individual of huge proportions, 

 which had suffered the same fate, and then upon 

 another; all that this rich-looking ground afforded 

 had been utterly ruined. 



Angry at the thought that any man should com- 

 mit such sacrilege, for to me these footsteps of 

 the Creator in the sands of time are sacred, and 

 bitterly disappointed, since I knew that I should 

 very likely never again come upon such huge speci- 

 mens of the reptilian life of that age, I walked into 

 camp blinded by hot tears, and failed to notice a 

 stranger who was sitting there on a box. 



" Some infernal vandal has been up this ravine," 

 I shouted to Will, " and dug up with a mattock three 

 of the finest turtles I ever saw." 



As if he had been shot, the man jumped from the 

 box and exclaimed in accents of heartfelt contri- 

 tion, " It was me. I was out here digging roots to 

 build a fire with, and ran across them. I didn't 

 know they had any value, and I wanted to see what 

 was inside of them and dug into them." 



His surprise and dismay were so comical that the 

 murder vanished from my heart, and overwrought 

 as I was, I broke out into a fit of uncontrollable 



