2i 6 Life of a Fossil Hunter 



stood then why the people of the Southland speak 

 of them as they do and dread their coming. I 

 never once left my shelter until it cleared. 



Poor Pat Whelan ! He had lost his horses in the 

 storm, and being sure that I would freeze to death 

 if he could not get back to me, he had spent every 

 hour of daylight looking for them. What he must 

 have suffered in that awful gale, while I was safe 

 and comfortable! 



My readers would grow weary if I told the whole 

 story of that winter's search. There were so few 

 results that I became thoroughly disheartened and 

 anxious to give up the fight and go home, where my 

 wife and dear baby were waiting for me. There 

 was further cause for discouragement in the fact 

 that Pat had only agreed to stay with me until 

 spring plowing began, and the time for that was 

 rapidly approaching. But I would not give up. So 

 we worked on down the stream toward the Fort 

 Sill cattle trail, traveling on an average twenty 

 miles a day on foot, with the record " Nothing " in 

 my notebook night after night. 



But on the eleventh of February, after forty 

 days of unceasing effort, I discovered below the 

 forks of the Big Wichita a somewhat different hori- 

 zon from that of the beds over which I had been 

 working so persistently without success. Some of 

 the beds in this region are composed of red clay ; 



