238 Life of a Fossil Hunter 



upon doing all his cooking in a trench outside the 

 tent, so that I lost the heat which I might have had 

 but for his obstinacy. 



Every morning I climbed out of bed with aching 

 bones, and started on my long tramp. At first I 

 would hardly be able to drag myself along, but 

 gradually, as I warmed to the work, I would move 

 faster, until usually I got so far away from camp 

 that I should not have been able to return for dinner 

 without taking more time than I could afford, and so 

 went without that meal. After working as long as 

 I could see, I would return to my uncomfortable 

 camp, to go through the same performance on the 

 following day. I had suffered from fever and ague 

 in the fossil fields of Kansas, and had supposed that 

 it would be impossible to suffer more, but I found 

 the grippe even more relentless than the ague. 



To add to my worries, the people at my post office 

 had taken in a family with a malignant form of sore 

 eyes, and although I supplied them with curatives, 

 they would get careless. The peevish old man 

 whom I had employed gave me a great deal of 

 trouble too, at one time threatening to leave me alone 

 in the brakes. In general, my experiences with 

 hired men have taught me the advisability of own- 

 ing my own outfit, whenever it is possible. A hired 

 man knows how helpless one is in the fossil fields 

 without transportation, and takes advantage of the 



