252 Life of a Fossil Hunter 



realize that its ancestors, twelve million years ago, 

 were strong and mighty, the monarchs of creation. 



To return to Mr. Craddock's pasture; on July 

 twentieth my notes read : " I am suffering from the 

 heat, my tongue badly coated. However, I have got 

 some splendid material. If I succumb to the awful 

 heat and die, my discoveries will have done much 

 toward enriching the collection at Munich." 



On July twenty-first, I continue : " It is fearfully 

 hot to-day, and I cannot work the beds without great 

 suffering. I found a little skull." 



The hot weather continued, and I went out to the 

 cabin on Coffee Creek. Pet, our four-year-old, got 

 away, and when George took her from a herd of 

 horses, he found a big hole in her shoulder. " Both 

 horses are failing fast," my notes read. " Have to 

 send George in for feed. It is hard on the team to 

 have to haul a load this weather through dust knee- 

 deep, with no water fit to drink." 



On the twenty-sixth, I was left alone, and went a 

 mile north to the bone bed and began to dig into the 

 face of a hard greenish layer of clay-stone, near a 

 place where I had found some fragments in former 

 years. I was delighted to find a pocket with two 

 good skulls in situ, and the next day George re- 

 turned with his load, and I had some fresh water, 

 which soon, however, grew lukewarm. We found 

 two more skulls in the pocket referred to, one of 



