188 The Wonders of the Permian 



I disappeared so suddenly and mysteriously from 

 my home in Lawrence, she had induced George 

 and Charlie to move their families into the home 

 nest, from which they had taken flight. She had 

 imagined all kinds of things, and even the Gov- 

 ernment had missed their fossil hunter and had 

 exhausted the resources of the Detective Division 

 as well as that of the United States in the en- 

 deavor to locate me, but I had disappeared as ef- 

 fectually as if the earth had opened her mouth 

 and swallowed me up. Only day before yester- 

 day Levi suddenly disappeared, and left her in a 

 terrible state of suspence as to what it all meant. 

 Last night she had a family council with George 

 and Charlie and their wives. They went over the 

 same old ground again and again and were no 

 nearer solving the perplexing problems than at 

 first. The children had been sent to bed and there 

 were rocking chairs enough to go round in which 

 the grown ups were seated comfortably. Mamma 

 she told me, was the first to doze off and Charlie 

 soon followed suit. The girls and George smiled 

 over the others, but before they realized it they 

 too, had dropped off. George was the first one to 

 wake with a start. He could hardly believe his 

 senses. They were in a dense forest of tree ferns, 

 in fact only a few miles from where I was at the 

 time. They were all there but Levi, and as 

 George's surprised exclamation woke them all 

 they heard a rustling noise in the edge of a little 

 clearing and before they could say a word Leri 



