102 MIGHTY ANIMALS 



as there is in a riding saddle. And they all had 

 little stubby knobs sticking up on the tops of their 

 noses. 



Of course, after a time, these animals died. But 

 they left descendants. These were a little bigger than 

 the first animals and the knobs on their noses were 

 a little higher. They, in their turn, left descendants 

 which were still larger and had knobs on their noses 

 that were still higher. And so these beasts increased 

 in size, generation after generation, until, at last, 

 they reached a point where they were as large as an 

 elephant. By this time they had stout horns a foot 

 high on their noses, instead of little stubby knobs. 

 For thousands of years these big creatures flourished 

 around the Dakota lakes, then, suddenly, they 

 disappeared completely. ' 



A million years or more after this remarkable dis- 

 appearance, some men who were searching for fossils 

 in the Dakota Bad Lands came upon the bones of one 

 of these animals near the top of a high bluff. The 

 men were immediately much interested in their dis- 

 covery, for, although they were experienced fossil 

 hunters, they had never before seen bones like these. 



