Boy Ranchers at Spur Creek; Or, Fighting the Sheep Herders

by Frank V. Webster

  CHAPTER XXIV

  THE BRONTOTHERIUM

  There were busy times in the camp of Professor Wright, who wassearching for the fossil bones of a once living Brontotherium. Thescientist felt sure he was on the right track, though one of hiscollege assistants was openly skeptical.

  "This isn't the right rock formation at all, to dig for aBrontotherium," he declared.

  "So some of my helpers held the time I discovered the other giganticfossil bones," retorted the professor. "But I proved that I was right.We shall yet find a Brontotherium--or what is left of one--you'll see!"

  Bud and Dick found time to stroll, occasionally, over to the camp ofthe scientist, for there was much to interest them there, and theywanted to be on hand when the "great discovery," as Professor Wrightreferred to it, should be made.

  "Do you know," remarked Bud, as he and his chum were riding over to thescene of excavating operations one day, "there's something quitesatisfying in going over among so much scientific knowledge."

  "Particularly when we don't have to absorb any of it ourselves, undercompulsion," remarked Dick with a chuckle. "It's like visiting aschool and watching the other fellows boning away."

  "Yes," agreed Bud. "We don't have to open a book nor learn a lot ofnames as long as your arm. I wonder why they gave such long names tothese prehistoric monsters, anyhow?"

  "Give it up," spoke Dick shortly. "There must be a reason."

  "I reckon there is, but why in the name of Tunket couldn't they call'em something shorter? Wouldn't it sound funny if we had to call ahorse a Brontosaurus?"

  "I'd teach mine to come without calling if it had a name like that!"chuckled Dick. "But say, Bud, while we're over there--in the camp Imean," and he pointed to it among the distant hills, "don't mentionNort's name."

  "No, dad said not to, but I don't understand it at all."

  "Neither do I, but the least said the better. And if anyone overthere--especially Del Pinzo--asks for Nort, we're not to even admit heisn't with us. Sort of say he'll be along presently."

  "I savey!"

  The boys reached the scene of the digging operations which were quiteextensive, Professor Wright being liberally supplied with money fromsome learned society that was interested in securing for the collegethe largest possible collection of fossil bones of long extinctmonsters.

  The boys knew some of the workers, and more than a few of the youngcollege men--some of the professors--who had been brought to the placeby Mr. Wright. And it was while Bud and Dick were again talking overhow foolish it seemed (to them) to use such long names in speaking ofthe long-dead monsters that Professor Wright heard them.

  He did not happen to be busy at that particular moment, and he was aman who never neglected an opportunity of imparting knowledge. Hewould do this not always with discrimination, for Bud used to tell witha laugh how once he overheard Professor Wright talking most learnedlyto an ignorant Greaser who had merely stopped to inspect a pile ofbones.

  "He was getting off the longest string of jaw-breaking Greek and Latinterms," said Bud, telling the story, "spouting away how many millionsof years ago the Dinosaurs trod the earth, what they lived on, how theyfought among themselves, and he was dwelling particularly on how achange of conditions wiped all these birds off the earth."

  "Meaning, by birds, the Dinosaurs and the like?" asked Dick.

  "Sure."

  "And how did the Greaser respond to it all?" Dick wanted to know.

  "Oh, he took it all in with open mouth," chuckled Bud. "Every now andthen he'd out with a '_si senor_,' which encouraged Professor Wright togo on."

  "And how did it end?" asked Dick.

  "Oh, the prof. kept spouting away for an hour or more, showing boneafter bone of some he'd dug up (this was before the present occasion)and when he was all through he leaned back with a jolly satisfied smileon his phiz.

  "But say, Dick," went on Bud, "I wish yon could have seen the look onthe dear old prof.'s face when the Greaser pointed to the bones andgrunted out:

  "'Him good plenty much make soup!'"

  "No! Really?"

  "As sure as I can throw a rope! The idea of boiling up themillion-year bones to make soup! I sure thought the prof. would die!After that he didn't spout his wise stuff to any more Greasers."

  "I shouldn't think he would."

  But on this occasion Professor Wright had a ranch more receptive andintelligent audience. For, as I have said, overhearing Dick and Buddiscussing the "jaw-breaking names," as the boys termed them, thescientist approached them with a reassuring smile on his face and said:

  "You are somewhat like the old lady, told of in the book written byProfessor Lucas of the American Museum of Natural History. In hisintroduction he speaks of the necessity for using what are termed 'big'words--that is scientific terms, and he mentions an old lady who saidshe wasn't so surprised at the discovery of all these strange animals,as she was at the fact that someone knew their names when they werefound."

  "But you don't know the names when you find them; do you?" asked Dick."Don't you name them after they are found?"

  "In a way we do, yes," answered the scientist. "But in the case ofthose already found--and I am searching for specimens of some extinctanimals already identified--we have settled upon names.

  "As Professor Lucas remarks, the real trouble is that there are nocommon names for these animals. As a matter of fact, when they existedthere were no people on earth to name them, or, if there were, thenames given by prehistoric man were not preserved, since they wrote nohistories.

  "And, as a matter of fact, those who complain that these names are hardto pronounce do not stop to think that, in many cases, the names of theDinosaurs are no harder than others. They are simply less familiar andnot so often used. You wouldn't call hippopotamus a hard word; wouldyou, boys?" he asked.

  "It isn't hard to pronounce, but I'd hate to have to spell it,"chuckled Bud.

  "It's easy if you take it slow," declared Dick, and, then and there hespelled it.

  "Well, you've been to more circuses than I have," countered Bud.

  "That's it!" cried the professor, seizing on the opportunity to imparta little information. "The word hippopotamus is familiar to you--andeven to small children--because it has often been used, and because youhave seen circus pictures of it. Well, if we had Brontotheriums onearth now, everyone would be using the name without stopping to thinkhow to pronounce it, and they could spell it as easily as you can spellhippopotamus. Most words of Latin or Greek derivation are easy topronounce once you try them.

  "There are other names of animals in everyday use that would 'stump' usif we stopped to think of them, but we don't. We rattle off mammoth,rhinoceros, giraffe and boa constrictor easily."

  "Yes, they sound easy enough," argued Bud.

  "Well, all you need to do is to apply to the extinct monsters the sameprinciple of pronunciation that you use in saying hippopotamus, and youhave done the trick," went on Professor Wright. "In fact, it is allrather simple."

  "Simple," murmured Dick. "Bront--bront--brontotherium!"

  "Take it by degrees," advised Professor Wright, "and remember thatgenerally these names are made up of one or two or even more Greek orLatin words. Sometimes a Greek and Latin word is combined, but thatreally is not scientific.

  "Now, in the case of the brontotherium, we have two Greek words whichexcellently describe the animal whose bones I am after. That is thedescription fits, as nearly as anything can to something we have neverseen.

  "There is a Greek word--_bronte_ it is pronounced in English, and itmeans, in a sense, thunder. Another Greek word is _therion_, whichmeans wild beast.

  "Then bronto--bronto--therion must mean--thunder beast!" cried Dick,rather proud that he had thus pieced together some information.

  "That's it!" announced Professor Wright. "You see how easy it is.Change _therion_ to _therium_ and you have it."

  "But why did they call it a thunder beast?" Bud wanted to know.

/>   "There doesn't seem much sense in that," admitted the scientist, "untilyou stop to think that paleontologists adopted the word 'thunder' asmeaning something large and monstrous, as thunder is the loudest noisein the world."

  "Not so bad, after all," was Dick's admission.

  "I'm glad to hear you say so," commented the professor. "To go a bitfarther, take the word Dinosaur."

  "I know the last end of it means a big lizard," put in Bud.

  "Yes, and the front of it--the prefix _dino_, means the same thing that_bronto_ signifies--something large, terrible and fear-inspiring. Dinois a form of word taken from the Greek, _deinos_ meaning terrible andmighty, from its root _deos_, which means fear.

  "So those who first discovered these great bones, having reconstructedthe animals whose skeletons they formed, gave them scientific namesbest fitted to describe them. Can you think of anything more aptlydescriptive than 'thunder-lizard,' to indicate a beast shaped like thelizards we see to-day, and yet whose size would terrify ancient man asthunder terrified him?"

  The boys were really enjoying this scientific information, dry andcomplicated as it must seem in the way I have written it down here.But the professor had a way of making the most dry and scientificsubject seem interesting.

  "What gets me, though," said Dick, "is how they know about how thesebig lizards and other things look when they only find a single bone, ormaybe one or two."

  "That is puzzling at first," admitted Professor Wright. "Perhaps I canillustrate it for you. Take, for instance, the Dinornis--and before wego any farther let me see if you can give me a good English name forthe creature. Try it now--the Dinornis."

  He looked expectantly at the boys.

  "Dino--dino--" murmured Bud. "That must mean--why that must meanfierce or terrible, if it's anything like Dinosaur."

  "I'll encourage you so far as to say you're on the right track. Inother words, you are half right," said the scientist. "Suppose youtake a try at it," and he turned to Dick.

  "There isn't much left," laughed the lad.

  "Suppose you take it this way," suggested the scientist. "Lop off justdi--and assume that Bud has used that. You have left the syllablenornis."

  "Nornis--nornis--it doesn't seem to mean anything to me," sighed Dick,for he was rather disappointed at Bud's success and his own seemingfailure so far.

  "I'll help you a little," offered the professor. "Instead of sayingdi-nornis, call it din-ornis. Did you ever hear the word_ornithology_?"

  "Sure!" assented Bud. "It means--_ology_ that's the science of," hewas murmuring to himself. "Don't tell me now--I have it--the scienceor study of birds. That's what ornithology is--the study of birds."

  "Correct," said the professor. "Ornis is the Greek word for bird, andwhen we put in front of it Di, or din, meaning fear, thunder or terror,we have a word meaning a terribly large bird, and that's just what theDinornis is--an extinct bird of great size.

  "But what I started to tell you was how we can sometimes--not alwaysand sometimes not correctly--reconstruct from a single bone the animalthat once carried it around with it. The Dinornis is a good example.

  "Some years ago there was discovered the pelvic and leg bones of whatwas evidently an enormous extinct bird. Now, of course, our knowledgeof the past is based somewhat on our knowledge of the present, and ifwe had but the pelvic and leg bones of, say, a crow, we could, evenwithout ever seeing a crow, come pretty nearly drawing the picture ofhow large a bird it is, and of what shape to be able to use such apelvis and such leg bones.

  "So the men who reconstructed the Dinornis went at it. They set up thepelvis and leg bones and then, with plaster or some substance, and byworking in proportion, they reconstructed the Dinornis, which is aboutthe shape of the ostrich or the extinct moa of New Zealand, onlylarger. Here, I'll show you what I mean."

  Sitting down on a pile of dirt and shale rock, excavated by some of hisworkers, Professor Wright, on the back of an envelope, sketched thepelvic and leg bones and then from them he drew dotted lines in theshape of a big bird like an ostrich.

  "You see how it is proportionately balanced," he remarked. "A birdwith that shape and size of leg would be about so tall--he could not bemuch taller or larger or his legs would not have been able to carry himaround.

  "Take, for instance, the giraffe. If you found some of their long,thin leg bones, and had nothing else, and had never seen a giraffe,what sort of a beast would you imagine had been carried around on thoselegs?" he asked the boys.

  "Well, a giraffe is about the only kind of a beast that could logicallywalk on such long, thin legs," admitted Bud.

  "And there you are," said the professor.

  The boys were more interested than they had believed possible, and theybegan to look forward eagerly to the time when some of the giant bonesmight be uncovered.

  "What gets me, though," said Dick, believing that while knowledge was"on tap," he might as well get his fill, "what I can't understand ishow long ago they figure these things lived--I mean the Dinornis andDinosaurs," he added quickly, lest the professor resent his "pets"being called "things."

  "There's a good deal of guess-work about it," admitted the scientist."The question is often asked--how long ago did such monsters live. Butwe are confronted with this difficulty. The least estimate put on theage of the earth is ten million years. The longest is, perhaps, sixthousand million----"

  "Six thousand million!" murmured Bud in an awed voice.

  "And maybe more," said Professor Wright. "So you see it is pretty hardto set any estimate on just when an animal lived who may have passedaway six billion years ago--it really isn't worth while. All we cansay is that they lived many, many ages ago, and we are lucky if we cancome upon any slight remains of them."

  "Do you really think you'll find some fossil bones?" asked Dick.

  "I'm sure of it!" was the answer. "Hello! That looks as if they hadfound something over there!" he cried, as some excitement was manifestamid a group of laboring Greasers some distance away.

  The professor hurried there, followed by the boys. They saw where somemen, down in a shale pit had uncovered what at first looked to be atree-trunk.

  "It is part of the hind leg of the great Brontosaurus!" cried ProfessorWright, in intense excitement. "That's what it is--the Brontosaurus!"

  "But you want a _Brontotherium_," insisted one of the helpers, aprofessor in the making.

  "I don't care what I get, as long as they are fossil bones!" cried Mr.Wright. "But I shall yet find a Brontotherium here--of that I amcertain. Careful now, men!"

  "Say, he's really found something!" cried Dick.

  But alas for the hopes of the professor! When the object was taken outit proved to be only part of the skeleton of a long dead buffalo, thebones being so encrusted with clay or mud as to appear much larger thanthey really were.

  "Well, too bad," sighed the professor. "But better luck next time.Come again, boys."

  And so the digging went on as fast as could be done, for each shovel ofearth and each dislodged stone was carefully examined by the scientistor one of his scientific companions for any trace of the bones of anextinct monster.

  Under the urging of Del Pinzo, the Greasers, all of whom had beenengaged by him, worked hard--harder than they would have done had DelPinzo not been there to spur them on. Professor Wright admitted this,and said it was why he was willing to pay the half-breed to oversee thelaborers.

  And of all who labored none was more active than a certain youngGreaser, in ragged garments and with a most dirty face, who seemed tobe in all parts of the excavating camp at once. He leaped down intoholes, he climbed mounds and delved there a while; he labored with pickand shovel. He was all over at all times, it seemed.

  So active was he that he attracted the attention of Del Pinzo, who,strolling over to the youth remarked, in Mexican Spanish:

  "I don't seem to remember you. Where are you from?"

  To which, in native dialect, he was answered:
<
br />   "I come in my brother's place. San Feliece he is much sick this day.I take his place."

  Del Pinzo thought back rapidly. One of his workers of this name wasmissing, and, well--all Greasers looked alike. He turned, and theyouth, with a quiet chuckle, resumed his activities.

  But, as the youth labored, his eyes seemed to follow Del Pinzo morethan they kept to the matters immediately in hand. Though he struckhard with his pick, and took out heaping shovelfuls, this youth everhad his eyes on the half-breed, watching and watching as Del Pinzostrolled about the camp grounds.

  It was the third day of this young Greaser's appearance in the fossilexcavations, and coming close to the end of the week, which period ofgrace had been allowed Mr. Merkel by the court. Unless the deeds weresoon produced the sheep would scatter over the Spur Creek lands andthis would mean the beginning of the end for the cattle men.

  Suddenly the comparative quiet of the fossil camp was broken by loudyells, and there seemed much excitement in a place where ProfessorWright had been examining earth and rocks as the debris was depositedfrom an excavation.

  The ragged youth, who had said he came to take the place of his illbrother, raced over the ground toward the excited group. He found theprofessor gazing eagerly down into a sort of cave that had beendiscovered when the digging reached a certain depth.

  "Look out there now! Be careful!" cautioned the scientist. "I thinkwe have found it. Here, you look intelligent!" and he motioned to theGreaser youth whom Del Pinzo had questioned. "Get down in there andmake the opening a little wider so I can see what we've come upon. Butbe very careful. If there are bones we don't want to break them.Perhaps you'd better tell him, Del Pinzo," suggested Professor Wright."He probably doesn't understand my English."

  Thereupon Del Pinzo loosed a string of Mexican Spanish, at which theyouth nodded, and proceeded to enlarge the opening to the smallunderground cavern.

  As the light of day was allowed to enter, Professor Wright leaped downinto the hole and stood almost at the side of the youth. Then,suddenly, the scientist cried:

  "I've found it! I have discovered it! The gigantic Brontotherium!Success at last!"

  And as the youth stepped aside to allow the scientist to enter and gazeupon the immense fossil bones which had just been laid bare, the youthlooked at Del Pinzo, hastening across the camp ground, murmured:

  "I, too, have found it! Success at last!"