EXPEDITION WITH PROFESSOR COPE TO THE BAD LANDS OF THE UPPER CRETACEOUS,
1876
About the first of August, 1876, Mr. Isaac and I were in Omaha, awaiting
the arrival of Professor Cope from Philadelphia.
We met him at the depot, and I remember his watching me with
astonishment as I limped along the street on my crippled leg. At last,
turning to Isaac, whom he knew to be a horseman, he asked, “Can Mr.
Sternberg ride a horse?”
Isaac answered: “I’ve seen him mount a pony bareback and cut out one of
his mares from a herd of wild horses.”
That satisfied the Professor, and when we got to Montana, he gave me the
worst-tempered pony in the bunch.
We were soon hurrying along over the treeless plains of Nebraska,
gaining in altitude every hour, until we reached the highlands of the
Great Divide, and plunged down into Weber and Echo canyons, whose
forests are dwarfed into miniatures by the majesty of the mountains
about them.
It was the first time that I had ever been among these stupendous cliffs
and ranges, and I held my breath for very wonder as they unfolded before
my astonished vision. They soon became familiar sights enough, but
never, even when I gazed every day upon the three Tetons, with the snow
glistening in their gorges in midsummer, or upon the mighty ranges of
the Rockies, did I lose my feeling of awe at the power here displayed by
the almighty Architect who carved these wonderful canyons and set these
towering peaks as solemn sentinels over the works of His hands.
We had the pleasure of Mrs. Cope’s company as far as Ogden. Then we
three men, taking the narrow-gauge railway, went on to Franklin, Idaho.
Here the most uncomfortable journey I have ever experienced awaited
us,—six hundred miles in a Concord coach, through the dry, barren plains
of Idaho. Our six horses raised clouds of fine dust, which penetrated
our clothing and filled our eyes and ears, and, sticking to the
perspiration that oozed from every pore, soon gave us the appearance of
having the jaundice.
I cannot begin to describe the discomforts of that terrible ride. We
traveled ten miles an hour, day and night, stopping only for meals,
which cost us a dollar each, and consisted of hot soda biscuit, black
coffee, bacon, and mustard, without butter, milk, or eggs. If, worn out
from continued loss of sleep, we dozed off for a moment, a sudden lurch
of the coach into a chuck-hole would break our heads against a post or a
neighbor’s head. I remember that once when the Professor was almost
exhausted from lack of sleep I took his head in my arms and held it
there, so that he might get a few hours’ rest. I should like here to
express my gratitude to the fellow passengers who so often gave me a
seat by the driver, where, buttoned in by the leathern apron, I got more
than my share of sleep.
When we reached the mountains, the beauty of the scenery and the absence
of dust made the journey more endurable, but we had to walk up all the
steep ascents.
At Helena we laid off for a few days. There the news was fresh from the
battle-field, of Custer and the brave men who had followed him to death.
A letter of his, written just before he entered the valley of death, was
read to us by the proprietor of the hotel. I remember one sentence of
it: “We have found the Indians, and are going in after them. We may not
come out alive.”
All was excitement, and the Professor was strongly advised against the
folly of going into the neutral ground between the Sioux and their
hereditary enemies, the Crows. A member of either tribe might kill us,
and lay our death to the other tribe.
Cope, however, reasoned that now was our time to go into this region,
since every able-bodied Sioux would be with the braves under Sitting
Bull, while the squaws and children would be hidden away in some
fastness of the mountains. There would be no danger for us, he argued,
until the Sioux were driven north by the soldiers who were gathering
under Terry and Crook for the final struggle.
Judging from past experience, he concluded that we should have nearly
three months in which to make our collections in peace. We would leave
the field, he said, when we learned that the great chief was being so
closely pressed as to be forced to seek safety in flight to the soil of
Great Britain, across the Sweet Grass Mountains into Assiniboia.
His judgment proved good. It was not until November, when a heavy
snowstorm had covered both the fossil fields and grass for the ponies,
that Sitting Bull gave up the unequal struggle against cold and the Boys
in Blue, and retreated to a more friendly soil.
At Fort Benton we found a typical frontier town of that day,—streets
paved with playing-cards, and whisky for sale in open saloons and
groceries. Our presence had been heralded abroad during our stay in
Helena, and the Professor had difficulty in securing an outfit without
paying an exorbitant price for it They knew him to be a stranger, and
they “took him in.”
Finally, however, he secured four horses for the wagon. The wheelers
were worn-out mustangs, which we were obliged to punish constantly to
keep at work, while one of the leaders, a fine four-year-old colt, had
to be knocked down half a dozen times before he could be taught not to
balk and strike out with his fore feet at everyone who came within
reach. The other leader, old Major, was as true as steel, and often
saved the day, doing his duty nobly in spite of the miserable company in
which he was forced to work.
The first night Mr. Isaac and I slept outside the town, with the four
wagon horses and the three saddle ponies, which were all picketed with
new rope. In the middle of the night, we heard an animal groaning, and
rushed out, to find our four-year-old cut fearfully beneath the fetlocks
by the ropes. We had to cut him loose, help him up, and bind his wounds.
He was able to travel the next day, however, and his accident was not
altogether a misfortune, as he was too sore for some time afterwards to
show his natural disposition.
We drove down to the mouth of the Judith River, opposite Claggett, where
an Indian trader had a store inclosed in a stockade. Here we went into
camp. Across the river were the lodges of two thousand Crow Indians, who
were preparing for their annual buffalo hunt in this neutral ground,
where Sioux and Crow alike buried the hatchet while they hunted the game
that was their principal sustenance.
Mr. Isaac, with the dread of the Redman still in his heart, insisted
that we must protect the camp by standing guard over it turn and turn
about, and to pacify him, the guard was mounted. I took the first turn,
and Mr. Isaac the second.
The Professor did me the honor of sharing his tent with me, and we were
just dozing off when we heard Mr. Isaac shout “Halt!” Looking out, we
saw an Indian approaching, with his squaw behind him, the moonlight
bringing out their forms in bold relief.
“Halt! Halt!” called Isaac, leveling his Winchester, but the Indian,
followed by his faithful squaw, continued to advance up to the very
muzzle of the gun, repeating, “Me good Indian! Me good Indian!”
Cope dressed and went out, and found that the Indian had mistaken us for
illicit whisky dealers, and come over to get a supply. The Professor
told the man to go to sleep under the wagon, and at daylight to recross
and invite half a dozen of the principal chiefs to breakfast with us.
The two Indians lay down and went to sleep as directed, but they had
just begun to snore peacefully when Isaac’s turn at guard duty was over,
and he came to the wagon to wake the cook, a slow, heavy man, whose fat
cheeks had induced the Professor to believe that he could cook
digestible food. The scout Cope had hired was not on hand, although he,
as well as the cook, had demanded his pay in advance before he would
accompany us.
After much growling, the cook got up, and remembering that he had left
his shoes under the wagon, went to get them and came upon the sleeping
beauties. Without more ado, he seized their dirty blanket in both hands
and coolly hauled them out on to the open prairie. After which he
proceeded to get his shoes.
At four o’clock in the morning it was Cope’s turn to go on guard. He was
awakened, but as his Spencer carbine was at the bottom of his trunk, and
perhaps, too, because he was a Friend, and did not believe in war, he
refused to get up; and we slept in safety the rest of the night without
a guard.
Just before breakfast the Professor, as was his custom, was washing his
set of false teeth in a basin of water, when a party of six stalwart
chieftains strode up in single file, in answer to his invitation through
the brave we had entertained.
Quickly slipping the teeth into his mouth, Cope advanced with a smiling
face to greet his guests, who shouted as one man, “Do it again! Do it
again!” He repeated the performance for them again and again, much to
their mystification.
After they had tried to pull out their own and each other’s teeth, and
had failed, they settled down to breakfast. The cook poured out their
coffee for them, and when they had had enough they shouted, “When!”
We never knew whether this hospitality was of any benefit to us, as the
whole tribe went on their buffalo hunt, and we saw no more of them, but
very likely their chiefs forbade petty stealing from our camp, for we
lost nothing.
We crossed the Missouri, here a clear, sparkling stream, and the Judith
River, and went into camp in the narrow valley of Dog Creek, in the
midst of the fossil fields which we had come so far and at such risks to
explore.
All about us stretched the interminable labyrinths of the Bad Lands.
Above us lay twelve hundred feet of denuded rock, which Cope at that
time believed to belong to several formations. The rock consists of
great beds of black shale, which disintegrates on the surface into a
fine, black dust. The lower levels contain many beds of lignite, which
makes a good soft coal, and burns readily. We found beds four feet thick
along the canyons. All one had to do was to drive up to the face of the
cliff and load a wagon in a few minutes.
As soon as the first streak of daylight appeared, we breakfasted and
were off, our picks tied to our saddles, our collecting-bags dangling
from the pommels, and a lunch of cold bacon and hardtack in our
saddle-bags.
I usually rode beside the Professor, my mount a treacherous black
mustang, who was ever on the watch to regain his liberty. A curb bit
that almost tore his mouth to pieces was my only means of restraining
him. My right ear being totally deaf, I usually rode at the Professor’s
right, when the trail would admit of our traveling abreast. He was not
always in a talkative mood, but when he began to speak of the wonderful
animals of this earth, those of long ago and those of to-day, so
absorbed did he become in his subject that he talked on as if to
himself, looking straight ahead and rarely turning toward me, while I
listened entranced.
Not so that wicked black mustang of mine. Suddenly his front feet would
leave the ground, and he would stand up at full length on his hind legs.
Then feeling the gouging of the Spanish bit, he would drop and run ahead
to the Professor’s left side. When the Professor, happening to look up,
found the place where I had been vacant, he would exclaim in surprise,
“Why, I thought you were on my right, and here you are on my left!”
The pony repeated this trick whenever I became so deeply interested in
the Professor’s talk as to loosen my hold on the reins.
On the very top of the Bad Lands were the Judith River beds, now known,
through the researches of the late Professor J. B. Hatcher, to belong to
the Fort Pierre Group of the Upper Cretaceous. Here tablelands and level
prairies offered plenty of grass for our ponies; so we climbed to these
heights, picketed our horses, and went into the gorges in search of
fossils. It was necessary to give the loose shale the most careful
examination, as only a streak of dust a little different in color from
the uniform black around it, indicated where the bones were buried.
As a result of the loose composition of this friable black shale and the
overlying rocks of sandstone, the Missouri has lowered its bed twelve
hundred feet below the level of the prairies, and the whole country is
cut up by a perfect labyrinth of canyons and lateral ravines into a
dreary landscape of utter barrenness.
At night the view from above of these intricate passages was appalling.
The black material of which the rocks are composed did not permit a
single ray of light to penetrate the depths below, and the ebony-like
darkness seemed dense enough to cut.
Long ridges, terminating in perpendicular cliffs, whose bases impinge
upon the river a thousand feet below, extend back into the country for
miles. Often they are cut by lateral ravines into peaks and pinnacles,
obelisks and towers, and other fantastic forms. These ridges are so
narrow that we could hardly walk along them, and their sides drop at an
angle of forty-five degrees. It was only the disintegrated shale on the
surface, into which our feet sank at every step, that gave us a foothold
and kept us from shooting with frightful velocity into the gorges below.
One day the Professor asked me to climb to a point near the summit of a
lofty ridge, crowned by two massive ledges of sandstone, four feet
thick, which projected over the steep slope like the window sills of
some Titanic building. These ledges, one above the other and separated
by sixty feet of shale, had been swept clean for about three feet, so
that I found an easy pathway for my feet, when after laborious climbing
I reached the lower ledge. From my lofty perch I had a bird’s-eye view
of mile upon mile of the wonderful Bad Lands, a scene of desolation such
as no pen can picture.
It was my duty to search every square inch of the dust-covered slope
between the ledges for fossil bones. After much unsuccessful effort, I
came to a place at the head of a gorge, where a perpendicular escarpment
dropped downward for a thousand feet. The upper ledge of sandstone had
broken loose for a space of thirty feet, and this huge mass of rock,
four feet thick, carrying with it the loose dirt and polishing the
underlying surface as it thundered down the slope, had struck the lower
ledge with such force that it too had broken loose and plunged downward
into the abyss. A grove of pine trees at the base of the cliff had been
crushed to the earth by this avalanche. To my view the remaining trees,
which I knew to be about fifty feet high, appeared like seedlings, and
the vast mass of rock like a cobblestone.
I concluded that I should have no difficulty in crawling across the
smooth space, for I reasoned that if I began to slip, I could drive the
sharp end of my pick into the soft rock and thus stop myself. So,
climbing up the slope through the loose earth to the base of the upper
ledge, I started to cross. When I was halfway over I began to slip, and
confidently raising my pick, struck the rock with all my might. God
grant that I may never again feel such horror as I felt then, when the
pick, upon which I had depended for safety, rebounded as if it had been
polished steel, as useless in my hands as a bit of straw. I struck
frantically again and yet again, but all the time I was sliding down
with ever-increasing rapidity toward the edge of the abyss, safety on
either side and certain and awful death below.
I remember that I gave up all hope of escape, and that after the first
shock I felt no fear of death; but the few moments of my slide seemed
hours, measured by the rapidity with which my mind worked. Everything,
it seemed to me, that I had ever done or thought spread itself out
before my mind’s eye as vividly as the wonderful panorama of the cliffs
and canyons upon which I had been gazing a few moments before. All the
scenes of my life, from childhood up, were re-enacted here with the same
emotions of pleasure or pain. I saw distinctly the people I had known,
many of them long forgotten. My mother seemed to stand out more
prominently than anyone else, and I wondered what she would think when
she heard that I had been dashed to pieces. I even planned how, when I
did not return to camp, Cope would set out to find me, following my
footsteps into the loose dirt until he reached the slide, and I wondered
how he would ever get down into the canyon, and how much of my body
would be left for burial.
To this day I do not know how I escaped. I suddenly found myself lying
on the ledge, on the side I had left a moment before. Probably some part
of my clothing, covered with dust as it was, had acted as a brake upon
the polished surface. I lay for an hour with trembling knees, too weak
to make my way back to camp.
This experience of mine is another instance of the fact that the human
brain forgets nothing, and will yield up everything when the right kind
of stimulus is applied.
The excitement of our work and the danger with it seemed to make us
reckless of life, Professor Cope even more so than the rest of us,
although he was at that time United States Paleontologist, and worth a
million dollars. I remember one night he was following a buffalo trail
to the river, when suddenly his horse stopped and refused to go further.
Without dismounting to find out the cause, he plunged his spurs into the
animal, and it sprang into the air. Mr. Isaac, who was behind, followed.
The next day they were surprised to find that they had crossed a gorge
ten feet wide, and that but for the keen sight and the strength of their
horses, they would have been dashed to pieces a hundred feet below.
Cope’s indefatigability, too, was a constant source of wonder to us. We
were in excellent training, after our strenuous outdoor life in the
Kansas chalk beds, while he had just been working fourteen hours a day
in his study and the lithographer’s shop, completing a large Government
monograph, writing his own manuscript, and reading his own proof. When
we first met him at Omaha, he was so weak that he reeled from side to
side as he walked; yet here he climbed the highest cliffs and walked
along the most dangerous ledges, working without intermission from
daylight until dark.
Every night when we returned to camp, we found that the cook had spent
the whole day in cooking. Exhausted and thirsty,—we had no water to
drink during the day (all the water in the Bad Lands being like a dense
solution of Epsom salts),—we sat down to a supper of cakes and pies and
other palatable, but indigestible food. Then, when we went to bed, the
Professor would soon have a severe attack of nightmare. Every animal of
which we had found traces during the day played with him at night,
tossing him into the air, kicking him, trampling upon him.
When I waked him, he would thank me cordially and lie down to another
attack. Sometimes he would lose half the night in this exhausting
slumber. But the next morning he would lead the party, and be the last
to give up at night. I have never known a more wonderful example of the
will’s power over the body.
His memory and his imagination, too, were extraordinary. He used to talk
to me by the hour, arranging the living and dead animals of the earth in
systematic order, giving countless scientific names and their
definitions. I forgot the names as soon as I heard them, but the loving
tribute which he paid to the wonders of creation has had a lasting and
helpful effect upon me. If I ever had any feelings of disgust or fear
toward any of God’s creatures, I lost them upon a knowledge of the
animals as revealed to me by this master naturalist, who saw beauty even
in lizards and snakes. He believed, and taught me to believe, that it is
a crime to destroy life wantonly, any life. Of course the first law of
nature is self-preservation; we must, in order to live, kill our enemies
and protect our friends; but this superstitious fear which men and, even
more, women have of snakes, lizards, and bugs, how cruel it is! Why
should they rejoice when some poor little garter-snake, which has gone
as a friend into the cellar walk to destroy rats and mice, is dragged
out and cut to pieces? My heart bleeds when I think of the brutal way in
which people take life, something they can never give back, and with the
great Cope, I cry out against this crime, which is exterminating some of
our most beautiful and useful friends. No man can say he loves us, when
he wantonly destroys our work; no man loves God who wantonly destroys
His creatures.
[Illustration:
FIG. 13.—_a_, LOWER JAW OF _Trachodon marginatus_, SHOWING SUCCESSIVE
LAYERS OF TEETH. _b_, TOP AND SIDE VIEWS OF A TOOTH OF _Myledaphus
bipartitus_.
(After Osborn and Lambe.)
]
[Illustration:
FIG. 14.—SKULL OF A DUCK-BILLED DINOSAUR, _Diclonius_, FOUR FEET IN
LENGTH. (In American Museum of Natural History.) Photo, by Matthew.
]
We found no complete specimens of any fossil animals during our stay on
Dog Creek, but near the summit of the Bad Lands, under beds of yellowish
sandstone, we came upon localities literally filled with the scattered
bones and teeth of dinosaurs, those terrible lizards whose tread once
shook the earth. They are represented now by the little horned toad of
central Kansas. Among the fragments were pieces of the finely-sculptured
shells of the sea turtles, _Trionyx_ and _Adocus_, and remains of that
strange dinosaur _Trachodon_ (Fig. 13_a_), whose teeth were arranged as
in a magazine, one below another, so that when the old teeth wore out,
others were ever ready to take their place.
The specimen in the illustration is from Drs. Osborn and Lambe’s
Contribution to Canadian Paleontology, on the Vertebrata of the
Mid-Cretaceous of the Northwest Territory (1902). The splendid
Cretaceous dinosaur here illustrated is from Wyoming (Fig. 14). This
last form was restored by the late Professor Marsh, and is now mounted
in the museum of Yale University. What a strange picture it presents,
this great plant-eater, as, standing on its hind limbs, its powerful
tail acting as the third leg of a tripod, it grasps the branches of a
tree with its weak hands and arms, while its teeth scrape off the tender
leaves!
In one of these localities we found teeth belonging to some extinct
ray-like fish that were arranged in the roof and floor of the mouth like
bricks in a pavement, forming a sort of mill which ground up the shells
upon which the creature subsisted. A strange thing about these teeth was
that one side of the enamel was white and the other black. Cope called
the species _Myledaphus bipartitus_ (Fig. 13_b_).
The diamond-shaped enameled scales of the _Lepidotus_, an ancient
relative of the gar-pike, were very common, as were also the teeth of
several species of dinosaurs besides those already mentioned.
To-day the great museums of the country have complete or nearly complete
skeletons of these creatures, the largest land animals that ever
inhabited the earth. The splendid specimen of _Brontosaurus_ (Fig. 16)
in the American Museum at New York is over sixty feet long. Nothing so
fires the imagination as a visit to the halls where these ancient
lizards now stand.
I am delighted that recent authorities, Drs. Osborn and Lambe, have
given Professor Cope credit for these discoveries of his in 1876,
discoveries which are made the more memorable by the fact that he was
the first scientist who had the foresight and the courage to explore
these fossil beds after Dr. Hayden, their original discoverer, was
driven out of the region by Blackfeet Indians. Indeed, the chief purpose
of this chapter is to put forward the claim that Professor Cope, Mr.
Isaac, and myself made the first real collection of these wonderful
saurians.
[Illustration:
FIG. 15.—PROFESSOR E. D. COPE.
]
[Illustration:
FIG. 16.—BRONTOSAURUS OR THUNDER LIZARD.
Restoration by Osborn and Knight. (From painting in American Museum of
Natural History.)
]
After satisfying himself that there were no skeletons more or less
complete on Dog Creek, Cope took the guide and went off down the river
to Cow Island, forty miles below. This point was the head of navigation
on the Missouri in October, the water then being so low that the
steamboat could not get up to Fort Benton. The last boat came up on the
fifteenth of October, to carry a load of ore and passengers down to the
railroad at Omaha, and as the Professor had decided to take this boat,
it was necessary for him to be on hand when it arrived.
A few days later he sent word to us on Dog Creek to break camp and
proceed, according to the scout’s directions, to Cow Island with all the
outfit. This was no easy task; in fact, at first sight it appeared
impossible. No wagon had ever before rolled down those steep hillsides.
Mr. Isaac, however, took command, and, after removing everything from
the wagon except the Professor’s trunk, which could neither be packed on
a horse nor carried by hand, we began our journey up the long twelve
hundred feet to the prairies above.
Working with axes, picks, and shovels, we cut trees, bridged chasms, and
made roads, climbing upward step by step, until in the afternoon we
reached what for the moment threatened to be the end of our journey.
Before us rose the sloping side of a ridge, covered entirely with loose
shale, and so steep that it was impossible to climb it even on horseback
without making a long diagonal across its flank. At the summit the ridge
was narrow enough to be straddled by a wagon, and it sloped down at the
same angle on the other side.
The teamster refused to go any further, and this angered Isaac, who said
that he would drive himself. So he unhitched the lead horses, and
climbing the wagon, urged on the stupid mustangs. One walked in a trail
that we had made, the other in the loose dirt below.
I was a good deal concerned as to the fate of both man and team, but
experience had taught me the folly of arguing with an angry man; so I
sat on my horse and waited for the outcome. Isaac had driven about
thirty feet above the level floor, when the inevitable happened. I saw
the wagon slowly begin to tip, pulling the ponies over sideways, and
then the whole outfit, wagon and horses, began to roll down the slope.
Whenever the wheels stuck up in the air, the ponies drew in their feet
to their bellies, and at the next turn, stretched out their legs for
another roll.
My heart was in my mouth for fear that Isaac would be killed in one of
the turns, or that wagon and all would roll over a thousand-foot
precipice below, but after three complete turns, they landed, the horses
on their feet, the wagon on its wheels, on a level ledge of sandstone,
and stood there as if nothing had happened.
When I saw that Isaac was safe, I could not help laughing, and in
consequence was told that if I was so smart I could get up the slope
myself. I quickly gave orders that the picket ropes be tied together and
fastened to the hind axle of the wagon, and that the horses be led
singly up the trail. The rope was then carried to the top of the ridge,
and the horses were hitched to it, and driven down the steep slope on
the opposite side, thus drawing up the wagon. We then righted it so that
it straddled the ridge and could be safely hauled out to the level
prairie.
After this we had to go back on horses and bring the camp outfit, which
we had left at Dog Creek, to the wagon.
About three o’clock that afternoon our scout, who had not showed up
during the heavy labor of getting the outfit up to the prairie, was seen
coming from the south through a break in the foothills, while at the
same time another horseman approached at full speed from the east. At a
sign from the scout, our driver stopped his horses, and Isaac and I
rested in our saddles.
The second horseman soon proved to be Professor Cope, who galloped up to
the guide and stopped him, the gestures of the two men and the sound of
their raised voices indicating that an animated argument was going on
between them. Finally the scout, his face heated and scowling, came up
to the wagon, and without a word, got out his roll of blankets and extra
clothing, and started off in the direction of Fort Benton.
The cook shouted after him, and then, springing from the wagon, followed
him. When they were out of earshot, the scout stopped, and the two began
an excited conversation. Then it was the cook’s turn to show of what
poor stuff he was made, for, coming back to the wagon, he loaded his
blankets and grip on his broad shoulders, and struck out on foot for a
wood-camp a few miles to the north, on the river.
When Cope came up he told us that these two men, whom he had paid in
full for three months’ work, had deserted him here on the open prairie,
a hundred and twenty miles from his base of supplies.
It seems that the scout had come across Sitting Bull’s war camp, where
thousands of warriors, drunk with the blood of Custer and the brave men
of the Seventh U. S. Cavalry, were defying the Government in the
inaccessible canyons around the Dry Fork of the Missouri. The camp was
only a day’s journey from us, and the scout and our valiant cook had
concluded that their precious scalps were too valuable to risk.
The Professor asked us whether we could carry on the double work which
their dishonorable conduct had made necessary, and we willingly
undertook to do so, even if it were to mean working our fingers to the
bone.
Isaac took the seat, and we prepared to start on, but misfortunes never
come singly. Our four-year-old colt, who had had a chance to rest during
the delay, suddenly decided that he too would try to put a stop to the
expedition. He balked, and when the Professor went up to him to lead him
along, he struck out viciously with his fore feet.
Now I imagine that the Professor had put up with about all that he was
willing to bear. The cowardly desertion of our men, combined with the
discomforts of our situation,—we had had nothing to eat or drink since
we left Dog Creek, and the only spring on the route at which we could
get good water was miles away,—left little mercy in his heart for this
miserable, obstinate horse. He told Isaac to unhitch the animal and tie
him to a hind wheel, while I got on top of the wagon, armed with a club
to prevent his trying to climb in.
With the whip in one hand, butt end down, Cope approached the horse with
the other outstretched, speaking gently to conciliate him. The horse,
however, struck out with all his might. Narrowly escaping the blow, the
Professor stepped back, raised the whip, and with the butt end, hit the
horse behind the ear. The animal fell like a flash, and lay for some
time stunned; but when he struggled to his feet, and the Professor
approached him again with outstretched hand and soft words, the brute
struck again. Again Cope knocked him down, and, although when he rose to
his feet, he made another feeble attempt to strike, a third knock-down
blow was enough for him. After that he welcomed the Professor’s
advances, accepting with every symptom of pleasure the caresses bestowed
upon him, and when untied, he almost dragged Cope after him in his
anxiety to get to his traces. We had no more trouble with him until a
long rest and plenty of food caused him to forget his punishment, and
made a repetition of it necessary.
It was not until late that night, after fourteen hours of strenuous
labor, that we were able to eat our supper of bacon and hardtack, and
lie down for a few hours’ rest. We slung our food from a tree to get it
out of the reach of any grizzlies which might come straying around in
search of bread crumbs or bacon rinds. We expected any moment to be
rolled out of bed by some prowling paw.
The next day we traveled along through the great level stretches that
skirt the Bad Lands. The prairie was covered with thick bunches of
grass, and often had been rooted up for acres by grizzlies in search of
wild artichokes, a sweet morsel they love. We often saw herds of deer
and elk and antelope.
Part of the time our route lay among the foothills of the Judith River
Mountains to the south of us; and when we emerged again on to the open
plain, we found ourselves in a great amphitheater, a hundred miles
across. To the west the towering ranges of the Rockies rose in silent
grandeur, their sides scarred deeply with canyons, in whose recesses the
white snow gleamed and sparkled in the morning light To the south, east,
and north, the Judith River Mountains, the Little Rockies, Medicine Bow,
Bearpaw, and the Sweet Grass Mountains on the border line of Assiniboia
made up the circle. A glorious scene! And there was exhilaration too in
the thought that ours was the first wagon to roll through these rich
solitudes, given up for ages to the red hunter and his game. These hills
were soon to re-echo with the shriek of the locomotive, and this rich
soil to nourish a thousand souls, but in the days I am recalling, we did
not meet a single human being in all the forty miles of our journey.
That night, after another hard day, we halted at the head of a short and
very steep ravine ending in an open valley between two ridges, whose
lofty precipices abutted on the Missouri twelve hundred feet below.
This valley, Cope told us, was to be our camping ground for some time to
come, as a steamboat snubbing-post was situated here. When I learned
this, I threw out my roll of blankets and started it on its way to camp.
It bounded down the ravine, leaping high in the air from boulder to
boulder, and never stopped until it was caught in a bunch of the cactus
that covered the level plain below.
Everything but the Professor’s trunk was unloaded, and the wagon pulled
to the head of the gulch, where Isaac took charge of the tongue, and the
Professor and I, each tying a picket rope to the hind axle and making a
half-hitch to a convenient sapling, let the wagon slowly down the hill.
When the rope was paid out, Isaac blocked the wheels with stones, and we
advanced for another hitch, continuing in this way until we reached the
bottom. The baggage was then packed down, and, after a space had been
cleared of cactus, our tent was pitched. It was not until long after
midnight that we sat down to cook our meal, and when we rolled into our
blankets we slept the sleep of utter exhaustion.
Not only during this trip, but all through our stay in the Bad Lands, we
were tormented by myriads of black gnats, which got under our hat rims
and shirt sleeves, and produced sores that gave rise to pus and thick
scabs. They got under the saddles and girths too, irritating the horses
almost beyond endurance. We were forced, for lack of something better,
to cover our faces and arms with bacon grease and to rub the skins of
the horses under the collars and saddles with the same disagreeable
substance.
Fossil bones always partake of the characteristics of the rock in which
they are entombed, and here they were quite hard when we got in to where
the rock was compact. The Professor found here the first specimen ever
discovered in America of the wonderful horned dinosaurs; _Monoclonius_
he called the first species. I assisted him in digging out his specimen
of _M. crassus_, a species distinguished by a small horn over each
orbit, and a large one on the nasal bones; and I myself discovered two
species new to science. One of these, an _M. sphenocerus_, was six or
seven feet high at the hips, and, according to Cope, must have been
twenty-five feet long, including the tail. It has a long compressed
nasal horn, and two small horns over the eyes.
Professor Marsh later discovered a similar form in these same fossil
beds, and named it _Ceratops montanus_.
The species I discovered were collected on the north side of the river,
three miles below Cow Island, after the Professor had taken the last
boat down the river. When we uncovered these bones we found them very
brittle, as they had been shattered by the uplift of the strata in which
they were buried; and we were obliged to devise some means of holding
them in place. The only thing we had in camp that could be made into a
paste was rice, which we had brought along for food. We boiled
quantities of it until it became thick, then, dipping into it flour bags
and pieces of cotton cloth and burlap, we used them to strengthen the
bones and hold them together. This was the beginning of a long line of
experiments, which culminated in the recently adopted method of taking
up large fossils by bandaging them with strips of cloth dipped in
plaster of Paris, like the bandages in which a modern surgeon encases a
broken limb.
I feel it a great privilege to have been one of the original discoverers
of these great horned dinosaurs, whose skeletons are now among the chief
glories of our museums.
* * * * *
One day, about the fifteenth of October, Professor Cope, who had been
anxiously awaiting the arrival of the last steamboat, concluded to ride
out on the open prairie to some bad lands which we had seen on our
journey down from Dog Creek. I accompanied him. On the way he fell into
one of his frequent absent-minded moods, picturing the land as it must
have been at the time of the dinosaurs, when the shale of these
black-sided canyons was mud on an ocean floor. So fascinated were we
both by his descriptions that the time flew by unheeded, and it was
afternoon before we reached the prairie south of Cow Island.
Upon arriving at the bit of bad lands, we separated, agreeing to meet at
four o’clock at the place where we left the horses. I kept the
appointment, but the Professor was nowhere to be seen, and as hour after
hour passed with no sign of him, I began to grow anxious. I knew the
foolishness of trying to find him in that network of gorges and ridges,
and could only wait, eagerly watching the outlets of the labyrinth.
Just as the sun was sinking behind the Rockies he came out of a narrow
ravine with the head of a large mountain sheep on his back. He gave it
to me to carry behind my saddle, and with few words we mounted and set
off at full speed for home, remembering the three men whom we had met on
the prairie at noon, who had been lost for three days in the intricate
passages of the Bad Lands. I did not like to think of trying to find the
way there after night.
The Professor dashed over the prairie without once drawing rein,
clearing bunches of cactus ten feet, sometimes, in diameter, at a single
bound; and I followed suit. So, by a series of leaps, we crossed the
ten-mile stretch and drew up at the head of a gorge, from which we could
see Cow Island.
Cope eagerly scanned the lights of the little station, and finally
decided that a new set had been added to those of the soldiers’ tents.
He was sure that the long-expected steamer lay at her snubbing-post, and
declared emphatically that we must reach Cow Island that night.
I knew the uselessness of trying to combat his iron will, but I pleaded
with him against the folly of attempting to thread in the darkness those
black and treacherous defiles, where a single misstep meant certain
death. I begged him to wait until daylight. We were, to be sure, hungry
and thirsty, and food, water, and shelter were to be had only at the
river, but sleeping in our saddle blankets without supper was, I urged,
preferable to running the risk of being dashed to pieces.
He paid no attention to what I said, but dismounting, led his horse into
the canyon. He had to cut a stick to shove in front of him, as his eyes
could not penetrate the darkness a single inch ahead. I cut another to
punch along his horse, which did not want to follow him.
Sometimes when we had climbed down several hundred feet, the end of the
Professor’s stick would encounter only air, and a handful of stones
thrown ahead would be heard to strike the earth far below. Then we had
to turn and climb back through the deep dust to the top, and circling a
canyon, plunge down on the other side.
Once we got down to the river four miles from the prairie, and thought
that our journey was over, as we could see the lights of the station
just across the river. But when we had watered our thirsty horses and
started down for the landing, we found our way blocked by a huge ridge
with a towering precipice impinging on the river; and we had to drag
ourselves back over those four long, hard miles to the prairie, and
start again. I freely confess that I should have been willing to lie
down in the dust just where I was, and let the horses look out for
themselves, but Cope’s indomitable will could not be conquered. Back we
climbed to the top, and down we went into the next ravine.
I have never known another man who would have attempted this journey. It
was both foolhardy and useless, but we could say that we accomplished
what no one else ever had in reaching Cow Island through the Bad Lands
after dark.
For we did reach it. Just before daylight we got down to the landing
across from the station, and sure enough, the steamboat was at her post.
But another disappointment was in store for us. The Professor shouted to
the sergeant to come and take us over, but his voice was not recognized,
and as the sergeant was afraid that the call might come from some Indian
who had prepared an ambush, he refused to respond. We were soaked with
perspiration, and rapidly becoming chilled by a cold fog that was rising
along the shore, and we were obliged to walk back and forth to keep warm
until the Professor had recovered his natural voice.
Then, in his haste to correct his error, the sergeant sent a boat across
in the wrong place, and it was turned over in the rapids. He had to
rescue the half-drowned men, capture the boat, and try again.
At last, however, we were warming ourselves in a tent, where a pot of
beans was simmering for the soldiers’ breakfast. Not a bean was left
when we got through with them, and three pounds of raspberry jam, spread
upon, I was going to say a box of, hardtack, followed the beans. Then
the sergeant took us both out into the open air and turned back the big
black tarpaulin covering the gold ore that was to be shipped to the
smelter at Omaha. He made us a warm nest of new blankets, and when we
had crawled into it, pulled the tarpaulin back into place. Did we sleep?
Ask the deckhands who let the sunlight in upon us about nine o’clock the
next morning, when they pulled away the tarpaulin to load the ore.
Cope at once sought the captain of the boat and said, “I am Professor
Cope, of Philadelphia. I have a four-horse wagon at a steamboat
snubbing-post three miles below. I would like you to stop there on your
way down, and carry my outfit across to this side. My baggage and
freight are also there, and I want to take passage for Omaha.”
“Well, sir,” the man answered, “I am the captain of this boat. If you
want to go down the river, you must have your baggage, freight, and self
at this landing before ten o’clock to-morrow morning, when I leave for
down-river points.”
The Professor did not argue the question further. He tried to get the
loan of an old sand-scow, but the man who owned it had heard this
conversation with the captain, and refused to lend it. The Professor was
obliged to purchase it for an enormous price, and the next day left it
where he got it. We boarded this scow, and leaving our ponies picketed
across the river, paddled down to camp, where, to our disgust, we found
that Mr. Isaac had gone out into the Bad Lands to look for us. There was
no time to lose; so, although stiff and sore from our night’s exertions,
we plunged into the work of lowering the tent, packing our stores and
fossils into the wagon, and dragging everything aboard the scow. We were
ready to start when Mr. Isaac appeared.
We crossed the river, swimming our horses; and then came the time for
old Major to go it alone and show his worth. We converted the Missouri
into a canal, and its northern bank into a towpath. Old Major we hitched
to a line attached to the scow; and while a couple of mountain men whom
we had in camp kept the boat away from the shore with long poles, I rode
the big horse, often right into the river, until he began to sink in a
mud bank, and I had to turn hastily back to shore. The Professor and Mr.
Isaac had the worst places, for they had to keep the rope from being
caught by a snag or rock; and when it did catch, if they did not
instantly loose their hold upon it, the tension threw them far over into
the river, and they had to get out as best they could. This occurred a
number of times.
When about sundown we hove-to under the big steamer, the deck was
crowded with passengers watching our approach. Cope was covered with mud
from head to foot, and his clothing, with hardly a seam whole, hung from
him in wet, dirty rags. He had forgotten to bring along any winter
wearing apparel, so, although the nights were quite cold, and the women
were clad in fur coats and the men in ulsters, he emerged from the
sergeant’s tent, whither he had carried his grip, in a summer suit and
linen duster.
He told me about a funny experience that he had on the boat on the way
down the river. It goes without saying that in that long trip he taught
the passengers more natural science than they had ever learned in all
their lives before. At a certain wood-camp, he and some others went
ashore and found the skull of a Crow Indian. The Crow method of burial
was to wrap the body in a blanket, lay it on the ground, and build
around it an open frame of logs, to keep away wild animals. It was an
easy matter to pick up a skull.
The Professor carried his find aboard in his hands before everyone, and
was beginning to tell his enlightened listeners the special cranial
characteristics of this tribe, when a body of deckhands, headed by their
appointed speaker, came forward and told the captain that they would not
allow Professor Cope to “emulate the dead.” He must take the skull back
to its grave or they would not remain aboard and take the boat down to
Omaha.
“Why,” said the speaker earnestly, “we will be caught on every mud bank
in the river, and there is no telling what calamities will happen, if he
is allowed to emulate the dead.”
There was no getting them to back down from their position, and the
Crow’s skull was restored to its grave. But the Professor said
afterwards, “We had about a dozen skulls packed in with the fossils, and
in spite of them, reached Omaha without having to walk on stilts, as had
been prophesied.”
Shortly after the Professor left us, I discovered a fine specimen, one
of those mentioned earlier in this chapter, three miles below Cow
Island, near the base of a high tableland, where I kept my pony picketed
while I worked. One day, when I prepared to mount him, I noticed that he
was unusually quiet. His custom was to start on a run as soon as my foot
touched the stirrup, leaving me to get into the saddle as best I could.
This time he stood still, and when I reached my seat and lifted the
lines, I found that they were perfectly useless, as the curb was broken.
Before I could dismount, the brute started at a rapid pace across the
tableland toward a sheer precipice, hundreds of feet high. I settled
myself firmly in the saddle and hung on with both hands to the
hand-holds behind, fearing that he might try to hurl me over; and that
was just what he did. When he got within a few inches of the brink, he
planted his feet and stopped suddenly. But Providence and long practice
in riding all kinds of horses enabled me to keep my seat, and
fortunately, the saddle girths held.
I was just about to dismount, when suddenly the determined animal
whirled around and started for the precipice on the other side, where he
went through the same performance. And not satisfied even then, tried
the trick a third time. Then he allowed me to dismount and mend the
curb. In payment for his treachery, I forced him to run at full speed
down the steep and rugged trail to camp.
This chapter has been largely taken up with adventures and a study of
the man Cope; but as a matter of fact, there was little else to tell
about, as we were in such haste that we secured few specimens, and the
most important result of the expedition was our discovery of many new
specimens of dinosaurs, represented chiefly by teeth.
On the first of November a heavy snowstorm set in, promising to leave
the country covered with snow for the winter; so we loaded our outfit
and started for Fort Benton. The sergeant went with us, very
fortunately, as it proved; for one night, as we were camping in the Bear
Paw Mountains, one of our crazy mustang wheelers heard a wolf howl and
started on a run for one of the other horses which was picketed farther
down the slope. Coming suddenly to the end of its rope, its feet
slipped, and it fell and broke its neck. But for the sergeant’s horse we
could not have hauled in our load.
Countless herds of buffalo were being driven to the Bad Lands by the
storm, as were also great droves of deer, elk, and antelope. It seemed
as if it would be impossible to exterminate them. Yet I learned by the
papers the other day that the last herd of buffalo of any size had been
sold at three hundred dollars a head to the Canadian Government, Uncle
Sam being too poor to make the purchase.
We reached Fort Benton in safety, learning later that Sitting Bull had
crossed at Cow Island and killed the soldiers who had been left there. I
never saw my associate, Mr. Isaac, again, but I know that he discovered
some fine material the next year.
I made the return stage journey of six hundred miles in six days.
Through the mountains the thermometer averaged twenty below zero, and I
ate four hearty meals a day. I recrossed the Great Divide on the Union
Pacific Railroad, made a brief visit home, and went on to spend the
winter with Professor Cope.