Once after two weeks of fruitless effort, we drove into a deep canyon, cut into the upper or reddish chalks near Monument Rocks, which are so much richer in fossils than the yellow or whitish beds farther east.
I had barely pitched the tent and got among the beds when I discovered not only that I was the first collector to visit the canyon but that it was rich in fossil remains. I found two specimens of _Platecarpus_, a species of Kansas mosasaur, in a low knoll, separated by but three feet of chalk.
At the same time one of those uncomfortable cold rains set in, and I was not much encouraged when Will told me that we had no food left. There was plenty of corn for the ponies, but no coffee, flour, bacon, or canned goods, not even an antelope; and we were forty miles from our base of supplies. I would not leave, however, without my load of fossils, as I feared that during my absence my rivals would come upon this Eldorado and clean it out. So the cook was told to parch a kettleful of corn, and we made our meals on that. In fact, we filled our pockets with it and lived on it for three days, eating most of the time to keep ourselves sufficiently nourished.
We had always depended for fuel upon the buffalo chips which even then were strewn about everywhere, but fortunately we found here an old dead cottonwood tree, a rare thing in that region, where even the willows on the river banks are short and stunted. But for this wood we should have suffered.
We remained there until we had loaded our wagon with eight hundred pounds of fossil vertebrates.
During the summer my constant use of a large butcher knife in cutting away the chalk from specimens caused a felon to form in the palm of my hand. A fistula resulted, and for ten days I slept but little, and could not work in the field.
Finally, worn out by hard labor and constant attacks of ague, I felt that my strength was failing, and called on Professor Cope for an assistant. He sent me J. C. Isaac, from Illges Ranch, Wyoming; but matters were not much improved, for Mr. Isaac had but a short time before seen five of his companions shot down and scalped by a band of marauding Indians, and only the swiftness of his horse had saved him from the same fate. Consequently, he saw an Indian behind every bush; and, although I had never been afraid before even when I learned that a large party on the warpath had passed close to my camp, now, worn and tired as I was, I became infected with his fears.