HEN, after many weeks, the awful god of the cave had been rendered harmless, the two men packed up the best of the ancient weapons and pottery and sent these up the wall to the camp. The cases containing the triceratops were too heavy to handle thus and were destined to remain in the cave until spring, when the river would be hospitable to the idea of transporting them. They drew on Red Wolf’s help, however, in working out a crude trail down to the river from the cave opening. This took many days of hard toil.
It was late March when the camp was broken and the start was made for Fort Sioux, the freight wagon loaded with the boxes of weapons and pottery.
The snows were disappearing from the plains, though they were still heavy along the canyon edge. Spring was in the air, if not under foot, on the last day of the trip and Hugh found himself unexpectedly eager to reach the warmth and comfort of Fort Sioux, eager for the physical comfort of home, but dreading in a wordless way the reaction of Jessie to his wonderful three months’ work. However, it would be highly appreciated in New York if it was not in Fort Sioux, thought Hugh, his mouth twisting slightly as he thought of Jessie’s inevitable comment:
“Gee whiz! It’s like being married to the keeper of a cemetery!”
It was mid-morning and he wanted to make Fort Sioux that night. Ten miles of sandy road. He settled to this last lap of the journey with dogged determination. All day long the road appeared and disappeared over the rolling yellow plains like quicksilver. Purple peaks appeared at intervals, towered for a time against the horizon, then dropped away. Now and again lone eagles wandered through the violet sky.
They stopped for a very short noon rest at the government wells, then urged the tired horses on. A long sun drenched afternoon, and then toward sundown a startling glimpse again of the canyon in which floated the opalescent clouds of spring. The road seemed to drop into the canyon with utter finality. But Hugh spurred Fossil to the brink without hesitation. This was the old home trail, corkscrewing down and down into the tremendous gash. He waited for the teams to come up to him, eyeing as he did so the black line of the river on the far level floor beneath, and beyond the river, backed solidly against the turreted wall of the canyon, the little town of red-roofed houses, with toy trains on toy tracks weaving in and out among the buildings.
It was Fort Sioux and home. Home! Hugh grunted as he uttered the word Home—Jessie—his mother-in-law. But, at any rate, there was Uncle Bookie. The lead team came up and Hugh took the dropping trail.
Fort Sioux! A frontier town, treeless, wind-swept, lonely as the sky. A single, long, sandy street bordered by dreary frame buildings The dark river rushing harshly behind the street.
The inhabitants, of course, boasted much of the little town,—particularly the male inhabitants. Part of this was sincere. They really considered Fort Sioux the center of the universe and an admirable center, too. But part of their boasting was a protective armor donned to offset the attacks of the Woman’s Club, which, led by Hugh’s mother-in-law, Mrs. Pink Morgan, had been bent on cleaning Fort Sioux, parking it, paving it, lighting it and otherwise making it a comfortable place in which to live. It takes a solid front of complacency to withstand the attacks of a woman's club, but the men of Fort Sioux were solid to the core.
Hugh and his Uncle Bookie, however, could not be accounted as a part of these shock troops, although they were citizens of the little town. Hugh saw Fort Sioux only as a shipping point for dinosaurs, and Bookie saw its true beauty. To Bookie, the lonely town included in its environs not only the ugly streets and the hideous dwellings but the canyon walls that hemmed it in and the wide plains above and the sweeping freedom of the sky.
Bookie knew that, after all, no town, however lovely, could bear comparison with the architecture of that canyon wall. He knew that no people, however fine, could seem as fine as the free ardor of that rushing river. Yet from the window of his book store, Bookie saw the life of the little town as a panorama of exceeding brilliancy and beauty.
Space, color, wide winds and mellow sun, dust of bellowing herds, shouting cowmen, the smell of leather and horse sweat, the clamor of the locomotive shops, the shriek of transcontinental trains, the rush of Indian ponies urged by unsmiling braves, tourists. Fording up to Bookie’s Dude Ranch, fossil hunters, packing prehistoric burdens, and always the unremitting uproar of the river.