Chapter XXIV: The Brontotherium

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

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

"So some of my helpers held the time I discovered the other gigantic fossil 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 of the scientist, for there was much to interest them there, and they wanted to be on hand when the "great discovery," as Professor Wright referred to it, should be made.

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

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

"Yes," agreed Bud. "We don't have to open a book nor learn a lot of names as long as your arm. I wonder why they gave such long names to these 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 a horse 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 I mean," and he pointed to it among the distant hills, "don't mention Nort'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 over there--especially Del Pinzo--asks for Nort, we're not to even admit he isn't with us. Sort of say he'll be along presently."

"I savey!"

The boys reached the scene of the digging operations which were quite extensive, Professor Wright being liberally supplied with money from some learned society that was interested in securing for the college the largest possible collection of fossil bones of long extinct monsters.

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

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

"He was getting off the longest string of jaw-breaking Greek and Latin terms," said Bud, telling the story, "spouting away how many millions of years ago the Dinosaurs trod the earth, what they lived on, how they fought among themselves, and he was dwelling particularly on how a change 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 and then he'd out with a '_si señor_,' which encouraged Professor Wright to go on."

"And how did it end?" asked Dick.

"Oh, the prof. kept spouting away for an hour or more, showing bone after 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 smile on his phiz.

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

"'Him good plenty much make soup!'"

"No! Really?"

"As sure as I can throw a rope! The idea of boiling up the million-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 and intelligent audience. For, as I have said, overhearing Dick and Bud discussing the "jaw-breaking names," as the boys termed them, the scientist approached them with a reassuring smile on his face and said:

"You are somewhat like the old lady, told of in the book written by Professor Lucas of the American Museum of Natural History. In his introduction he speaks of the necessity for using what are termed 'big' words--that is scientific terms, and he mentions an old lady who said she 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 were found."

"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 of those already found--and I am searching for specimens of some extinct animals already identified--we have settled upon names.

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

"And, as a matter of fact, those who complain that these names are hard to pronounce do not stop to think that, in many cases, the names of the Dinosaurs are no harder than others. They are simply less familiar and not so often used. You wouldn't call hippopotamus a hard word; would you, 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 he spelled it.

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

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

"There are other names of animals in everyday use that would 'stump' us if 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 same principle of pronunciation that you use in saying hippopotamus, and you have done the trick," went on Professor Wright. "In fact, it is all rather simple."

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

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

"Now, in the case of the brontotherium, we have two Greek words which excellently describe the animal whose bones I am after. That is the description fits, as nearly as anything can to something we have never seen.

"There is a Greek word--_bronte_ it is pronounced in English, and it means, in a sense, thunder. Another Greek word is _therion_, which means 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, "until you stop to think that paleontologists adopted the word 'thunder' as meaning something large and monstrous, as thunder is the loudest noise in 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 bit farther, 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. Dino is a form of word taken from the Greek, _deinos_ meaning terrible and mighty, from its root _deos_, which means fear.

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

The boys were really enjoying this scientific information, dry and complicated 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 scientific subject seem interesting.

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

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

He looked expectantly at the boys.

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

"I'll encourage you so far as to say you're on the right track. In other words, you are half right," said the scientist. "Suppose you take 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 just di--and assume that Bud has used that. You have left the syllable nornis."

"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 seeming failure so far.

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

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

"Correct," said the professor. "Ornis is the Greek word for bird, and when 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 the Dinornis is--an extinct bird of great size.

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

"Some years ago there was discovered the pelvic and leg bones of what was evidently an enormous extinct bird. Now, of course, our knowledge of the past is based somewhat on our knowledge of the present, and if we had but the pelvic and leg bones of, say, a crow, we could, even without ever seeing a crow, come pretty nearly drawing the picture of how large a bird it is, and of what shape to be able to use such a pelvis and such leg bones.

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

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

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

"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 those legs?" he asked the boys.

"Well, a giraffe is about the only kind of a beast that could logically walk 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 they began to look forward eagerly to the time when some of the giant bones might 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 is how long ago they figure these things lived--I mean the Dinornis and Dinosaurs," 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. But we are confronted with this difficulty. The least estimate put on the age of the earth is ten million years. The longest is, perhaps, six thousand million----"

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

"And maybe more," said Professor Wright. "So you see it is pretty hard to set any estimate on just when an animal lived who may have passed away six billion years ago--it really isn't worth while. All we can say is that they lived many, many ages ago, and we are lucky if we can come 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 had found something over there!" he cried, as some excitement was manifest amid a group of laboring Greasers some distance away.

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

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

"But you want a _Brontotherium_," insisted one of the helpers, a professor 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 am certain. Careful now, men!"

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

But alas for the hopes of the professor! When the object was taken out it proved to be only part of the skeleton of a long dead buffalo, the bones being so encrusted with clay or mud as to appear much larger than they 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 of earth and each dislodged stone was carefully examined by the scientist or one of his scientific companions for any trace of the bones of an extinct monster.

Under the urging of Del Pinzo, the Greasers, all of whom had been engaged by him, worked hard--harder than they would have done had Del Pinzo 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 the laborers.

And of all who labored none was more active than a certain young Greaser, in ragged garments and with a most dirty face, who seemed to be in all parts of the excavating camp at once. He leaped down into holes, he climbed mounds and delved there a while; he labored with pick and 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:

"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 was missing, and, well--all Greasers looked alike. He turned, and the youth, with a quiet chuckle, resumed his activities.

But, as the youth labored, his eyes seemed to follow Del Pinzo more than they kept to the matters immediately in hand. Though he struck hard with his pick, and took out heaping shovelfuls, this youth ever had his eyes on the half-breed, watching and watching as Del Pinzo strolled about the camp grounds.

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

Suddenly the comparative quiet of the fossil camp was broken by loud yells, and there seemed much excitement in a place where Professor Wright had been examining earth and rocks as the debris was deposited from an excavation.

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

"Look out there now! Be careful!" cautioned the scientist. "I think we have found it. Here, you look intelligent!" and he motioned to the Greaser youth whom Del Pinzo had questioned. "Get down in there and make the opening a little wider so I can see what we've come upon. But be 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 the youth nodded, and proceeded to enlarge the opening to the small underground cavern.

As the light of day was allowed to enter, Professor Wright leaped down into 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 gaze upon the immense fossil bones which had just been laid bare, the youth looked at Del Pinzo, hastening across the camp ground, murmured:

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