The Life of a Fossil Hunter

by Charles H. Sternberg

As soon as the frost was out of the ground, having secured a team of ponies and a boy to drive them, I left Manhattan and drove out to Buffalo Park, where one of my brothers was the agent. The only house, beside the small station building, was that occupied by the section men. Great piles of buffalo bones along the railroad at every station testified to the countless numbers of the animals slain by the white man in his craze for pleasure and money. A buffalo hide was worth at that time about a dollar and a quarter.

Here at Buffalo I had my headquarters for many years. A great windmill and a well of pure water, a hundred and twenty feet deep, made it a Mecca for us fossil hunters after two weeks of strong alkali water. At this well Professor Mudge’s party and my own used to meet in peace after our fierce rivalry in the field as collectors for our respective paleontologists, Marsh and Cope.

What vivid memories I have of that first expedition!—memories of countless hardships and splendid results. I explored all the exposures of chalk from the mouth of Hackberry Creek, in the eastern part of Gove County, to Fort Wallace, on the south fork of the Smoky Hill, a distance of a hundred miles, as well as the region along the north and south forks of the Soloman River.

When we left Buffalo Station, we left civilization behind us. We made our own wagon trails, two of which especially were afterwards used by the settlers until the section lines were constructed. One of them ran directly south, crossing Hackberry Creek about fifteen miles from the railroad, at a point where there was a spring of pure water—a rare and valuable find in that region. We camped here many times, and made such a good trail that it was used for years. Our second trail extended across the country, striking Hackberry Creek where Gove City now stands, and led over Plum Creek Divide, whose high ledges of yellow chalk served us as a landmark for twenty miles. From this point we could see Monument Rocks, and near them the remains of an old one-company post on the Santa Fé Trail. Our trail then led up the Smoky Hill to the mouth of Beaver Creek, on the eastern edge of Logan County, and followed the old road as far west as Wallace.

Prairie-dog villages extended west along all the water courses, and open prairies to the state line, and we were rarely out of sight of herds of antelope and wild horses. Near the present site of Gove City, on the south side of Hackberry Creek, there is a long ravine with perpendicular banks ten feet or more in height. This ravine was at that time used as a natural corral by some men who made a business of capturing these wild ponies by following them night and day, keeping them away from their watering places, and giving them no chance to graze, until they were exhausted. They were then easily driven into the ravine and roped; after which they were picketed on the prairie and soon became tame. These wild horses were swift travelers, and the most graceful of all the wild animals of the West, being distinguished for the beauty of their flowing manes and tails.

There was constant danger from Indians, and in order that we might escape as much as possible the eagle eye of some scout who might be passing through the country, our tent and wagon-sheet were of brown duck. This blended with the dry, brown buffalo grass, as we traveled from canyon to canyon, and could not be distinguished very far even by the trained eye of an Indian.

I never carried my rifle with me. I left it in camp or in the wagon, for I soon decided that I could not hunt Indians and fossils at the same time, and I was there for fossils.

I had no unpleasant experiences with Indians, however, although I came very near it once. It was one day late in June, when we were about three miles north of Monument Rocks. A gentle rain early in the morning had taken the glare from the chalk cliffs, and as this is a circumstance favorable to the discovery of fossils, I shouldered my pick and started down the canyon, eagerly scanning the rocks on either side.

About a mile below camp I was startled to come upon a pony trail, so deeply cut into the soft chalk that I knew each horse must be carrying a burden. It had been made within the hour, and as I was anxious to find out what it meant, I took the back trail to the river. There I found that a large band of warriors had sought shelter from the rain in a willow thicket, tying bunches of the twigs together and throwing deer or antelope skins over them to shed the water. They had squatted within these shelters until the storm had passed, and then cooked their breakfasts, as the live coals in many of the ash heaps testified.

There were no squaws or children along; it makes no difference whether women are white or red, they always lose some of their belongings wherever they go, and there was none of such property at this camp. The ponies had been tied to the bushes and not allowed to graze, showing that the party had not expected to camp here, but had simply taken shelter from the rain to avoid the discomfort of traveling with wet buckskin moccasins and leggings. I learned later that it was a large band of Kiowas, Cheyennes, and Arapahoes, under their famous chief, Crazy Horse, going north to join commands with Sitting Bull, in Montana.