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.

CHAPTER IV
FURTHER WORK IN THE KANSAS CHALK, 1877

I spent the winter of 1876–77 with Professor Cope, first at Haddonfield, then at his new home on Pine Street, in Philadelphia.

At Haddonfield the commodious loft of a large, old-fashioned barn was fitted up as a workshop, and I had also a bed here. I boarded with a Mr. Geismar, Professor Cope’s preparator, but I had a standing invitation to eat dinner every Sunday with the Professor and his wife and daughter, a lovely child of twelve summers.

I shall never forget those Sunday dinners. The food was plain, but daintily cooked, and the Professor’s conversation was a feast in itself. He had a wonderful power of putting professional matters from his mind when he left his study, and coming out ready to enter into any kind of merrymaking. He used to sit with sparkling eyes, telling story after story, while we laughed at his sallies until we could laugh no more.

I never knew his wit to fail him. I remember being present at a meeting of the Academy of Science, in Philadelphia, at which he was up for re-election to the office of recording secretary, and was defeated. Among others, Professor William Moore Gabb made some remarks against him. Cope’s only defense was “Now, William, more gab!”

I attended also the dinners which he gave to his hosts of friends in the city, and the luncheons at which Mrs. Cope entertained the young men to whom the Professor gave lectures in his own home. He told his funniest anecdotes on these occasions, and used to call on me for my story of the old farmer who, while at work hoeing corn in a stump-field on the side of a hill, saw a hoop-snake at the top take its tail in its mouth and begin to roll down towards him. Springing behind a stump, he struck at it with his hoe handle, into which the sting at the end of the snake’s tail entered deeply. In less than an hour the handle had swelled up to the size of a man’s leg.