“I pass,” was the reply. “Which I’ve never made what you might call a side-partner of a skeleton.”
The paleontologist smiled.
“I have,” he said. “I have spent many years with skeletons as my best friends. It is my ‘game,’ as you call it.”
“How’s that?”
“You round up the cattle that are alive, I round up the animals that are dead, that have been dead millions of years. I dig them out of the rocks where they are buried.”
“Oh, I sagatiate!” the cowboy exclaimed, nodding his head comprehendingly, “you’re a bone-hunter! There’s a bunch of ’em out the other side of Blue Goose Gully.”
“Yes, yes,” the young scientist answered, “I’m one of that ‘bunch.’”
“Now I’ve got your brand,” the range-rider declared, with satisfaction. “You don’t hold nothin’ against me, pard, for not bein’ wise?”
“No, no, of course not,” Antoine retorted, “why should I?”
“Havin’ made myself look like a tumble-weed for sense,” said the other, with an air of self-disgust, “I got to get square. But I opine I c’n break even with you, after all.”