But the giant skeleton lured him again, and, a few moments later, he was on his knees again beside that ancient saurian, and the strokes of the hammer fell throbbing across the silence of a night in the Bad Lands.
Chip! Chip! Chip!
Far away in the distance, where perhaps some slight vegetation came down from the hills, for he was on the very edge of the desert country, came the long-drawn howl of a coyote. For a second the hammer hung poised, then fell again, beating, beating through the night.
He knew that to expose such a skeleton would mean the work of a month or two for several men, probably with the aid of dynamite, but he was determined at least to bring an inch or two, clear. The chill star-shine gave him light enough, but though the day had been so hot, the night was cold. He piled a heap of sage-brush and mesquite and lit a fire. Then, unable to leave his find, back he went to the skeleton again.
Chip! Chip! Chip!
Courtesy of J. B. Lippincott & Co.
A Brachiosaur, Largest of All Land Creatures.
Restoration of Gigantosaurus, from East Africa, closely related to the American genus Brachiosaurus (restoration based on incomplete knowledge and is much exaggerated, since, though bulkier, it probably was not longer than the Diplodocus, correct scientific restoration awaits setting-up of skeleton now in Berlin): a Diplodocus, which previously held the record for size, shown to the left; also, for comparison, the figure of a man is drawn in, though, of course, Gigantosaurus lived at least eight million years before the first man. From Gregory, in “Geology of To-day.”
Little by little the form of the huge creature began to appear to him. This tiny fragment of rock grew huge to his tired eyes. Longer than a Diplodocus, bigger than a Brontosaur, the hundred feet and more of the mighty monarch of the past stretched out upon the plain, stretched as it had fallen for the last sleep on the borders of that lake ten million years ago.