CHAPTER XI
THE FOSSIL-HUNTERS
Stamford raised his eyes from the wobbling wheels to the seat of the buckboard. Instantly he felt, rather than saw, that it was the Professor and his sister. Beside him Mary Aikens was puzzled, with a nervous mingling of surprise and amusement. With the instinct of her sex her hand went to her dark hair, and a quick eye fell to the spotless apron and moved on to her neatly clad feet.
When the buckboard was near enough to make out the Professor's extended hands on the lines, his fierce concentration on the horses' ears, his braced feet, and the threatening bounce of his body as the wheel mounted the ridge, the spectators in the ranch-house could not control their laughter. For the sake of politeness Mary temporarily withdrew.
With several stentorian and anxious "whoas" the buckboard came to a stop at the end of the gravel walk, and Isabel Bulkeley, with a sigh of relief, bounded out.
"Amos," she announced, "hereafter I drive."
The Professor, an amusing figure of mingled satisfaction and relief, protested.
"Now I think I did that rather well. Take the exact end of the walk and the centre of the buggy—I'm not more than a yard or two out. It's that left horse that dislikes me. I feel as if I must expend myself on that line—and the other horse responds too. When I get time I'm going to invent a separate line for each horse—if only for the use of amateurs. As it is now, if one horse is of a contrary disposition——"
He had leaped over the wheel and was diving a hand into a box in the back of the buckboard, rummaging among bits of rock.
"Isabel! Isabel Bulkeley! Where's that Allosaurus vertebra? Oh—yes, here it is. Goodness, how it frightened me!" He raised his head and beamed on them through his large spectacles. "Do you know, I don't believe I've lost a thing—except confidence in my driving."
An enormous handkerchief emerged from his coat pocket and mopped his forehead. The hand that held the lines gripped them so firmly that the horses were backing on him.