"The necessity for concentration in a task like mine——" began the Professor.
"Doesn't excuse selfishness," Stamford filled in. "To-morrow I'll be your assistant. We'll risk our valueless lives together on that ford. The little man has spoken."
"Such a quaintly practical way of expressing his devotion to your sex, my dear!" said the Professor to his sister.
CHAPTER XII
STAMFORD GOES FOSSIL-HUNTING
They did not go fossil-hunting on the morrow. Instead, the Professor preferred to spend much of the day with his countrymen at the cook-house, while Isabel hunted Dakota up and took her first lesson in an art of which she had little to learn. Stamford, feeling unaccountably out of things, sulked under the pretext of reading.
He was oppressed with a sense of the futility of his mission, where so many side-issues were so much more vital than the purpose of his visit. Just what that purpose was he had to revive by sundry uninteresting reminders. Of mysteries about the H-Lazy Z there were enough to encourage the hope that some day the big thing he was searching for would stumble into the light—and he must be there to see it. Cockney's innocence was not so assertive now as it once was; perhaps in his foolish idea of proving the Police wrong he would only convict himself.
The Professor was frankly extending his information about ranch-life, and the humorous twists to his queries and replies immediately made him a favourite with the cowboys. They tried to express their approval by teaching him to ride, hunting out Stamford at last to put him through his paces as a sample of one week's lessons. The Professor shook his head.
"The difference between us is in the results of failure. A man of his size scarcely ruffles the grass where he lights. The seismometers at my own Institute would record my unseating as my only epitaph worthy of note."
Dakota and Isabel whirled down the slope, Dakota liberally applying his whip without gaining ground. Right on top of the group about Hobbles and Stamford they drew up, so close that Hobbles herself reared a little. Stamford promptly slid off on his back.