But the mission of the professor, that same night, was perfectly legitimate. He had heard that some rival scientists were "on his trail," and he rode off alone to see if this might be true. He found nothing, however, but his suspicions were ever on the alert. As a matter of fact he learned, later, that his rivals had never been near him. But he took all precautions, some needless, as it afterward developed.
That some of the Double Z outfit, and perhaps even the owner of that ranch, Hank Fisher himself, were involved in cattle rustling, was suspected, but not proved—at least for some time.
With the discovery that the professors were really scientists, and not cattle rustlers, all suspicion of them vanished. They had come west to hunt for the fossil relics and bones of the Triceratops. The reason they headed for Diamond X ranch was because, some time previous, another scientist, connected with the same college to which Professor Wright and Professor Blair were attached, had been given, by a Mexican guide, a bone from that strange monster—the Triceratops.
By dint of much questioning this professor learned that the bone had been found on land near Diamond X ranch. Professors Blair and Wright secured government permission to prospect on unclaimed land, and thus began a search for the complete skeleton, a search that ended so dramatically.
The two professors had hired an outfit, and planned to spend the entire summer looking for the remains of the prehistoric monster Dinosaur. Their actions were misunderstood by some of the Mexicans and Indians they hired, these ignorant men thinking gold was the object of the search. Hence the attack on the camp at the time Bud and his friends warded it off.
On the occasion when Ridin' Kid rode his horse against the tent, which seemed to conceal something valuable, there was, inside the canvas shelter, some bones that, later, proved to be part of the very skeleton which Bud, Nort and Dick helped to raise from its ten-million-year-old bed. The professors were afraid there would be a premature discovery of what, to them, were valuable relics, so guarded the tent jealously.
But eventually the bones and fossils were hoisted out of the hole, which had to be blasted larger to enable this work to go on, and the scientists departed for the East and their colleges, parting on the best of terms with the Diamond X outfit.
"Saddle up, boys!" called Mr. Merkel to Bud, Nort and Dick one day, about a month after the fight in the valley camp.
"What for—have we got to quiet a stampede?" asked Dick, who had recovered from his injuries, as had Nort.
"No, we've got to ride in to town, to give evidence against Del Pinzo and his gang," answered Bud's father. "Their trial comes off to-day. They've been in jail ever since we roped 'em!"