The Professor did not argue the question further. He tried to get the loan of an old sand-scow, but the man who owned it had heard this conversation with the captain, and refused to lend it. The Professor was obliged to purchase it for an enormous price, and the next day left it where he got it. We boarded this scow, and leaving our ponies picketed across the river, paddled down to camp, where, to our disgust, we found that Mr. Isaac had gone out into the Bad Lands to look for us. There was no time to lose; so, although stiff and sore from our night’s exertions, we plunged into the work of lowering the tent, packing our stores and fossils into the wagon, and dragging everything aboard the scow. We were ready to start when Mr. Isaac appeared.
We crossed the river, swimming our horses; and then came the time for old Major to go it alone and show his worth. We converted the Missouri into a canal, and its northern bank into a towpath. Old Major we hitched to a line attached to the scow; and while a couple of mountain men whom we had in camp kept the boat away from the shore with long poles, I rode the big horse, often right into the river, until he began to sink in a mud bank, and I had to turn hastily back to shore. The Professor and Mr. Isaac had the worst places, for they had to keep the rope from being caught by a snag or rock; and when it did catch, if they did not instantly loose their hold upon it, the tension threw them far over into the river, and they had to get out as best they could. This occurred a number of times.
When about sundown we hove-to under the big steamer, the deck was crowded with passengers watching our approach. Cope was covered with mud from head to foot, and his clothing, with hardly a seam whole, hung from him in wet, dirty rags. He had forgotten to bring along any winter wearing apparel, so, although the nights were quite cold, and the women were clad in fur coats and the men in ulsters, he emerged from the sergeant’s tent, whither he had carried his grip, in a summer suit and linen duster.
He told me about a funny experience that he had on the boat on the way down the river. It goes without saying that in that long trip he taught the passengers more natural science than they had ever learned in all their lives before. At a certain wood-camp, he and some others went ashore and found the skull of a Crow Indian. The Crow method of burial was to wrap the body in a blanket, lay it on the ground, and build around it an open frame of logs, to keep away wild animals. It was an easy matter to pick up a skull.