“You here, Antoine! Oh, bully! The professor hadn’t told me that you were one of the party!” Antoine replied with equally cordial greetings, for the two had remained good friends ever since the Fayum trip and had corresponded occasionally. Then the young paleontologist, turning to his new-made cowboy acquaintance, said as an introduction: “Meet another ‘bone-hunter,’ won’t you? This is Perry Hunt.” “Put it there!” said the Westerner, reaching out his hand. “‘Round-up Dick,’ they call me on the range.” “Fine,” said the boy, shaking hands heartily. “I’ve always wanted to know a real cowboy. You are one, aren’t you?” The lad’s interest was so genuine and so thoroughly boyish that the range-rider smiled broadly. He seldom smiled, but his weather-beaten face brightened marvelously when he did so. “I’ve punched cattle since I was a shaver seven years old,” Round-up Dick answered, “an’ I’m hopin’ to wear spurs as long as there’s a township o’ range without barbed wire.” “When your train came in, Perry,” put in Antoine, eager not to lose the chance of learning more about a possible fossil find, “I was just hearing about a bone outcrop.” He turned to the range-rider. “Won’t you tell me some more about that?” he asked. “I was remarkin’,” the cow-puncher repeated, “that up to the head o’ No Wood Draw, as I was eatin’ dust to try an’ head off a maverick heifer that was headed for China, I run across a critter that looked as if it had been buried in the rock an’ was just workin’ its way out. It was standin’ straight up like as it was alive. I c’d nigh have touched the hoof with my hands as I rode by.” “How big?” the boy queried eagerly. The Westerner looked at the boy’s enthusiastic face and repeated his slow smile. “The mere idee gits you all worked up, son, doesn’t it?” he said. “You looks like Hard Mouth Bill when he first prospects a faro lay-out after a couple o’ months on the range. How big, you asks? ‘Bout as big as a yearling.” “What did it look like?” “Looked same as any bones would. Hold up your cards a minute!” The speaker knitted his brows in perplexity. “Which I’m seemin’ to remember I did see three toes.” “Size of a yearling! Three toes!” The lad turned to his comrade in wild excitement. “Oh, Antoine,” he said, “that must be a Mesohippus, the three-toed horse!” The cowboy listened in astonishment. “Say them words over slow,” put in Round-up Dick. “Did you remark a three-toed horse—a bronc’ with three hoofs on each foot?” “Sure,” said Perry, “why not? There are horses with four toes, too.” “Which I’ve got a pressin’ appointment at another part o’ the range,” said Round-up Dick, “an’ my pardner’ll be madder’n a Greaser cheated out of a cock-fight if I don’t adorn the landscape in his vicinity, but I’m tellin’ you right now that if there’s any chance o’ that critter bein’ a three-toed horse, I’ll point this bronc’s head for that spot an’ heat up that trail like it was bein’ fried. Will you ride?”