said not to, but I don't understand it at all."

"Neither do I, but the least said the better. And if anyone over
there--especially Del Pinzo--asks for Nort, we're not to even admit he
isn't with us. Sort of say he'll be along presently."

"I savey!"

The boys reached the scene of the digging operations which were quite
extensive, Professor Wright being liberally supplied with money from
some learned society that was interested in securing for the college
the largest possible collection of fossil bones of long extinct
monsters.

The boys knew some of the workers, and more than a few of the young
college men--some of the professors--who had been brought to the place
by Mr. Wright. And it was while Bud and Dick were again talking over
how foolish it seemed (to them) to use such long names in speaking of
the long-dead monsters that Professor Wright heard them.

He did not happen to be busy at that particular moment, and he was a
man who never neglected an opportunity of imparting knowledge. He
would do this not always with discrimination, for Bud used to tell with
a laugh how once he overheard Professor Wright talking most learnedly
to an ignorant Greaser who had merely stopped to inspect a pile of
bones.

"He was getting off the longest string of jaw-breaking Greek and Latin
terms," said Bud, telling the story, "spouting away how many millions
of years ago the Dinosaurs trod the earth, what they lived on, how they
fought among themselves, and he was dwelling particularly on how a
change of conditions wiped all these birds off the earth."

"Meaning, by birds, the Dinosaurs and the like?" asked Dick.

"Sure."

"And how did the Greaser respond to it all?" Dick wanted to know.

"Oh, he took it all in with open mouth," chuckled Bud. "Every now and
then he'd out with a '_si senor_,' which encouraged Professor Wright to
go on."

"And how did it end?" asked Dick.

"Oh, the prof. kept spouting away for an hour or more, showing bone
after bone of some he'd dug up (this was before the present occasion)
and when he was all through he leaned back with a jolly satisfied smile
on his phiz.

"But say, Dick," went on Bud, "I wish yon could have seen the look on
the dear old prof.'s face when the Greaser pointed to the bones and
grunted out:

"'Him good plenty much make soup!'"

"No! Really?"

"As sure as I can throw a rope! The idea of boiling up the
million-year bones to make soup! I sure thought the prof. w