ome to his knee.
His big toe was as long as your arm."

"And how do you know all that?" protested the old prospector feebly.

"By their bones,--fossils. Why, there have been fossil bones of a
dinosaur found right in the Connecticut Valley! There was one found a
hundred years ago in Oxford, England. We have heaps of fossils of them
out West here. In fact, this part of the world used to be their stamping
ground, though fossils of them have been found as far away as New
Zealand."

"Did they eat people?" gasped Lester.

"There weren't any people in those days to eat, but some of them preyed
on other animals, and some browsed on the herbage of the swamps. They
didn't have much of any brains, the Triceratops, dinosaurs twice as heavy
as elephants, that looked like horned toads, didn't have two pounds of
brains apiece, or so we infer from the size of their skulls. They knew
just about enough to eat when they were hungry, and not enough to migrate
when things got unlivable for them, and so they perished off the face of
the earth."

"I'm shore glad of that," the old man heaved a sigh of relief. "I'd shore
hate to 've met up with one of them fellows."

"And next time I want to cast aspersions on any one's intelligence,"
shouted Pedro, "I'm going to call him a--what was it?"

"_Triceratops_," said Norris. "Some dinosaurs,--in fact, most of
them,--lived in the swamps, and had long, snakelike necks and flat,
apparently earless heads, and long tails. But Triceratops had a
three-horned face, one horn over each eye to protect it in battle and one
over the nose. Of course he was the largest animal of his time, but he
probably fought rival swains for his lady love. We have a pair of
Triceratops horns in the National Museum. One is broken, and it must have
been broken during life, for the stump is healed over. There were many
other kinds of dinosaurs. If we come to any fossil remains, I'll tell you
more about them. But," (stifling a yawn), "I guess you fellows have had
about all you can stand for to-night."

The boys protested to the contrary, but Norris promised the rest of the
story their next evening together around a bon-fire.

In the middle of the night the boys were awakened by a terrific racket.
Long Lester was yelling for all he was worth. Every one started wide
awake, and Norris threw a handful of browse on the fire to light the
scene. Then the old man managed to articulate: "Gosh A'mighty!--I sure
thought the Dinosaur