mpressions
have been left in stone of the very feathers worn by some of the now
fossilized creatures."

It was by comparison of fossil remains that the well known evolution of
the horse from a little fellow the size of a fox was learned. Ted often
thought of that three-toed Miocene horse, and the giant monsters of his
time,--of the upthrust of the Rocky Mountains, cutting off the moist sea
breeze from the marshy country to the Eastward and making desert of it.
This made life too hard for the heavy, slow-witted creatures, and they
failed to survive the change. But the nimble footed little horse trotted
long distances with ease, to find food and water.

Norris convulsed them by describing the creature on which he declared the
aeroplane was modeled,--the pteranodon, that giant lizard, largest of
flying creatures even in Mesozoic age, whose bat-like wings reached 20
feet from tip to tip,--as the fossil skeletons plainly prove.

This interesting specimen was a link in the chain between the birds of
to-day and their ancestral archeopteryx, no larger than a crow whose
front legs metamorphosed to short wings, whose skeletons have been found
perfectly preserved in the limestone.

Ted was frantic for fear they would not find the place again, then could
hardly wait to hear the Geological Survey man's pronouncement on his
find. Norris chipped and chipped, with knife and hammer, till he had
uncovered the impress of a great, membranous wing.

It was a fossil dinosaur,--a pterodactyl!

Ted's college education was secure!

CHAPTER X

HOW THE EARTH WAS MADE

Ted's fossil would have to wait to be exhumed. In fact, Norris told him,
he could sell it as it stood, and let the purchaser do the work. Then it
occurred to him to wonder if Ted would not have first to take up a
claim,--for it was Government land. Anyway, he would see to it that the
boy was rewarded for his find.

The fire now being extinguished, Radcliffe had flown to other battle
lines, first taking Rosa--as she insisted--back to her fire outlook. The
plan was for the two boys to keep on hunting for the Mexicans, (as the
harried Ranger now counted on their doing), joining the rest of the
camping party every night, at points they would agree upon. But first,
Ace had made a flight to Fresno for supplies and to start his pilot home
by train. He then carried them one at a time to where the burros had been
left,--and where the lazy rascals still browsed on the rich