CHAPTER IX

An Ancient Camel

"cap! Cap Bailey!"

There was no answer to the boys' frantic calls. Following the thunder of the crashing boulder, the stillness was frightening.

"Quick! We'd better clear away some of this rubble!" Frank ordered.

Rocks and shale of all sizes and shapes had broken loose in the landslide. Sand had been scooped from one spot and piled high in another. Desperately the brothers rooted through the debris.

"Joe! It can't be! Cap just couldn't be-"

"Frank! I see something down there! Khaki, and it's moving!"

The two boys tore wildly at the rubble until they had cleared Cap's face and shoulders. Groggy, the teacher drew in great lungfuls of air, while they continued to pull smaller rocks and sand from the place where he lay half buried.

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Finally, he was able to sit up and move his arms and legs to show that he was miraculously unharmed.

"Boulder . . . must. . . have . . . been tipped," he said huskily. "Go . . . see . . ."

Frank and Joe rushed up the slope but could find no trace of any person on the ledge. A quick glance revealed no one near the rock column from which the boulder had become dislodged.

"Let's take a look on the plateau," Joe said, and they hurried along through the defile.

Atop the flat ground, they saw nothing at first that could be connected with the fall of the boulder. Then off toward the trail around the left side of the mountain, Frank's keen eyes spotted a cloud of dust.

"Two riders!" he shouted.

Running to their horses, the brothers flung saddles on them, mounted, and set off in pursuit.

But in less than half a mile, the Hardys knew they could not hope to overtake the fugitives. They had too much of a head start.

"We've got to get back to Cap," said Joe, suddenly remembering the condition in which they had left their companion.

But even from the rock ledge above, the boys could see that Cap looked considerably better. In fact, as they skidded down the incline toward him, he gestured excitedly.

"Look at this!" he exclaimed, and pointed to a

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large, odd-shaped object he had picked out of the debris.

Frank and Joe examined it curiously. "What is it?" Frank asked.

Cap looked at them triumphantly. "Unless I'm very much mistaken, this is a bone from the leg of an ancient horse. It was turned up by the boulder when it ripped down the hill."

"An ancient horse? You mean that there were horses in this country so long ago that there are now fossils of them?" Joe asked.

"I thought the horse was a comparatively recent animal-at least, I didn't think they lived in the same age with dinosaurs and flying reptiles," Frank chimed in.

"Oh, no, the horse has been part of the earth as far back as man can tell. As a matter of fact, the evolution of the horse is one of the interesting mysteries of paleontology."

"What do you mean, a mystery?"

"No one has figured out why the horse-a much smaller one than the kind we know today-lived here from prehistoric time until the Pleistocene period, then became extinct. The horse as we know it today was imported."

"But this fossil is from one of the earlier breed?" Frank questioned. "It must be a mighty valuable one, then."

Bailey nodded. "If I'm right, it could mean there

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may be many valuable fossils here besides the prehistoric camel my uncle discovered."

Cap was so excited that all thoughts of his brush with death now were forgotten. His discovery seemed to have given him new energy. When the boys told him of the two riders they had chased in vain, he merely nodded.

"If they did tip the boulder, actually they did us a great favor. Look at the digging they saved us."

Frank and Joe were realistic enough to know they had better treat the presence of their enemies with greater respect.

"If they continue to make attempts on our lives," Frank observed, "it just means we'll have to be on guard every second."

"Is there any possibility of getting help in this excavation job?" asked Joe.

Cap shook his head impatiently. Elated by the discovery of the fossil, he was ready to start work immediately.

"If those men were trying to stop us by toppling the boulder, they probably think we're dead, and won't be coming back," he argued. "We can work until dark, and then rig up lights and keep going all night. We've got to get this job finished!"

There was no restraining the scientist. So Frank and Joe, eager themselves to see what other fossils might be turned up, fell to the pick-and-shovel work in earnest.

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For several hours they sweated as they got deeper in the sand and hardpan. Once Joe unearthed part of an old shovel, broken and rusted, which Cap thought must have belonged to his uncle.

Later, Frank made a find. He was scraping away some dirt he had already loosened with his pick, when the shovel grated along a comparatively smooth surface.

"Maybe I'm coming to something!" he called out, and the others rushed over to watch as he dug around the object.

When it was uncovered, Bailey was enthusiastic. He examined it carefully, and after much study, turned to the Hardys with a satisfied smile.

"Boys, I think we're catching up with Uncle Alex's work at last. I would bet my last shirt that this bone was once part of the shoulder structure of the ancient camel he thought he'd found."

"Looks to me like an oversize ham bone that some prehistoric dog buried here," was Joe's interpretation of the discovery. He sat down in the sand and propped his weary head on one grimy fist. "You really have to be interested in fossils to work this hard," he groaned. "I'll never think of geologists and scientists again as old fuddy-duddies."

Cap and Frank burst into roars of laughter.

"Better buck up, Joe, we've barely started." Cap clapped him on the back. "You're not going to fall behind an old fuddy-duddy like me, are you?"

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"Oh, I didn't mean you, Cap." Joe grinned as he surveyed the trim, youthful figure of his track coach. "I just meant I used to think of scientists as old, stoop-shouldered characters with beards-the way they always look in the comics."

Cap asked Joe to help him carry the ancient bones up to their permanent camp. It required considerable effort in the slippery sand and through the defile, but they finally made it, and laid the fossils under a protective tarpaulin.

"What are we bothering to cover these things for, anyway?" Joe queried. "Nobody's been taking very good care of them for a couple of million years."

"Except Nature," Cap said. "She's been protecting them from the weather all this time."

Looking at the bones, Joe suddenly realized that they might be missing a bet.

"Say, we didn't ever follow the trail of that boulder all the way to the bottom of the slope," he reminded Cap. "It could have turned up something else valuable as it dug a big furrow down the slope."

Cap agreed. "It's worth a try. Let's take a look."

They searched carefully along the excavation which the boulder had made in the sand and shale but found nothing.

"Well, it was a good idea, but I guess the old horse and the ham bone are the only free fossils we'll get this trip!" Joe admitted ruefully while they rested from their efforts.

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Back into the pit they went. Frank picked up his shovel again and surveyed the extent of their work.

"Too bad we didn't get this much digging done back on Chet's farm." He grinned. "That bog there would be all cleaned out and Chet could be floating around in his swimming pool by this time!"

"Floating is right!" Cap sighed. "If he is, though, I envy him. I wonder what our well-nourished friend is doing right now?"

"Probably stuffing himself with candy, or cookies, or ice cream," Joe answered. "And pretty soon I'm going to start doing something like that. Anyone else hungry?"

Everyone was, so time was called and they proceeded to have some cold beans and dried apricots. Then, refreshed, they vigorously renewed their attack on the slope, determined to uncloak whatever new secrets the earth's treasure chest might contain.

Joe became a little too strenuous in his excavating. Swinging a pick with all his might against a particularly hard surface, he felt the iron snap and found himself with only half a pickax.

"There are a couple of spares up in camp," Cap said, and Joe climbed the slope to replace the broken tool.

Frank and Cap returned to work, chopping out large chunks of near-petrified sand, and the pit grew deeper and deeper. They were working in

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silence, intent upon the task at hand, when Frank began to feel uneasy.

Where was Joe? He had been gone much too long for a mere trip to replace his broken pick.

Climbing out of the excavation, Frank's eyes scanned the slope that led toward camp. He could not see his brother.

Worried, Frank hurried toward the plateau. Had something happened to Joe?