Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1906-06-20

we started north on the biggest fool
expedition that ever was, but pa was
as earnest and excited as Peary plan
ming a north pole expedition, and as
busy as boy killing snakes. After
the cowboys and the scientists had
tried to get pa to make his will before
he went, and got the addresses where
pa wanted our remains sent to in
case of our being found dried up on
the prairie, and our bones polished
by wolves, we were on the move, and
pa was so happy you would think he
had already found a live dinosaurs,
and had him in a cage.
For four days we rode along up
and down foothills, and divides, and
small mountains, and all the time pa
was telling the boys how, after we
had located our dinosauruses, we
would go back east and organize an
expedition with derricks and cages as
big as house, and come back and
drive the animals in. And when we
got them with the show people we
would run trains hundreds of miles
to see the rarest animals any show
ever exhibited to a discriminating pub.
lie, and We could charge five dollars
for tickets, and people would mob
each other to get up to the ticket
wagon. Then the boys would wink
at each other, and tap their foreheads
with their fingers, and look at pa as
though they expected he would break
out violently insane any minute.
Finally we got up on a high ridge,
and beautiful, fertile valley was un-
folded to our view, and Bill, the cow
i boy who had had his herd of steers
eaten by the dinosaurs, said that
was the place, and he began to SILVER
like he had the ague. He said he
wouldn't go any farther without an
other hundred dollars, and pa asked
the other cowboys if they were afraid,
too, and they said they were a little
scared, but for another hundred dol
lars they would forget it, forget their
families, and so down into the death
valley.
Pa paid them the money, and we
went down into the valley, and rode
along, expecting to jump flock Of
dinosauruses any minute, but the val
ley was as still as death, and pa said
to. Bill: "Why don't you bring on
your dinosauruses, and Bill said he
guessed by the time we got up to the
far end of the valley we would see
something that would make us stand
without hitching.
We went on towards where the val
| ley came to point where there
seemed to be a hole in the side of
the mountain, when all of a sudden
| four or five gun shots were heard, and
four of our horses dropped dead in
their tracks, and about a dozen men
come out of the hole in the wall and
| told us to hold up our hands, and
when We did so they took our guns
away and told us to come ir out Of
! the wet.
| We went into a cave and found that
we had been captured by Curry's gang
Of train robbers, who made their head
| quarters in the hole in the wall. The
/ leader searched pa and took all his
money, and told us to make ourselves
! at home. Pa protested, and said he
was an old Snowman who had come
! to the valley looking for the supposed
! to-be-extinct dinosaurs, to capture
one for the show, and the leader of
| the gang said he was the only di-
| nosaurus there was, but he hadn't
been captured. Then the leader
| slapped our cowboys on the shoulders
and told them they had done good
| job to bring into camp such rich
old codger as pa was, and then we
found that the cowboys belonged to
Currys gang, and had roped pa in
in order to get ransom.
The leader asked pa about how
much he thought his friends at the
east could raise to get him out, and
when pa found he was in the hands
4 of bandits, and that the dinosaurs
/ mine was sailed, and he had been
made a fool of, he said to me: "Hen'
merry, now, honest, between man and
man, wouldn't this skin your"
/ l began to cry and said: "Pa
/ both of us are skun. How are we
going to get out of this?" and pa said:
/ "Watch me-"