Gilded Dinosaur: The Fossil War between E. D. Cope and O. C. Marsh and the Rise of American Science

By the end of September, Cope had decided that it was time to break camp and move up the river toward Cow Island, where the last steamer of the season would soon depart. Cope and Jim Deer went down to the island to make arrangements, while Isaac, Sternberg, and Merrill were left to move the camp. Now getting out of river valley was a good deal more difficult than getting into it. Here the bluffs were steeper, and in addition, they had collected twelve hundred pounds of fossils. The three men left their supplies at Dog Creek as they first attempted to get the wagon out of the valley. Facing a steep ridge covered with loose shale, Merrill balked at even trying to get the wagon up the slope. An impatient Isaac took the reins and urged the horses on. He had gotten about thirty feet up the incline when gravity got the better of the rig and pulled it over. Isaac, horses, and wagon rolled over and over and over. When they reached the sandstone ledge from which they had started, the wagon landed upright, and the horses ended up on their feet, unharmed. Incredibly, Isaac was still in one piece. The three men then tried a different approach. They constructed a windlass to drag the wagon up the slope to the prairie. Then all the bones, goods, and supplies followed. They were reassembling the gear when they saw one horseman approaching from the south and another from the east. The southern rider turned out to be Jim Deer. The eastern horseman was Cope. Deer announced that Sitting Bull was rumored to be within a hundred miles and heading in their direction. The guide said he had already seen signs of Sioux scouting parties. Deer said he as clearing out. When Merrill heard the news, he also grabbed his bedroll and headed after the departing guide. "The scout and our valiant cook had concluded that their precious scalps were too valuable to risk," Sternberg said disparagingly. Everything now dictated that the Cope party move quickly. Not only was there a possibility of the Sioux appearing, but there was only one more boat heading downriver this season -- the Josephine. They had only a few days to reach Cow Island. If Cope failed to reach the boat, at best his fossils would be stranded in Montana for the entire winter; at worst they would meet Sitting Bull. Under the twin threats of the Sioux and the Josephine's pending departure, Cope, Sternberg, and Isaac put in a fourteen-hour day to haul the bones across prairie and badlands. It was late at night before they stopped for a supper of bacon and hardtack and a few hours of sleep. At daybreak, they set out again. Late on the second night, they reached a ravine leading back to the Missouri River, twelve hundred feet below. They were just three miles above Cow Island. The steamer could come upriver this far, load the bones, and they would be off. The wagon was unloaded and lowered down to the valley floor using an improvised block and tackle. Then the baggage was lowered. Again, it was after midnight when they sat down to supper. Cope and Sternberg now rode back to Cow Island to be sure the steamboat would come upriver to fetch the precious crates. On the way, however, Cope could not resist stopping in the badlands for one last fossil hunt. The two men separated, agreeing to rendezvous at four that afternoon. The hours passed, and the sun was sinking. Sternberg could do no more than watch the sun and wait. Finally, Cope finally came galloping out of a badlands coulee. It would now be impossible to reach Cow Island before sunset. Sternberg pleaded with Cope to spend the night on the prairie and not try to cross the badlands in the dark, where a single misstep could lead to death. Cope paid no attention. He was determined to get to Cow Island. But perhaps having learned a lesson from his blind leap over a chasm earlier in the trip, he dismounted, cut a stout stick, which he used like a blindman's cane, and tried to tap his waJaffe, Mark is the author of 'Gilded Dinosaur: The Fossil War between E. D. Cope and O. C. Marsh and the Rise of American Science' with ISBN 9780609807057 and ISBN 0609807056.