It was with great excitement and not a little pride that Perry came racking up to the camp. He held up the Dorcas gazelle as he approached, and even in the dusk the slender horns could be seen. As soon as he drew near, moreover, he shouted,

“Uncle George, I’ve got an Eosiren!”

“That’s a gazelle, not an Eosiren,” said the professor, smiling. He had been a little anxious and was unfeignedly glad to see the boy safe, and in good spirits.

“I don’t mean this,” said the boy. “What nonsense, Uncle George! No, but really, I did find one!”

“Did it bite?”

“Please don’t tease,” protested Perry. “Honest, I did!”

The leader of the expedition looked inquiringly at the boy’s companion, as the latter dismounted and came up.

“He’s right, I think, Dr. Hunt,” responded Antoine, in answer to the look. “I knew we were late and it was getting so dark that I didn’t have much chance to examine it, but it looked to me like Eosiren Andrewsii.”

“You don’t suppose it was Eotherium?” the professor asked, hopefully. “I’m very anxious to take home to the Museum a good Eotherium. What level was it on?”

“On this one, sir,” the younger paleontologist answered, “in the estuarine deposit, not in the Birket-el-Qurun level. That was why I thought immediately it must be Eosiren. There’s not much chance of finding Eotherium as high as this level, is there?”

“Very little, I should say; almost none,” was the reply.

“Is there such an awful lot of difference, Uncle George?” the boy asked. “That is, between this level and the one underneath. I know, of course, the under one is the oldest, but are the fossils so different?”

“Very different, my boy,” was the reply. “They would have to be, for almost a million years passed between the deposits of this level and that. The stratum of which Antoine is speaking, just above the level of Birket-el-Qurun, is a marine limestone. This level is estuarine, that is to say, it is a deposit of material brought down by the great river that flowed through this valley millions of years ago, and like most estuarine deposits, the fossils found in this stratum are of the land as well as of the sea.

“You can understand, Perry, that in a true marine or sea deposit you wouldn’t find land animals. It would be as foolish to look for land animals in a marine deposit as it would be to go dredging in the middle of the North Atlantic now for the bones of a modern rhinoceros, or to scour the surface of the western prairies in the hope of finding a modern whale left high and dry.”

“So mine isn’t one of the oldest,” said Perry, disappointed. “I’d been hoping I’d found something that nobody had ever seen before.”

“You’re greedy,” his uncle said, smiling; “many an old fossil-hunter has worked for years before finding a specimen of a species new to science, and yet you expect to kick one up on the very first day.”

“I don’t know that I really expected to, Uncle George,” the lad replied, “but I would like to collar a new one sometime.”

“You probably will, and meantime, in the morning we’ll hustle over to the place of your discovery and find out what it is that you’ve really got.”

“I hope it’s the one you want—the Eotherium!”

“If you found the bones on this level, it’s not,” rejoined the leader, “you can make your mind easy about that. A dead Eotherium wouldn’t work its bones up through a hundred feet of rock. But if you want to go with us in the morning to help prepare this specimen of yours, you’d better make a bee-line for your pillow now, for there’s a long day’s travel to-morrow and I won’t delay the start of the caravan for a dozen Eosirens. Sunrise for you, Perry, if you want to come.”

“All right,” the boy replied, and being tired and backsore from the camel-riding, he started off for the sleeping-tent and was soon fast asleep.

He had no difficulty in waking. The sense of expectancy brought him out of the tent even before the rim of the sun was above the horizon, and the dawn brought vividly back to him the vigil he had spent before the Sphinx. Early as he was, he was no more prompt than his uncle and Antoine, and in a few minutes the party was off, followed by a couple of laborers with shovels and one fellow carrying plaster-of-paris, canvas, and glue.

The white handkerchief, spread out on the little cairn of stones, made a conspicuous object, and no time was lost in reaching it. To the trained eye of the professor, the tangled heap of bones contained no mystery. He gave them just one glance.

“You’re right, Antoine,” was all he said, “it’s Eosiren Andrewsii.”

Under the scientist’s expert directions, the laborers were set at work. Almost every movement of the shovels was watched with closest attention, and Perry was surprised at the extreme care that was taken. At last the bones were fully uncovered and Antoine made a detailed drawing of the exact position in which they lay.

“How could you tell at once that it was a certain species of Eosiren, Uncle George?” asked Perry, while Antoine was busy with his sketch-block.

“One gets accustomed to fossils, my boy,” was the reply, “and can tell a great many of them almost at sight. Then, Perry, any time that you want to try and determine for yourself what fossil bones may be, remember that there are only a certain number of animals which they can possibly be. You know from the stratum, for example, that the bones are not likely to be those of a creature which developed in later times, nor of one belonging to an earlier stage of development. You’ll see just what I mean if I say that you couldn’t find a Pteranodon in this stratum because all the Pteranodons were dead before this layer of rocks was laid down.

“But I thought Sirens were sea-cows, things like the manatee and dugong,” protested the boy.

“They are,” said the scientist, “what about it?”

“This beast has got four legs.”

The professor nodded approvingly at his nephew.

“Very good, Perry,” he said, “I’m glad to see that you tell bones so clearly. The Eosiren did have hind legs. Both the manatee of Florida and the dugong of the Red Sea have lost their hind legs. The Halitherium of the Oligocene Period had only a rudimentary hind leg, so that you can see how far back in the history of Sirenian development this Eosiren comes. But what makes him especially interesting to us on this trip, Perry, is that he’s distantly related to the ancestor of the elephant, and, as you know, we’re hot on the trail of elephants.”

“I don’t see how a sea-cow can be on the road to the elephants,” ejaculated Perry in surprise. “It looks a heap more like a seal.”

“Looks don’t count for a great deal in paleontology, my boy,” warned the scientist. He turned to Antoine, who was putting up his pencils. “Have you finished?”

“Yes, sir,” answered the younger man, showing his sketch to the leader of the expedition, who scanned it closely.

“H’m, yes,” he said, “that’s about it. Now we’d better get up the bones.”

The fragility of the Eosiren skeleton made this a more difficult task than Perry had expected, and he inwardly blessed Antoine a dozen times that his friend had kept him from trying to pull the bones out of the sand by main force. First, by carefully hardening them with glue, and then by wrapping them with canvas and plaster-of-paris bandages, finally all the bones were got ready for removal, and, for the time was wearing on, the party hurried back to the camp, snatched a hasty breakfast and gave word for the caravan to start. As they moved away, Perry and his uncle turned for a last look over the level which had given the boy his first paleontological prize, and the scientist drew his nephew’s attention to the ruined temple of Qasr-el-Sagha, visible in the distance.

“That’s an easy place to remember,” said the scientist, and plunged into the history of the temple when it stood on the very banks of Lake Moeris and was the center of a busy Roman colony, “easy to remember because it has given its name to the giant coney of Eocene times. If you did a little digging here, you would find many of his bones. Think a minute and see if you can’t guess the name.”

“‘Therium’ means beast,” said Perry, meditatively, “and the name of the temple is Qasr-el-Sagha. Oh, I know!” he said, eagerly, “the Saghatherium! We’ve got him at home in the Museum.”

“Exactly,” said his uncle. “Now you know where he comes from.”

“I never thought Saghatherium was just a coney,” said the boy. “I saw a coney in the Zoo at Cairo, when you were arranging about this trip. He was a fierce little chap, but nothing like as large as our fossil at home.”

“He isn’t as large,” was the reply. “The Saghatherium was bigger, and he was a fighter, too. Herds of them ran over this plain in Eocene times, and with their fighting tusks, a pack of them would have been an ugly foe to meet. Do you remember the tusks, Perry?”

“I think I do,” answered the lad truthfully, “but I’m not quite sure. I didn’t pay much heed to them, when I was in the Museum. But I will when I get back, you bet.”

“You needn’t go to the Zoo to see a coney,” said the professor, squinting in the bright sunlight. “If I’m not mistaken, there’s one off there amid the rocks. See him?” and he pointed to a crevice.

Perry shaded his eyes with his hand.

“Oh, yes,” he said, “I spot him. He’s hard to see, though, against the rock. Looks a little like a rabbit.”

“And yet he’s more nearly related to an elephant than a rabbit,” the professor commented. “As I was telling you, Perry, looks don’t count for a great deal.”

Conversation dropped as the ascent became stiffer. The caravan was going up the steep ravines which form the only way between the level on which the ruined temple stands and the next bench, atop of the great cliff rising four hundred feet above them. One of the baggage camels, which had a pair of weak hind-legs, refused at first to try to make the climb and had to be pushed from behind by all the drivers together, while its bubbling roar filled the ravine with hideous noise. The steep slopes also put a strain on the loads and many of them came off.

“Seems to me these camel-drivers ought to learn to throw the diamond hitch,” suggested Perry, as the second load fell to the ground.

His uncle looked at him quizzically.

“Did you ever throw one?” he asked.

“Never,” the lad replied.

“I thought not,” commented the leader of the expedition, “or you wouldn’t talk so glibly about doing it over a camel’s wobbly hump. You’ve got to have something solid, like a mule’s ribs, if you want to tighten cinches to that extent.”

“I suppose the Arabs know best, at that,” the boy admitted. “After all, these Egyptian chaps have been loading camels for a good many thousand years.”

“Exactly. And besides, Perry, this climb is unusual traveling for camels. They’re accustomed to the level or to the slopes of sand dunes. Except for the Egyptian Survey, which discovered this bone deposit a few years ago, probably no one has taken the trouble to climb this cliff since the days that Lake Moeris occupied a large part of the valley below.”

On the next tier above, Perry suddenly found a vast change in the character of the rock and saw thousands of beautiful sea-shells in the solid limestone scattered on every side.

Off his camel he jumped again, and filled his pockets with bits of stone containing the shells. They were heavy to carry in the intense heat, when every extra ounce counted, but he simply could not pass them by.

“This must have been the bed of the sea for a long time,” said the lad to Antoine, “this limestone deposit is so thick.”

“Yes, yes,” his friend answered. “The Mediterranean came down south of this. Of course, the shore has changed many times.”

“What has built up all the north coast of Africa,” queried Perry, “just the rising of the land?”

“Partly; but a great deal of it was caused by the discharge of the mud of rivers and streams, making new land, in the same way that the Mississippi is making new land in the Gulf of Mexico. But you see, Perry, as fast as the new land was made, the continent sank, so that the filling and sinking went ahead at about the same rate. Sometimes the sea won out, and we find a layer that is marine; sometimes the land won out, and the layer is a river or fresh-water deposit. When we start to dig out fossils, you’ll probably find land and sea creatures close together. That’s because when it was a shallow sea, the marine creatures died and their bones sank to the bottom, and when it was marsh, the land animals died in the swamp and the bones became covered with mud. Then the sea took the upper hand again, as the continent sank.”

“It’s beginning to look as though we were getting into the time when the land was ahead,” remarked Perry, examining the soil.

“Yes, yes,” said Antoine, “you are right. And see!”

He pointed to the face of the escarpment, up which they were toilsomely climbing.

“Fossil trees!” cried Perry.

“Yes, yes. All petrified. All these trees floated down that river millions of years ago. There were floods. There will be animals here, too, that were carried down by the floods.” He pointed to one of the many bones that could be seen. “The crocodiles were here,” he said, “so the bones are likely to be all separated, the dead animals having been pulled apart when they were eaten. It will not be easy, Perry. There must have been a sand-bar at the mouth of that old river somewhere about here, and when the animals came drifting down with the river gravel and sand, they were stopped and piled up at the sand-bar.”

“Hello—” interrupted the boy, “what’s happening? It isn’t sunset yet!”

The whole caravan had halted, as if at the time of Mohammedan prayer, and the men and boys fell on their knees. But, this time, the camels and donkeys crowded in and the lad saw that a few small rain-pools had been discovered. This unexpected supply of water cheered everybody, and it was only a little more than two hours later that the tents of the advance party came into sight. This party, carrying supplies and the heavy tools, had gone from Cairo to Tamia by train and hence had arrived three days earlier.

Late that evening the tents were reached and the permanent camp pitched. It was on the widest of these ledges or tiers of rock, a ledge varying from one to two miles wide and stretching in an almost even line sixty to seventy miles long. The level of the Libyan desert was six hundred feet higher still, a stiff climb.

“I don’t know how you feel about it, Antoine,” said Perry, confidingly to his friend, as they turned in for the night, “and I wouldn’t say so to Uncle George for the world, but I’m sure glad to have a rest from that camel. I was just beginning to think that my backbone never would come straight again.”

Antoine smiled sympathetically.

“I think it is the worst animal that man has ever used as a beast on which to ride,” he admitted. “I’m stiff, too.”

“It’s the worst I ever want to ride,” rejoined the boy, and yawning, fell asleep.

At sunrise the next day, the work of excavation was begun in earnest. Daoud and the laborers had been eagerly awaiting the arrival of the rest of the party, especially that of Dr. Hunt, who was known as “El Mudir” (the governor) by all the natives. Perry was assigned the duty of supervising the work of the laborers at one of the excavations and he had his hands full, for the Egyptians were as excitable as children, and at the slightest sign of a bone wanted to pull it out in triumph. They had been working with the Art Museum explorations, and it was difficult to explain to them that while a vase or a statuette was a thing in itself, a bone was of special value chiefly when its relation to other bones was clearly shown. Besides which, Perry had received a good lesson as to the perishability of bones, in connection with the Eosiren and this caused him to be careful.

“Hey!” he shouted suddenly to one of the men, who was walking off with a basket of sand on his shoulder, from the top of which a small piece of bone was protruding, “What are you doing with that?”

The tone, rather than the words, halted the man, and he stopped. But his knowledge of English was not much greater than the few words of Arabic that Perry had picked up in the week he had been in Egypt and matters were at a deadlock when Daoud came along. Perry explained his point and a brief colluquy in Arabic ensued.

“He says some one told him that we were looking for elephant bones, and so he didn’t think a little bone like that would be any use.”

“Tell him, then, Daoud,” said the boy, “that the kind of elephants we’re looking for were sometimes as small as cats.”

Even Daoud’s impassive face could not hide the fact that he thought this a fib—as it was undoubtedly a gross exaggeration, but he translated it as bidden.

Immediately the laborer put down his basket, and taking out the small bone, handed it dramatically to Perry, saying in Arabic:

“Elephant!”

Everybody laughed and the excavation proceeded, but the fellaheen had learned the importance of every bone, no matter how tiny, and several small but important finds were made. The amount of sand to be removed, however, proved greater than Dr. Hunt had anticipated, and it was with great pleasure that the expedition saw the arrival of a party of twelve men from Kuft, coming to ask for work. They had walked the two days’ distance into the waterless desert, and it was evident, as soon as they arrived, that they were already regretting the loss of the cooler and more grateful valley of the Nile. Also, they speedily saw that the distance of the camp from the base of supplies might mean scanty rations.

“I’m glad to have those extra men,” remarked the professor at dinner that evening.

“Are you?” queried Wyr pointedly.

The scientist looked at him inquiringly.

“Why not?”

“I rather fancy there’s trouble ahead,” he answered. “They didn’t come up in the sort of way those beggars usually do when they’re looking for work. They may be all right, you know, but, personally, I thought them a bally discontented-looking lot.”

The truth of this guess was apparent less than half an hour later. Daoud, accompanied by the leader of the twelve men from Kuft, came to the tent and asked to see El Mudir. He made a demand of ten piastres (fifty cents) a day, or all the men would quit work immediately. The professor heard them and sent them away without an answer.

“You know I can’t pay it,” he said to the members of the party, after the natives had gone. “If I do, it’ll upset the labor market along the Nile, everywhere, and every government party will have to pay that price forever after. I suppose I can give them a little more than the average, because this work is on the desert and a long way from everything. What do you think, Mr. Wyr?”

“I’ll try to handle them, if you like,” was the reply.

“Only too glad,” said the professor, and the leaders of the natives were sent for.

Perry, of course, could not understand a word, but, knowing the subject under discussion, he was able to follow a good deal of that long conference. It lasted for three hours under the black and starlit sky of Egypt, a battle between capital and labor, out in the naked desert, a day’s journey away from water. Inside the tent, reading by the light of one candle, the professor sat, in full view of the native bargainers, immovable. At last the men began to waver, and with a look of satisfaction as he turned to the members of the expedition, but which the contestants did not see, the Egyptian Government expert announced that the laborers had agreed to accept a contract of eight piastres a day, with the promise of a holiday once a fortnight at which there should be given a present of a fat-tailed sheep.

The professor was a man with a great deal of dignity and presence, but this was equaled by the gravity and poise of the leader of the laborers, Ibrahim Salim. When at last the agreement was made, the Arab drew a seal from the inner folds of his robe and signed a contract for his laborer gang with an air that suggested the signing of a treaty to decide the destinies of nations.

With this added number of laborers, the work of excavation went more rapidly, and prizes began to appear. On the tenth day, in the pit which was supervised by the professor, an excellent skull of a young Arsinotherium was found, a curious creature with four horns, two of them huge, and which, as Perry was told, is a puzzle to paleontologists, for it was the lord of its age in Egypt and yet its ancestry is quite unknown. Four days later Antoine had the honor of unearthing the first skull of a paleo-mastodon discovered by the expedition.

It was at the very close of the next day’s work that Perry, overseeing the work of the men in the pit to which he had been assigned, saw part of a skull exposed. He called away the workmen to another corner of the pit, for he knew that only two or three minutes of the working day remained. No sooner were they gone than he jumped into the pit himself and began to scoop away the sand with his hands.

Gradually the particles of sand began to fall away, little by little the white gleam of bone became more and more apparent, and a skull, such as the boy had never seen in his life before, seemed to stare through its eyeholes at him out of the reddish sand and gravel that had been the sand bar of that ancient river millions of years before.

What could the strange skull be?

Only the day before, when Antoine had found the paleo-mastodon, Dr. Hunt had said:

“If only we could find a Moeritherium, now!”

Could this be the Moeritherium?

Summoning to his help every scrap of his knowledge, Perry scanned the skull eagerly for something that would seem to remind him of an elephant. If only there had been tusks! But there were only two large cutting teeth. Still, no one yet in the expedition had found a skull like the one before him and his hopes for a Moeritherium would not down.

“Uncle George!” he cried, “can you come here a minute?”

The ring in his voice suggested a discovery, and the professor hurried over. In the evening light he cast a look at the protruding skull and leaped down in the pit to make sure. Then, suddenly, he cried:

“It is a Moeritherium! By the powers, Perry, you’re the luck boy of this expedition!”