And with that final advice, he rode off.
(Much later, Johnson heard that when Sitting Bull went north, he killed all the white men he came across, among them the troops stationed at Cow Island, including Captain Lawson.)
“I think we ought to be going,” Isaac said, scratching his chin.
“Not yet,” Cope said.
“We’ve found plenty of bones.”
“That’s so,” Cookie said. “Plenty so far. More’n enough.”
“Not yet,” Cope said, in an icy tone that ended all discussion. As Sternberg noted in his account of the expedition, “We had long since learned there was no purpose served in arguing with him when his mind was made up. Cope’s indomitable will could not be conquered.”
But Cope did decide to break camp and move to another location. For the last three weeks, they had been located at the foot of thousand-foot-high shale cliffs. He had been scouting the area, and he felt there was a more promising fossil location three miles distant.
“Where?” Sternberg said.
Cope pointed. “Up on the plains.”
“You mean on the flat tablelands?”
“That’s right.”
Isaac protested: “But, Professor, it’ll take three days to move out of the badlands, find a new route, and come back in up there.”
“No, it won’t.”
“We can’t scale these cliffs.”
“Yes, we can.”
“A man can’t walk up, a horse can’t ride up, and certainly this wagon can’t be pulled up those cliffs, Professor.”
“Yes, it can. I will show you.”
Cope insisted they pack up at once, and moved two miles to the east, where he proudly pointed to a sloping bank of shale.
It was much gentler than the surrounding cliffs, but still far too steep to negotiate. While there were some level ridges, the shale was loose and crumbling, affording treacherous footing.
Cookie, the teamster, looked at the proposed route and spat tobacco. “Can’t be done, can’t be done.”
“It can,” Cope said, “and it will.”
It took them fourteen hours to climb a thousand feet—backbreaking work, and continuously dangerous. Using shovels and picks, they dug a trail up the side. Then they unloaded the wagon and put everything they could on the horses and got the horses up; now only the wagon remained.
Cookie drove it halfway up the incline from the floor below, but when he arrived at a level ridge so narrow that one wheel was hanging over empty space, he refused to go any farther.
This enraged Cope, who said he would drive the wagon himself: “Not only are you a revolting cook, but you are a wretched teamster!” The others quickly interceded, and Isaac climbed on to drive the wagon.
They had to unhitch the lead horses, and pull the wagon with the remaining two ponies.
Sternberg later described it in The Life of a Fossil Hunter:
Isaac had driven about thirty feet when the inevitable happened. I saw the wagon slowly begin to tip, pulling the ponies over sideways, and then the whole outfit, wagon and horses, began to roll down the slope. Whenever the wheels stuck up in the air, the ponies drew in their feet to their bellies, and at the next turn, stretched out their legs for another roll.
My heart was in my mouth for fear that Isaac would be killed in one of the turns, or that the wagon would roll over [the] precipice below, but after three complete turns, they landed, the horses on their feet, the wagon on its wheels, on a level ledge of sandstone, and stood there as if nothing had happened.
Eventually they unhitched all the horses and pulled the wagon up on ropes, but they succeeded, and late in the day they made camp, on the prairie.
Cope snapped at Cookie, “This dinner better be your best.”
“Just wait and see,” Cookie said. And he served them the usual fare of hardtack, bacon, and beans.
Despite the grumbling, their new camp was a decided improvement. The breeze made it cooler, for they were on the open plains, wrote Johnson, with “a magnificent view of mountains in every direction—to the west the towering craggy Rockies, with white snow gleaming on their peaks; to the south, east, and north, the Judith River, Medicine Bow, Bearpaw, and Sweet Grass Mountains, completely encircling us. Especially in the early morning, when the air was clear and we would see herds of deer and elk and antelope and the mountains beyond, it was a sight of such glory as surely cannot be matched elsewhere in all creation.”
But the herds of deer and antelope were migrating northward, and the snow was creeping down the slopes of the Rockies as the days passed. One morning they awoke to find a thin carpet of snow had fallen during the night, and although it burned off by midday, they could not ignore the inevitable fact. The seasons were changing, fall was coming, and with the fall, the Sioux.
“It’s time to leave, Professor.”
“Not yet,” Cope said. “Not just yet.”
The Teeth
One afternoon, Johnson came across some knobby protuberances of rock, each roughly the size of a fist. He was working in a promising deposit midway up the side of a shale slope, and these knobs got in his way; he pulled several out of the exposed surface, and they tumbled down the hillside, narrowly missing Cope, who was at the base of the cliffs, sketching a newly discovered Allosaurus leg bone. Cope heard them coming and took a practiced step to the side.
“Hey there!” he shouted up the slope.
“Sorry, Professor,” Johnson called sheepishly. One or two rocks continued to fall; Cope moved aside again the other way and dusted himself off.
“Be careful!”
“Yes, sir. Sorry!” Johnson repeated. Gingerly, he returned to his work, digging with his pick around still other rocks, trying to pry them free and—
“Stop!”
Johnson looked down. Cope was scrambling up the hillside toward him like a madman, one of the fallen rocks in each hand.
“Stop! Stop, I say!”
“I’m being careful,” Johnson protested. “Really I—”
“Wait!” Cope slid several yards down the slope. “Do nothing! Touch nothing!” Still shouting, he slid backwards, disappearing in a dust cloud.
Johnson waited. After a moment, he saw Professor Cope scrambling out of the dust, coming up the hill with frenzied energy.
Johnson thought he must be very angry. It was foolish and nearly impossible to climb straight up the hill; they had all learned that long ago. The surface was too sheer and too friable; a climber had to zigzag his way up, and even that was so difficult they usually preferred a detour of as much as a mile to find an easy route to the top, and from there to descend to where they wanted to go.
Yet here was Cope scrambling straight up as if his life depended upon doing so. “Wait!”
“I’m waiting, Professor.”
“Don’t do anything!”
“I’m not doing anything, Professor.”
At length Cope arrived beside him, covered in dirt, gasping for breath. But he did not hesitate. He wiped his face with his sleeve and peered at the excavation.
“Where is your camera?” he demanded. “Why don’t you have your camera? I want a picture in situ.”