Cope’s ideas were still unacceptable to most faiths, including the Religious Society of Friends, which was the Quakers’ formal name.
“I may not be,” Cope said. “Religion explains what man cannot explain. But when I see something before my eyes, and my religion hastens to assure me that I am mistaken, that I do not see it at all . . . No, I may no longer be a Quaker, after all.”
Leaving the Badlands
The morning of August 26 was distinctly chilly as they set out on the one-day journey to Cow Island, located at one of the few natural fords along a two-hundred-mile stretch of the Missouri River, where the Missouri Breaks formed a barrier on each side. The island also served as a steamboat landing, and it was here Cope planned to meet the steamboat that came up from St. Louis. They were all eager to leave, and frankly worried about Indians, but they had too many fossils to take with them in the wagon. Nothing would do but to make two trips. Cope marked the most precious box, the one with the Brontosaurus teeth, with a subtle X on one side.
“I’m going to leave this one here,” Cope said, “for the second trip.”
Johnson said he didn’t understand. Why not take it on the first trip?
“The chances we get raided on our first leg are probably better than the chances the second load will get discovered here,” he said. “Plus we should be able to pick up some extra hands at Cow Island to protect us on the second trip.”
Their initial journey was uneventful; they reached Cow Island in the early evening and dined with the army troops stationed there. Marsh and his men had gone down the Missouri on the previous steamer, after warning the troops of “Cope’s cutthroats and vagabonds,” who might appear later.
Captain Lawson laughed. “I think Mr. Marsh bears no love for your party,” he said.
Cope affirmed that was the case.
The steamboat was due in two days, but the schedule was uncertain, especially so late in the year. It was imperative that they make their final trip to the plains camp the following day. Cope would remain in Cow Island, repacking the fossils for the steamboat journey, while Little Wind and Cookie drove the wagon back in the morning under Sternberg’s supervision.
But early the next morning, Sternberg awoke with severe chills and fever, a recurrence of his malaria. Isaac was too jumpy about Indians to go back, Cookie and Little Wind too unreliable to go unsupervised. There was the question as to who would lead the expedition.
Johnson said, “I’ll lead it.”
It was the moment he had been waiting for. Summer on the plains had toughened him, but he had always been under the supervision of older and more experienced men. He longed for a chance to prove himself on his own, and this short trip seemed the perfect opportunity for independence, and a fitting conclusion to the summer’s adventures.
Toad felt the same way. He immediately said, “I’ll go, too.”
“You two shouldn’t make the trip alone,” Cope said. “I haven’t been able to find any extra hands. The soldiers are unavailable to us.”
“We won’t be alone. We’ll have Cookie and Little Wind.”
Cope frowned. He drummed his fingers nervously on his sketchbook.
“Please, Professor. It’s important that you repack the fossils. We will be fine. And the day is passing as we stand here discussing it.”
“All right,” Cope said finally. “This is against my better judgment, but all right.”
Delighted, Johnson and Toad left at seven that morning, with Cookie and Little Wind driving the wagon.
Cope organized the wooden boxes of fossils, repacking those not sufficiently safe to suffer the depredations of the steamboat’s stevedores. Isaac looked after Sternberg, who was delirious most of the time; he boiled him a tea made of the bark of willow branches, which he said helped with fevers. Morton assisted Cope.
Six or seven other passengers waited at Cow Island for the steamboat. Among them was a Mormon farmer named Travis and his young son. They had come to Montana to bring the gospel to the settlers, but had had little success, and were disgruntled.
“What you got in those crates there?” Travis asked.
Cope looked up. “Fossil bones.”
“What for?”
“I study them,” Cope said.
Travis laughed. “Why study bones when you can study living animals?”
“These are the bones of extinct animals.”
“That can’t be.”
“Why not?” Cope asked.
“Are you a God-fearing man?”
“Yes, I am.”
“Do you believe God is perfect?”
“Yes, I do.”
Travis laughed again. “Well then, you must agree there can be no extinct animals, because the good Lord in His perfection would never allow a line of His creatures to become extinct.”
“Why not?” Cope asked.
“I just told you.” Travis looked annoyed.
“You just told me your belief about how God goes about His business. But what if God attains His perfection by degrees, casting aside His past creations in order to create new ones?”
“Men may do that, because men are imperfect. God does not, because He is perfect. There was only one Creation. Do you think God made mistakes in His Creation?”
“He made man. Didn’t you just say man is imperfect?”
Travis glowered. “You’re one of those professors,” he said. “One of those educated fools who has departed from righteousness to blasphemy.”
Cope was in no mood for theological dispute. “Better an educated fool than an uneducated fool,” he snapped.
“You are doing the work of the Devil,” Travis said, and he kicked one of the fossil crates.
“Do that again,” Cope said, “and I’ll beat your brains out.”
Travis kicked another crate.
In a letter to his wife, Cope wrote:
I am dreadfully ashamed of what occurred next, and can offer no excuse save the effort I had expended in collecting these fossils, their priceless value, and my own fatigue after a summer in the heat and bugs and searing alkali of the Bad Lands. To be confronted by this stupid bigot was too much for me, and my patience abandoned me.
Morton described what happened directly:
Without preamble or warning, Cope fell upon this man Travis and pounded him into insensibility. It could not have taken more than a minute at most, for Professor Cope was of a pugilistic disposition. Between blows, he would say “How dare you touch my fossils! How dare you!” and at other times he would say scornfully “In the name of religion!” The fight ended when the soldiers pulled Cope off the poor Mormon gentleman, who had said nothing other than what a great many people in the world thought to be utter and indisputable truth.