Dragons Teeth Crichton 2017 (WWT)

Cope protested that he was Professor Edward Drinker Cope, a United States paleontologist. The
sheriff showed him the telegram stating that “Prof. E. D. Cope, paleontologist” was the man wanted
for murder.
“I know who is behind this,” Cope said angrily. He was turning purple in the face.
“Now, Professor . . .” Sternberg said.
“I’m fine,” Cope said stiffly. He turned to the sheriff. “I propose to pay the telegraph costs to verify
that the charges against me are untrue.”
The sheriff spat tobacco. “That’s fair enough. You get your father to cable me back, and I’ll
apologize.”
“I can’t do that,” Cope said.
“Why not?”
“I already told you, my father’s dead.”
“You think I’m a fool,” the sheriff said, and grabbed Cope by the collar, to drag him into the jail
cell. He was rewarded by a series of lightning-swift punches from Cope that knocked him to the
ground; Cope proceeded to kick the sheriff repeatedly while the unfortunate man rolled in the dust and
while Sternberg and Isaac cried, “Now, Professor!” and “That’s enough, Professor!” and “Remember
yourself, Professor!”
At length, Isaac managed to drag Cope away; Sternberg helped the sheriff to his feet and dusted him
off. “I’m sorry, but the professor has a terrible temper.”
“Temper? The man is a menace.”
“Well, you see he knows that Professor Marsh sent you that telegram, along with a bribe to arrest
him, and the injustice of your behavior makes him angry.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” the sheriff sputtered, without conviction.
“You see,” Sternberg said, “most places the professor goes, he encounters trouble from Marsh.
Their rivalry has been going on for years now, and they are both able to spot it readily.”
“I want all of you out of town,” the sheriff shouted. “Do you hear me, out of town!”
“With pleasure,” Sternberg said.
They left on the next stage.
From Franklin, they faced a six-hundred-mile journey on Concord stagecoach to Fort Benton,
Montana Territory. Johnson, who had thus far experienced nothing more arduous than a railway
carriage, was looking forward to the romance of a coach ride. Sternberg and the others knew better.
It was a horrible journey: ten miles an hour, day and night, with no stops except for meals,
outrageously expensive at one dollar each, and awful. And at every coach stop, everyone would talk
of the Indian troubles, and the prospect of scalping, so that if Johnson had had any desire for the coach
stops’ moldy army-surplus bacon, the rancid butter, and the week-old bread, he lost his appetite.
The landscape was uniformly dreary, the dust harshly alkaline; they had to walk up all the steep
ascents, day or night; in the rattling, bouncing coach, sleep was impossible; and their chemical
supplies leaked, so that at one point, “we were subjected to a gentle rain of hydrochloric acid, which
drops etched a smoking pattern on the hats of the gentlemen, and elicited elaborate curses from all
involved. The coach was stopped, and the driver accorded our left-over curses; the offending bottle
stopped, and we were on our way once more.”
Besides their group, the only other passenger was a Mrs. Peterson, a young woman married to an
army captain stationed in Helena, Montana Territory. Mrs. Peterson seemed none too enthusiastic to