Bone Digger
In 1877 paleontology has thrust its way into popular notice, and the Bone Wars have begun. Gilded Age museums at Yale and Philadelphia compete hotly for eye-popping dinosaur skeletons, and their field crews scatter across the west, searching hillsides and badlands for Jurassic monsters.
Chad Larimer is foreman of the Rocking S Ranch, and takes a dim view of stock rustlers or trespassers. When he finds a stranger chiseling away at the rocky uplands of his Colorado ranch, he thinks the man who describes himself as a scientist has found a bunch of dry cow bones. The paleontologist – who looks more like Ichabod Crane than Indiana Jones – wins the cowboy’s trust by showing him a leg bone eight feet long, and turned to stone. When Larimer saves the scientist from an ambush, it’s clear that there are men who will stop at nothing to steal those ancient critters.
Douglas Hirt’s Bone Digger is a quick but entertaining read for lovers of western tales. If the Bone Wars intrigue you, Bone Digger gives you a cowboy’s-eye view.