"I know," said Edison. "So what's your question?"

"Just how much danger are we in?" said Roosevelt. "What I'm saying, or asking, is: the carnivorous dinosaurs have never seen a man before. Their prey weighed tons. So my question is this: will they recognize men as prey animals? Or will they simply ignore us?"

"That would have been a harder question to answer yesterday morning," replied Edison. "But based on your own observations one of them killed and partially ate a pronghorn, and I doubt that it had ever seen one of them either."

"I know," said Roosevelt. "But there may be a difference."

"Between two legs and four?" asked Edison dubiously.

Roosevelt shook his head. "The pronghorn ran away, and that probably indicated to the dinosaur that it was a prey animal. What if we just stand still or ignore it?"

"You might be able to, Theodore," said Edison. "And I don't doubt that Doc would be happier standing his ground than running from anything. But there are thirty impressionable men out there, and I don't think you can count on none of them breaking and running."

"Hell," said Holliday from where he was seated some fifty feet away, "Marsh and Cope would run right toward the goddamned thing."

Roosevelt chuckled. "You know, they probably would."

Holliday got painfully to his feet, coughed into a handkerchief that was covered with dried blood from the previous day, and began walking to Edison's tent.

"All right," he said. "Time to go to work."

"Yes, I suppose so," agreed Roosevelt.

"Stay there," said Holliday. "I'll get your gun for you."

"It's not exactly a gun," said Buntline.

"Will it work just as well or poorly if I call it one?" replied Holliday irritably.

"Go," said Buntline, waving him toward the tent. When he was out of earshot, Buntline turned to his two companions. "There are days when I can sympathize with Kate Elder."

"He's a sick man," said Roosevelt. "A dying man. He had less than a day left when he made his deal with Geronimo, and this was the best Geronimo would or could do for him. I'd be in an even worse temper if it was me."

"You've got a point," agreed Edison.

"I've known Doc for about five years," said Buntline, "and he's always like this in the morning." He paused, then continued. "Sometimes in the afternoons and evenings, too."

"He's been dying for a lot more than five years, Ned," replied Edison. "And he's accomplished five times as much as most totally healthy men." Suddenly he inclined his head toward Roosevelt. "Present company excepted, of course."

Roosevelt was about to reply when Holliday emerged from the tent, carrying a weapon in each hand. He walked up to Roosevelt and handed one to him.

"Damned things are too big for holsters," said Holliday.

"Yes, I see," said Roosevelt. "I suppose I'll just have to carry mine. I can't leave it with my horse. If a dinosaur actually appears, every horse figures to take off in the opposite direction."

"This could get damnably awkward, carrying it all day," said Holliday.

"Not much we can do about it," said Buntline. "I suppose I could try to fashion a holster, but I don't have any of my tools with me."

Holliday shook his head. "Not necessary. I'm carrying another weapon that's not in a holster or tucked in a book."

"Oh?"

Holliday opened his coat, revealing a knife that hung around his neck on a thin cord.

"Watch," he said, and in a single motion he grabbed the hilt of the knife, broke the cord, and hurled it into a small tree, all in the space of a second.

"Impressive," said Buntline. "I'll see what I can rig that will be strong enough to hold the weapon and yet break the second you tug on it." He paused. "But I won't be able to do it before tonight," he added apologetically.

"Then this'll have to do," said Holliday, walking to the tree and pulling the knife out of the trunk. He reached into his pocket for a new cord, and re-fastened it around his neck.

"You ever have call to use that?" asked Buntline.

"From time to time," replied Holliday.

"Well, let's get started." said Roosevelt. He turned to Edison and Buntline. "There's no need for you two to come along."

"Don't be silly," said Edison. "You've got the only two weapons that might bring a dinosaur down, we know there's one heading this way, and you're suggesting we stay a couple of miles away from the weapons?"

Roosevelt chuckled. "I hadn't thought of it in those terms. You're right to come along."

The four men walked to their horses, and a moment later they were riding toward the previous day's site. It took them about ten minutes to reach it over winding, uneven, frequently rocky trails. Finally they came to a large rock formation that covered a few acres, and saw thirty-two men, all wearing goggles, chopping away at various portions of it.

"Welcome," said Cope, looking up from the spot he was concentrating on. "Would you like some goggles too?"

Holliday shook his head. "I'm not hammering anything."

"And I've got my own spectacles," added Roosevelt.

Cope shrugged. "Suit yourselves."

Holliday and Roosevelt walked to a small rise. "You're the hunter," said Holliday. "Where's he likely to come from?"

"There are a couple of wrong assumptions there, Doc," said Roosevelt.

"Oh?"

Roosevelt nodded. "First, we have no idea what is coming. And second, I'm not the hunter. I'm just one of the prey."

"Okay, I concede both points," said Holliday, scanning the landscape. "But surely all predators have things in common."

"They kill and eat their prey, and that's about it, Doc," replied Roosevelt. "We don't know if this thing walks erect or on all fours. We don't know if he's a sight hunter or a scent hunter. We don't know if he's warm-blooded or cold-blooded."

"The other two I concede," said Holliday. "But why the hell does it make any difference if he's warm-blooded or cold-blooded?"

"A warm-blooded animal, like a lion, or even a dog or cat, eats every day if he can, and certainly every couple of days unless he's starving due to injury," explained Roosevelt. "But a cold-blooded animal, like a snake or a lizard, can get along just fine on one meal every few weeks."

Holliday nodded. "All right, it was a silly question." He paused. "You saw what was left of the pronghorn. Was there any clue whether the killer was warm- or cold-blooded?"

"No, not from the body," answered Roosevelt. "If you want my best guess, it's warm-blooded."

"Why?"

"It should have gone to sleep, nearly comatose, after a meal like that if it was cold-blooded, but I tracked it for a few miles, and it wasn't slowing down."

"Wonderful!" muttered Holliday. He held his weapon up in front of him. "These damned things had better work."

"I'll second that," agreed Roosevelt. "You know, maybe we'd each better have one of them-tom or Ned-with us, in case something goes wrong with the weapons."

"If I'm close enough to fire and it doesn't work, I don't imagine they're going to be able to fix it in time."

"Maybe not, but it can't hurt."

Holliday frowned. "You know, I never asked them a vital question."

"What was it?" asked Roosevelt.

Holliday indicated their weapons. "What's the range of these things?"

"You know, I never asked either."

"Maybe one of us ought to." Holliday looked around. "I don't see them."

"I thought I saw where they'd unearthed a cave, or at least a crevice out of the heat," replied Roosevelt. "If we can't see them, that's where they've got to be. I know where it was. I'll go ask."

"Fine," said Holliday. He looked around. "There's nothing to see here. I'll go back with you."

The two men turned and walked back to the digging sites. Roosevelt spotted the cave, walked over, and soon disappeared within it.

Holliday positioned himself just beyond where Cope and an assistant had unearthed portions of a small skeleton. He had no idea how many sizes dinosaurs came in, and he couldn't tell from looking at it if it was a juvenile or a full-grown one. There was no head, at least not in the immediate vicinity, but he saw a foot with powerful-looking claws. He concluded that it was an adult, because he was sure that no baby could have claws like that.

He mentioned his conclusion to Cope.

"Perhaps," replied the paleontologist. "But we'll have to examine them more closely to see if they belong to the same specimen." He smiled. "A lot of things have died on this spot over the last ten or fifty or two hundred million years, Doc. Sometimes the earth isn't all that good at separating them."

"Well, that explains some of it," said Holliday.

"Some of what?" asked Cope.

"How something this small could exists alongside of those forty and fifty-tonners."

"That's one possibility," replied Cope. "But of course there are others."

"For example?"

Cope shrugged. "It could be that they eat different things, and that they're not competitors for turf or food. Or if could be that they did live eons apart. The earth changes. What was a hospitable environment for one of them may have been anathema for another, but that doesn't mean they each didn't die here, separated by millions of years, and they were squeezed together by the movements of the earth." Cope smiled. "I could refer you to some papers I've written on that very subject..."

"I think I'll just take your word for it," said Holliday, returning the smile.

"Fine. I don't mean to be rude, but I really want to get these ribs and vertebrae back to camp tonight."

"Go ahead," said Holliday. "I didn't mean to disturb you."

Cope smiled again, and went back to chopping rock and dried mud away from the bone, and Holliday took a couple of steps back to give him more elbow room.

Then, since he found the sight of men carefully chopping tiny pieces of rock away with their hammers boring, he looked off to his left.

And blinked to make sure he wasn't imagining things.

And then muttered a heartfelt "Oh, shit!"

"WHAT'S THE MATTER?" asked Cope irritably as he stopped hammering at the rock.

Holliday didn't answer, and the paleontologist looked up at him.

"What's wrong, Doc?" he persisted.

"We've got company," said Holliday grimly.

"If it's that bastard Marsh..." began Cope.

"We should be so lucky," said Younger, staring where Holliday indicated as most of the men began diving into the holes they'd dug for cover.

Two hundred yards away was a huge dinosaur, possessed of an enormous head, rows of razor-sharp teeth, tiny forelegs, massive hindquarters, and a large, heavy tail that it seemed to use for balance.

"Predator or prey?" asked Holliday, holding his weapon with both hands and aiming it at what he hoped was the creature's heart.

"My God!" said Cope excitedly. "It can't be!"

"It damned well is," said Holliday. "Do I try to kill it, or just stir up some dust at its feet-if this thing can stir up dirt-and try to scare it away?"

"Definitely a predator," said Cope, staring in rapt fascination. "It's too big to be an allosaur. There's a carnosaur that we've tentatively called a tyrannosaur. What a magnificent animal!"

"Theodore!" called Holliday, not taking his eyes off the creature. "You got a bead on him?"

"I'll take his head," answered Roosevelt from about seventy feet to Holliday's right. "You go for the heart."

"Tom!" yelled Holliday. "What the hell's the range on this thing?"

"At least a hundred yards," Edison hollered back.

"Doc!" called Roosevelt. "Don't shoot for a minute. I want to get my rifle, just in case these gadgets don't work."

"You think a rifle can stop this thing?" said Holliday dubiously.

"Do you think that toy you're holding can?" said Cope.

The dinosaur continued approaching them at a leisurely pace, stopping every couple of steps to test the air and survey its surroundings.