DISCOVERY.
BONES OF PREHISTORIC ANIMAL UNEARTHED BY WORKMEN PRESENTED TO YALE MUSEUM.
SAID TO BE MOST IMPORTANT FIND IN RECENT YEARS.

Then followed a description of the bones which were represented to be those of a prehistoric horse of a species not before known to the paleontologists. The article ended with the information that the bones had been carefully preserved, and had been presented, or would shortly be presented, to the Yale Museum by the News representative who had had a prominent part in their recovery.

The Codfish puffed out his chest as Frank and Jimmy scanned the article. "What do you think of your humble roommate now, eh, what? Didn't I tell you to read it in the News?"

"So that's what bit you the other night?"

"Sure. The ordinary eye would have passed that item over without a thought, but I saw possibilities in it. You never saw so many bones," he added. "Fine bones, perfectly fine bones, just as good as any over in the Museum, and a lot whiter than most of them."

"Yes, but who told you they belonged to the prehistoric horse?"

"O, the foreman of the gang. He was a keen guy, I tell you, knew all about the game and got me so enthusiastic that I bought the whole bunch for ten dollars. They'll have a chance to mull over them up at the Museum in a day or two."

"More likely they are the remains of some poor bossy," said Jimmy, "who laid down and died yesteryear."

"You are the most disgusting pessimist I know," said the Codfish in high dudgeon. "Haven't they as good a chance to be old-fashioned bones as anything? Anyway I got the story in and a credit of five thousand words at least on the scoop. The fact that I bought them and presented them to the Museum should be worth another bunch of credit to me, but I'll work that up into a new story that will knock their eye out."

"But Lord help you if you've put the News in wrong," said Frank.

"Tush, tush," was all that Codfish would say, "don't discourage the efforts of a budding genius."

Several days later three expressmen might have been seen carrying most carefully a gigantic packing box labeled:

RELICS—WITH CARE.

and addressed to the Peabody Museum. Behind it marched the Codfish.

"Round the back way," he commanded. "You can't get in the front way. Easy there. You're carrying the most important thing you ever handled."

"It's darn'd heavy," grunted one of the men.

"That's because it's so valuable," admonished the guardian of the box. "Don't drop it, on your life; it's a prehistoric horse."

"Well, if it is, give me a historic one. He must be solid stone."

"No, only solid bone, like your head. Easy there!"

Stumbling and grunting the men carried the box as gingerly as they could around to the back of the Museum.

The Codfish left his precious possession, and hunted around in the gloomy depths of the basement of the Museum among the giant bones of long extinct mammals which lined the corridors.

"They must all be ossified here," he muttered to himself, but as he was about to give up the search for something living in that forbidding cavern, he came upon an apron-clad man who looked him over curiously.

"Well," said he of the apron.

"I'm looking for the bone man," said the Codfish somewhat abashed.

"You're in the wrong museum, you want the dime kind."

"No, I don't. I want the bone professor."

"O, the bone professor, eh? Well, I'm the man," he said, while the suspicion of a smile crossed the pale features. "What's wanted?"

"Got a bunch of bones out here for you, great stuff, too."

"Whose bones?"

"O, it's something that will interest you. I've presented them to the Museum."

"You have, eh? That's kind of you. Didn't you think we had enough?" glancing around at the tiers of cases and the tons of uncased bones lying on the floor.

"O, but you've got nothing like these. These are the whitest bones you ever saw, belonged to a prehistoric horse or something of that kind. Don't you read the News? Take a look at them. Where do you want them put?"

The "bone professor" called a workman who, with a hatchet, soon had the cover of the packing case ripped off, exposing the great find of the Codfish.

"This is a poor joke," said the professor, the danger light beginning to flash in his eye. "Take them out of this."

"Why, aren't they good bones? Didn't they belong to a prehistoric horse?"

"A prehistoric jackass, and you are a direct descendant," shouted the professor. "I won't have you or your bones around here. You've dug up a domestic animal cemetery somewhere. Off with them," and he turned on his heel and plunged into the basement without so much as another look at the discoverer of the prehistoric horse.

"And to think that I paid ten dollars to get them here," reflected the Codfish. "Science can go hang in the future. Here," to the driver of the wagon, "take this blooming box of bones away somewhere and lose it forever."

"It'll take five dollars to lose it right," said the driver, who with his two assistants, had hung around, grinning broadly at the discomfiture of the friend of science.

"It's worth five to have it lost," said the Codfish as he went into his pocket for the necessary bill, "and if I ever see it or you again, beware of your life."

"We'll take it to the soap factory, eh?"

"No chance," said the Codfish gloomily. "The bones are not old enough for the Museum and too old for the factory. Eat them if you want to, only get rid of them somehow. I'm off," and he strode out to High street in a rage. But the Codfish had the newspaper man's sense, and that night wrote an article for his paper which explained that the find was only "semiprehistoric, and as such did not have the value that it was first supposed to have in spite of the authority of the first testimony."

The Codfish did not know till later that his prehistoric stories netted him less than nothing, for he was docked ten thousand words by the News board for handing in an article which contained so much misinformation.

In such ways do the Fates trip up even unselfish friends of science.

CHAPTER IV. MAKING THE ELEVEN.

"I'd give good money, if I had it," quoth Turner, "to have to-morrow's game over and won." Half a dozen boys were gathered in the Pierson Hall rooms, and the talk was on the Exeter game which was to be played on the morrow.

"Why so timid?" spoke up the Codfish, who was planning another assault on the News columns.

"This Exeter team is good, awfully good. Did you see what they did to Hotchkiss last week?"

"Sure—16 to 0."

"And what was our score against Hotchkiss?"

"Nothing to 6."

"Figuring at that rate it will be an interesting occasion for us to-morrow afternoon," said Frank Armstrong gloomily. "But then," more cheerfully, "you can never tell what will happen in football. If our friend James Turner could get away on one of his dashing runs, right early in the game, it might be a help."

"I haven't been dashing much lately," said Turner. "My dashing has been chiefly on the ground."

"The worm may turn," suggested Butcher Brown, a broad-shouldered and loosely built young chap who played a tackle position on the second Freshman eleven, and who lived on the same floor in Pierson, at the end of the corridor.

"Speaking of