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still calling as he ­ran.
    “Mr. Pederson! Mr. Pederson!”
    There was no movement. Daniel leapt down to the ledge where Mr. Pederson’s inert body lay, and shouted again as he plopped down beside ­him.
    Suddenly, Mr. Pederson sat up and looked at Daniel with a surprised expression on his ­face.
    “What’s wrong, Daniel?” He rose to his ­feet.
    “Geez, Mr. Pederson, you scared me!”
    “I scared you ? You scared the living daylights out of me by almost jumping on top of me,” Mr. Pederson ­complained.
    “I thought you were dead or something. You weren’t moving.” Daniel wiped the sweat out of his eyes. His heart thumped against his ­chest.
    “Of course not, I was resting,” the old man said, rubbing his ­eyes.
    “Couldn’t you hear me calling?” asked ­Daniel.
    Pederson stared at Daniel. “I was underneath the overhang, out of the sun. I couldn’t hear anything. It was so peaceful and quiet. And if you must know, I was having a rather pleasant dream.”
    The Nelwins had arrived on the hill directly above them. Daniel waved to them. He tried to calm himself, relieved that Mr. Pederson was all ­right.
    “But where’s Dr. Roost?”
    Pederson waved his arm. “Off exploring somewhere. Last time I saw her, she was heading over that rise.” He pointed to a distant ­hill.
    The Nelwins joined them then and Pederson gave them a genial ­welcome.
    “Until I explain everything to you, please stay outside the ­tied-­off areas,” he said, rising to his feet and brushing dust off his pants. “You’ll see how tiny some of our discoveries are in a moment, and one footstep can make all the difference in destroying some prime finds.”
    He guided them to a particularly rocky plateau nearby. “This is what we call a microsite and this is what we find here.”
    In less than a minute, Mr. Pederson picked up several kinds of specimens, so small that they all fit into the palm of one hand. He pointed to each of them. “Small mammal teeth, ear bones, several leaf fossils and plant seeds, bits of turtle shell, crocodile armour, salamanders, tiny vertebrae from garfish, and Triceratops teeth.”
    “Sheesh!” Craig bent over for a closer inspection. “You can tell what all of these are?”
    “Yes, lad!” Pederson said with confidence. “Comes from years of practice.”
    Todd crowded in for a closer look. “I can see why you don’t want us stepping all over the place!” he ­said.
    Pederson ­nodded.
    “Sir, how do you know where to look for these kinds of areas, and the bigger fossils too?” asked ­Craig.
    “We go on ‘prospecting’ tours,” Pederson explained. “We usually do exploratory trips through the hills in teams of a couple of people so we don’t miss any spots.”
    “But how can you tell dinosaur bones from rocks?”
    Pederson laughed. “Actually we look for shapes, textures, and things that don’t look like stone. With practice you get an eye for it, don’t you Daniel?”
    “That’s right, sir!” Daniel said. He’d been doing it as long as he could remember. “And by taste!”
    Daniel picked up a small stone and then a piece of fossilized bone from Mr. Pederson’s hand. He demonstrated the difference between them by touching the stone to his ­tongue.
    “See, the stone is solid in the centre and doesn’t stick, but…” he removed the stone from the edge of his tongue and replaced it with the fossil, which stuck fast. He tried to explain. “The bone thiks to ur tung.”
    He removed the fossil. “Bones are porous, that’s why it sticks.”
    “Cool,” said Craig. “Would we be able to go prospecting sometime?”
    “We won’t be doing anything like that for quite a while. We have plenty to excavate right here,” Pederson answered. “Although I suppose it’s something special we could consider offering to the public too. I’m not sure we could do it this year.”
    Then he saw the disappointed look on the boys’ faces. “We’re rather booked up with tours,