At the turn of the 20th century, while prospecting for fossils across the harsh plains of Patagonia, John Bell Hatcher, a slight, wiry, steely-blue-eyed fossil collector from Princeton University, scanned his surroundings from beneath his dusty Stetson and found himself crimped for cash to get home. His precarious and audacious plan? Teach Patagonians how to play poker:
The professor passed through every hamlet from Bahia Blanca to the Straights; the lessons were always the same . . . as a rule the loose change of the community passed on to the bone hunter to be spent on science. When the famous night finally arrived on which Hatcher was to leave[,] San Julian dropped in to exact revenge. The game started early and was one of those friendly Western games with everyone’s sixshooter on the table. The stacks of pesos in front of Hatcher climbed up and up until he was almost hidden behind them; the whistle of the steamer sounded down the harbor. Hatcher announced that he must go. Someone suggested that they would not let him. He picked up his gun and his pesos and backed through the door with a “Good night, gentlemen!” No one made a move.1
Part of being a successful paleontologist involves taking risks, since challenging situations arise on almost any extensive expedition to remote field localities. As his Patagonian escapade illustrates, Hatcher certainly possessed a knack for remaining calm and coldly rational under perilous pressure.
Although millions of museum visitors every year marvel at the skeletons of dinosaurs and other creatures he collected, few recognize this intrepid collector’s name. Yet, among his contemporaries and modern-day successors, he is widely acclaimed as a “King of Collectors.” But how did he attain such lofty laurels?