Othniel Charles Marsh is on a train between New York City and New Haven, where he meets the showman Phineas T. Barnum. Barnum shows Marsh a copy of the Cardiff Giant; Marsh informs Barnum he intends to expose the giant as a fake. In Philadelphia, Henry Fairfield Osborn introduces artist Charles R. Knight to Edward Drinker Cope, a paleontologist whose entire house is filled with bones and specimens. Cope is commissioning a painting of the sea creature "Elasmosaurus". Cope leaves for the West as the official scientist for the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). On the way, he meets Marsh and shows him his dig site at a marl pit in New Jersey. After Cope leaves, Marsh pays off the landowner to gain exclusive digging rights. At Fort Bridger, Wyoming, Cope meets Sam Smith, a helper to the USGS. During excavations, Cope finds some of the richest bone veins ever. Sending carloads of dinosaur bones back east, Cope encounters Marsh, who is heading out west as well; he travels in style while the rest of his team travels third class. Marsh meets "Buffalo" Bill Cody, who serves as their guide, along with a Native American Indian tribe. Marsh discovers many new fossils, and promises to Chief Red Cloud that he will talk to the President of the United States about his people's situation. Back East, Knight has finished his reconstruction of "Elasmosaurus". He and Knight return to the marl pits. Cope becomes furious when he learns Marsh has bought the digging rights and published a paper revealing his reconstruction of "Elasmosaurus" as flawed.