[1][2] The story appeared under the pseudonym Lyman R. Lyon (the name of his maternal great-grandfather) as the magazine's policy did not allow the name of any author to be repeated on the same contents page, and de Camp had another piece in the same issue under his actual name (part one of his article "Design for Life").

From an archeological colleague, Dr. Wilhelmi of Zurich, Platt gets the idea of using an electrolytic bath to restore the specimens he has been retrieving to their original condition, just as the archaeologist can do with corroded bronzes whose atoms have partly dissipated into the surrounding soil.

They repeat the process with an Arctotherium (short-faced bear), which they are unable to revive and is mounted in the American Museum of Natural History, Stenomylus hitchcocki (an ancestral camel), Trilophodon (a primitive proboscidean), and Dinocyon gidleyi (a bear-dog).

News of the sale attracts a Mr. Nively, representing the Marco Polo Company, a membership corporation consisting of the whole country's wild animal importers and dealers.

Meanwhile, Platt and Staples recreate their biggest animal yet, a specimen of Parelephas jeffersonii (Jeffersonian mammoth), which they name Tecumtha after the historical Shawnee chief.

He eventually finds them in a nearby town square, with Nively perched atop an equestrian statue of General Sheridan while Tecumtha prowls about its base.

Unfortunately, Dr. Traphagen at the zoo assumes Staples a madman on hearing his story, particularly since he can't even confirm his own identity, the only identification he can produce being Nively's.

The plot feature of a disaffected businessman's designs on a recovered mammoth is echoed in de Camp's later Reginald Rivers time travel story "The Mislaid Mastodon" (1993).