"The Fossil Hunters" is a dark, monochromatic scene depicting an old man and a young woman asleep in an ambiguous setting amid draperies and rocks.The word "Sheldrake," incised on rock above the old man, names a town on the west side of Saranac Lake where the young Dickinson spent summers exploring the glens near the family's summer cottage, where he hunted for fossils and to which he returned periodically as an adult to visit.