share with us? we'd love to hear it. send me an e-mail or go to our website, strangeinheritance.com. [ cow moos ] >> a montana cowboy inherits a barren patch of prairie. >> this place isn't big enough to starve to death on. >> but beneath the parched soil, he finds prehistoric treasure. >> this is one of the most important discoveries in this century. >> i've got a year to try to see if i can survive with our ranch and selling dinosaur fossils. this is a jaw bone to a tyrannosaurus rex that i found. >> will this cowpoke's strange inheritance lead him to boom... >> whoo! >> [ laughs ] >> ...or bust? >> lightning doesn't strike the same place very often. [ chuckles ] maybe never. ♪

>> i'm jamie colby. and today, i'm driving in the badlands of eastern montana. it's rugged, big-sky, cattle-ranching country. i'm on my way to meet a lifelong resident whose father left him a chunk of this land. >> nice to have you here. >> thanks for having us. >> my name's clayton phipps. and in 1997, my father passed away, and i inherited from him a small portion of the family ranch. and along with that came a few pretty exciting surprises. >> 41-year-old clayton phipps is like a character out of "red river" or "lonesome dove." [ horse neighs ] >> most of the time, i'm on my own. i'm happy that way. this ranch had been in our family since my great-grandfather homesteaded here. and it's a part of me that i just didn't feel like i wanted to ever part with. >> clayton grew up and learned to cowboy here on the ranch his

father shared with three brothers. he describes the operation as cash-poor but reasonably successful. >> my dad worked us hard, but that was a good thing, too. >> after clayton's father dies in 1997, the ranch is split up. at age 24, clayton inherits 1,100 acres and 30 cows. that may sound like a lot. but to make a decent living these days, clayton would need 10 times that much land and about 500 head of cattle -- at least 40 acres for each cow. >> [ whistles ] i always tell people this place isn't big enough to starve to death on. but it's every cowboy's dream to have their own place. >> okay, we're saddling up. >> just step on my knee with your right leg. >> okay. >> there you go. >> clayton insists i wear a helmet. >> yeah, that's pretty smooth. >> good girl! somebody must have told him i'm

a lawyer. ♪ i can see why clayton loves being out here. i also learn why he calls ranching a big gamble. >> there is a big gamble in ranching. wintertime can be hard. you can have some big storms. there can be death loss. you can buy a bull for $10,000, and he can go wreck himself or break his leg or something, and you may not get any return out of him. >> for years, clayton works a second job, hoping to make enough money to build up his own herd. getting the ranch to pay off becomes more urgent when he falls in love with lisa landwehr, who teaches at the local one-room schoolhouse. >> love at first sight. [ laughs ] my mom said she could see why i fell for him. my dad said, "are you sure you shouldn't wait?" [ laughs ] he's always been very good to me. we've had a lot of fun together. >> my wife's from minnesota. the whole thing's been a culture shock for her. [ chuckles ]

you know, it's 120 miles to the nearest movie theatre. the old timers would say, you know, "this country's hard on horses and women." >> in 1998, the couple's first child, julie, is born. she'll grow up to be a cowgirl, through and through. >> julie came along, and, yeah, there's another mouth to feed, and a little more responsibility. and you have to start, you know -- "what am i gonna do?" >> it all ratchets up the pressure on clayton to make the ranch financially viable... now. >> got to figure out a way to try to buy more land, enough land to raise enough cows to provide a living. >> then one day, clayton runs into a stranger who'd been prospecting in the badlands near clayton's ranch. >> he started pulling these things out of his car. he started saying, you know, "this piece here might sell for $500," you know, and it was a fragment of bone. and i'm like, "what?" >> they were fossils, remnants of giant beasts who lived here eons ago. clayton figures if there are that many valuable fossils on

the neighbor's land, there must be as many on his. could they help him keep his home on the range? >> as i was out fixing fence, or riding, or gathering cattle, i started watching, and, you know, started picking up fragments here and there, and then trying to learn more about it. it got me excited that, you know, this stuff's everywhere. >> it's everywhere because phipps' ranch sits right on one of the most important scientific areas on earth -- the hell creek formation. 65 million years ago, this was a warm, palm-studded forest. giants ruled the earth. peter larson runs the black hills institute, which prepares fossils for museums and collectors. >> the hell creek formation shows us the very end of the age of dinosaurs going up to the time that this giant asteroid 6 miles across crashed into the earth and actually caused the extinction of about 70% of life forms here on this planet.

♪ >> between chores, clayton scours the gulches and ridges on his land, searching for fossils. he finds plenty of fragments -- buckets full of them, in fact -- but nothing he could sell. these bones would not put meat on the table. then one day, something in the rocky soil catches clayton's eye. >> i looked, and there was a t. rex pre-max tooth laying there in almost perfect, museum-quality condition. >> so, this tooth, for example, is a result of your inheritance? >> it is. >> clayton shows me a casting of the tooth -- his first real find -- in the back room where he prepares specimens for sale. it's a combination man cave, research library, and trophy room. >> and i went home and sold that tooth that night to a collector for $2,500, and i was back in business. [ cow moos ] >> back in the ranching business, that is. >> i used that money to buy my first cattle to help supplement my other disease, ranching and

cowboying. >> right. well, that's what kind of actually was exciting about it. we were pretty proud of being able to start our herd with something that he found, you know? that was pretty cool. >> "pretty cool" -- sure. but could such prehistoric artifacts be the cash crop they need to help them build up their herd and make the ranch a success? it's another gamble. clayton's all in. lisa, not so much. >> paychecks kind of need to be steady when you're raising a family. and it was a gamble, you know? [ chuckles ] my wife was really skeptical. >> you ever sit there and dream of another life? >> [ laughs ] >> he's not listening right now. >> i have to confess, yeah, it's crossed my mind. i wouldn't give him up for anything, but, you know, i was nervous. >> as months go by with no significant finds, even clayton begins to have doubts. >> i got to one of my sites, and my tractor tire was flat, and that was gonna be a $500, $600 bill, you know? i was thinking, "i don't even know if this is what god wants me to do," you know?

i was broke. ♪ >> and then, as if by divine intervention, his luck changes. >> it was just the coolest little skull ever. >> that's next. >> but first, our "strange inheritance" quiz question. the answer when we return. today we're gonna -hi. be comparing the roll-formed steel bed of the chevy silverado to the aluminum bed of this competitor's truck. awesome. let's see how the aluminum bed of this truck held up.

wooooow!! -holy moly. that's a good size puncture. you hear 'aluminum' now you're gonna go 'ew'. let's check out the silverado steel bed. wow. you have a couple of dents. i'd expect more dents. make a strong decision. find your tag and get 15% below msrp on select 2017 silverado 1500 crew cabs in stock. find new roads at your local chevy dealer. [and her new business: i do, to jeanetgo. jeanette was excellent at marrying people. but had trouble getting paid. not a good time, jeanette. even worse. now i'm uncomfortable. but here's the good news, jeanette got quickbooks. send that invoice, jeanette. looks like they viewed it. and, ta-da! paid twice as fast. oh, she's an efficient officiant. way to grow, jeanette. new. get paid twice as fast for free. visit quickbooks-dot-com.

>> now the answer to our "strange inheritance" quiz question. the answer is "c," tiggeraptor. >> in 2003, cowboy clayton phipps starts to feel that fossil hunting on his montana ranch is a bust. it's been almost a year since he's found a marketable bone. then he hits pay dirt, in the form of a skull from a 65-million-year-old stygimoloch. >> i found that stygimoloch on my wife's birthday, and i named the skull "lisa's dragon." this is the most complete skull discovered to date of this particular dinosaur. >> unearthing this horned relic of the cretaceous period instantly changes clayton's outlook. >> it's the thrill of discovery, you're the first person to see it. it's a special feeling. it's hard to describe until you

actually are in that position. >> that's amazing. amazing. wow. the real thrill comes when a collector buys the skull, netting clayton more than $40,000. his strange inheritance is finally starting to pay off. >> it was about a year's wages for what i was making on the ranch. >> it buys him, among other things, more time to make his grand plan work. >> i told lisa, i said, "i've got a year to try to see if i can survive with our ranch and selling dinosaur fossils." >> meanwhile, the phipps family is expanding. a son, daniel, arrives in 2004, and his brother luke, 3 years later -- two acorns that don't fall far from the tree. by now, dad has acquired a reputation and a new nickname, "dino cowboy." professionals begin to respect his knowledge of dinosaur bones, and his ability to find them. >> the only way you can find

fossils is with your eyes. and the only way you can do that is get out there on foot and and walk the outcrops. a guy like clayton can invent. he can solve problems. ♪ >> clayton offers to show a new york gal how it's done. he starts with a safety lecture. >> any snakes? >> there's rattlesnakes. there's mountain lions. walking along the crest of a hill, there could be a cavity, and you could step on one of those and fall 30 feet down. looks great. if you move the dirt, you might find one. >> now, what is that? >> this is a little end of a limb bone to a little plant-eater. it's pretty cool. you can see the whole end of the bone. >> oh, this is definitely bone. >> yep. that's most like a rib. i can tell by the -- >> oh, the shape. i can see why they call him the dino cowboy. >> another piece of bone washed down there. >> and i can see how you could get hooked on fossil hunting. it's the feeling you get picking

something out of the dirt and realizing it was part of a living, breathing behemoth 65 million years ago. >> there's spikes on this. look. >> we're gonna have a project here. >> i'm starting to think the whole phipps family has some kind of dino radar. >> looks like a rib. >> like the top of one? >> in just the first few minutes, clayton's youngest, 7-year-old luke, finds a rib. >> okay, i'm having a blast. can i get down here and keep looking? now, is this just wood or petrified wood? >> no, that's a bone. >> i found part of a leg bone. amazing! slowly but surely, this is a whole dinosaur. >> it came off this hill somewhere. you know, one of these layers is gonna produce, you hopefully, some more of this skeleton. >> so, we found a spot worth looking into. >> maybe. oh, for sure. >> clayton knows there is dino gold somewhere in these hills, and he aims to find it. >> the highest selling fossil that i know about sold for a little over $8 million. that was one single dinosaur. >> that $8-million find, a 42-foot long t. rex nicknamed

"sue," now stands in the main hall of chicago's field museum. >> it could buy a lot of cattle. >> it would help. [ chuckles ] >> fortunately, his reputation as a man who can find old bones leads an experienced fossil hunter named mark eatman to knock on clayton's door. >> clayton is a total modern-day mountain man or macgyver. i went to his ranch, where we started to look for fossils together. >> another chapter in this "strange inheritance" story is about to begin. >> you're always thinking, "right over the next ridge or over the next patch of badlands, it's gonna be there. i'm gonna find that big one." >> as it turns out, mark's words are prophetic. >> whoo! >> that's next, on "strange inheritance." >> here's another quiz question for you. the answer in a moment.

liberty mutual stood with us when a fire destroyed the living room. we were able to replace everything in it. liberty did what? liberty mutual paid to replace all of our property that was damaged. and we didn't have to touch our savings. yeah, our insurance won't do that.

well, there goes my boat. you can leave worry behind when liberty stands with you™. liberty stands with you™ liberty mutual insurance

live-streat the airport.e sport binge dvr'd shows while painting your toes. on demand laughs during long bubble baths. tv everywhere is awesome. the all-new xfinity stream app. xfinity. the future of awesome.

>> now the answer to our quiz question. which came first? the answer is "b." the oldest shark fossil is more than 400 million years old. the oldest cockroach fossil is 350 million years old. the oldest dinosaur arrived 100 million years later. >> as i listen to clayton phipps tell the story of the ranch left to him by his father, i can't help but think that his strange inheritance is not just about this 2 square miles of montana badlands filled with dinosaur bones. it's also the unexpected journey that came next -- from struggling rancher to hopeful husband to dad worried about

being a good provider, and then to renowned dino cowboy who's still hoping to find a way to make it all work financially. he gets a boost when professional fossil hunter mark eatman knocks on his door. using clayton's ranch as a base of operations, they set out to scour not only the phipps ranch, but parts of the surrounding hell creek formation on which it sits. in june 2006, mark scans a rock outcropping and spots fossil fragments from a triceratops, a 7-foot tall plant eater. this beast died right here more than 65 million years ago. [ roaring ] it's only about 60 miles from the phipps' ranch. but the remarkable journey launched by clayton's strange inheritance will transport him to a time and place he could hardly imagine. after cutting a deal with the

landowner, who will get a share of any profits, clayton starts picking away, first with a shovel, then a jackhammer, and finally a backhoe. >> i realized that there was this arm claw in there, a giant meat hook -- killer, nasty-looking creature. >> clayton has uncovered another set of bones intertwined with the triceratops. >> "what the heck did we just find?" and, you know, i knew i had a claw, but that's all i really knew. so, i run down, and i start brushing away the dirt and the sand from where i was digging with the machine. and i start to see an arm, and i start to see a leg below the arm. and, "whoo!" [ both laugh ] you know? "son of a gun. there's another dinosaur in here, and it wasn't friends with the one we just found." >> that's when i went ballistic with excitement, actually. >> it's a monster discovery. clayton's son daniel and daughter julie pose to give a sense of the enormous size of these two creatures -- predator and prey, apparently locked in a

battle to the death -- one the plant-eating triceratops, the other what looks like a young t. rex. phipps calls them the dueling dinos. >> i was talking to to a fossil dealer, and he said, "clayton, you're the luckiest guy i know." he said, "who could go out in the middle of nowhere with a backhoe and dig up the best meat-eater from the hell creek formation ever?" [ laughs ] i guess god was watching out for us that day. [ laughs ] >> it's one of the most fantastic dinosaur specimens that's been found ever. it's one of the few instances where we can actually find the culprit. "well, how did this animal die, and what killed it?" >> we believe they killed each other. >> wait, in battle? how can you tell that? >> clayton explains, using this model of the dueling dinos. >> we have teeth from the predator embedded in the prey. some of them are embedded still in the pelvis area, and they're also in the throat area. i'd give anything in the world to go back that day in time and see what happened, you know, to watch that fight and see how it unfolded.

>> for a cowboy and his family who have been just scraping by, the dueling dinos could be a life-changer. >> my initial thought was these things are somewhere around the value of maybe $10 million. ♪ >> that's even more than chicago's field museum paid for sue, the giant t. rex unearthed in 1990. clayton and his partners shop the fossils to a number of museums, seeking a multimillion-dollar deal that would permit access by both scientists and the public. >> i would like to be able to take my grandkids someday to a museum that it's in, say, "your old grandpappy found that dinosaur." >> seven years pass, but no public institution bites. so in november 2013, clayton moves on to plan "b." >> bonhams auction company contacted us, and they said, "would you guys be interested in putting it up for auction?" >> that's next on "strange inheritance."

i'm going to the bank, to discuss a mortgage. ugh, see, you need a loan, you put on a suit, you go crawling to the bank. this is how i dress to get a mortgage.

i just go to lendingtree. i calculate how much home i can afford. i get multiple offers to compare side by side. and the best part is... the banks come crawling to me. everything you need to get a better mortgage. clothing optional. lendingtree. when banks compete, you win. okay! ...awkward.

>> now back to "strange inheritance." >> november 2013, 16 years since clayton phipps inherited this montana ranch from his father, 10 years since he dug up the $40,000 stygimoloch skull that sealed his reputation as the dino cowboy, and it's 7 years since he made one of the most fantastic discoveries in history -- two prehistoric beasts locked in combat. now they're up for sale in new york. the bidding starts at $3 million, hits $5.5 million... then stops. that may be a fortune to a struggling rancher, but it's far below the $7 million reserve price set by clayton and his partners. the result -- no sale.

unlike the folks who cashed in on the world-famous t. rex sue, clayton walks away empty handed. >> i hope i'm not out of line expecting to get paid for, you know, what we've got into it. >> clayton believes he'll eventually get that, and more. >> we all feel the fall of the economy really, really hampered things for us, for sure. ♪ >> so, back on the range, he continues to raise cattle, search for fossils, and tinker in his lab, still waiting for his big find to pay off. if one day, however, those dueling dinos -- or perhaps other spectacular fossils yet to be unearthed on his strange inheritance -- do make him rich, i'm betting the path of clayton phipps' life still circles back to this piece of montana. >> i'm living the dream. and because i can stay outside and have the thrill of discovery, the dinosaur hunting

fits into that just perfectly. it's my hope that i can do this for as long as i'm able to do it. >> those dueling dinosaurs are now part of a pretty fierce fight among modern-day paleontologists. there are some who think the small but vicious predator is simply a young tyrannosaurus. but there are others, including clayton, who think he unearthed a specimen of a newly discovered species, a nanotyrannus. well, either way, keep that word "small" in perspective. we're talking about a dinosaur that was 8 feet tall and 35 feet long. certainly, there's no dino that would have wanted to meet the likes of that in the ring. [ chuckles ] i'm jamie colby. thanks so much for joining us on "strange inheritance." and remember, you can't take it with you. do you have a strange inheritance story you'd like to

share with us? we'd love to hear it! send me an e-mail, or go to our website, strangeinheritance.com. >> i'm very capable of changing to anything wants to change to. down* i'm sick of both these people and sick of the endless coverage of them. most of what they will do will be bad. the best comes from the private sector. but people look to government. they think it's sharing. so when people propose better, private solutions, they get