A Test of Faith
- Given by
- Not stated
- Protagonist
- Not stated
- Chain position
- Not stated
- Unlocked after
- Not stated
- Locations
- The Heartlands, New Hanover
- Target
- Not stated
- Rewards
- Not stated
- Unlocks
- Not stated
- Counter value
- Not required for 100%
Player notes
Arthur Morgan finds Deborah MacGuiness beside her wagon northeast of Flatneck Station, where she is struggling with a partly unearthed fossil in The Heartlands. She calls herself the nation's leading amateur paleontologist and complains that universities have dismissed both her work and her theories. Arthur helps her move the enormous hip bone into the wagon. Deborah asks him to search the country for further dinosaur remains and send her the locations by post.
Arthur tracks down fossil sites across the world, examines the exposed bones and records each location. He mails his findings to Deborah from post offices as he gathers them. Some of the sites lie in territory Arthur cannot normally reach, so the search can continue after the story passes to John Marston. John finds the remaining bones, records their positions and sends Deborah the complete set of thirty locations.
After receiving Deborah's invitation, John travels to her workshop in Cumberland Forest. Deborah brings him inside to reveal the skeleton she has assembled from the discoveries, which she names the Totalisaurus West Elizabethus. The finished creature is a confused construction of mismatched remains. Deborah gives John the Jawbone Knife for his help, and he leaves her workshop.
Trivia
- ◆Because many dinosaur bones are in the regions which cannot be accessed by Arthur Morgan, only John Marston is able to complete the mission.
- ◆Arthur can collect bones in New Austin through a glitch or exploit; upon returning to Deborah, the ensuing dialogue suggests that the mission was originally able to be completed by Arthur.
- ◆Although Deborah asks for dinosaur bones, several bones that the protagonist finds do not belong to dinosaurs.
- ◆This mission parodies early depictions of dinosaurs such as Richard Owen's Megalosaurus or Gideon Mantell's Iguanodon.
- ◆If the player collects dinosaur bone locations before meeting Deborah, additional dialogue is added to the cutscene.
- ◆The last dinosaur bone location will not be available for inspection and will not be highlighted in "Eagle Eye" if the first part of the mission isn't completed.
- ◆Once inspected, all the dinosaur bones will disappear off their locations.
- ◆There is a newspaper article about Deborah in the first newspaper titled 'A Search for Ancient Bones'. Her last name (from the caption text) is misspelled in the article.
- ◆If Arthur or John visits Firwood Rise prior to finding all 30 bones and receiving the invitation, Deborah can be heard laughing maniacally inside the barn.
This mission shares a wiki page with others in its chain, so page-level facts are not attributed to it.
Stranger quest data from Red Dead Wiki, CC BY-SA. Not affiliated with Rockstar Games.
Last verified September 14, 2026