“Remember,” the Old Colonel urged further, “you’re an Anglo-Saxon—a white man of straight descent. It’s a heritage, Hugh. And it implies an obligation.” “I’d hate it,” Hugh protested. “Try it and see. Perhaps—there might be a miracle.” Hugh drained his glass; then stood up. “Very well, I’ll start next week,” he said at last simply. Thus this son of cities gave his promise to go forth into a man’s land: a land of trial and travail, of many perils and strong delights, a jagged mountain land where the powers of the wilderness still ruled supreme—and yet a place where miracles might come to pass. CHAPTER III The camp-robber, perched on a limb, was in considerable of a mental turmoil. His mentality was never of an extra high grade, and to-day his intellectual grasp had almost failed him. And the reason was that he had made an astonishing discovery; and these remote Idaho forests had suddenly revealed to him a form of life that he hadn’t had any idea existed. Of course his true name wasn’t “camp-robber.” In reality he belonged to that noisy, thievish jay-magpie assemblage that is to be found in almost all of the great Western forests, and he had a long and jaw-breaking scientific designation besides. But on the lower East Side it isn’t necessary to hunt up the name in full of Tony the Dip, because the title describes him better than the name his mother gave him. It was much the same with the camp-robber. He got the title from his habits and it fitted him to perfection. He was rather a gay old bird with considerable blue and gray in his feathers, and in his several months of life he had concluded that he knew these Idaho woods from one end to another. He thought it would be a long, cold summer day before he would meet a situation that he could not immediately handle. He knew just how to look twice into a cluster of leaves and twigs before he lighted among them—lest a certain little brown-furred cutthroat that was rather unpleasantly known to his family should be waiting in ambush. He knew how to select a nest-site out of the reach of a prowling raccoon, and he was as impertinent and saucy from all this knowledge as words can tell. Yet out of a perfectly clear ground, so to speak (it wouldn’t be correct to say out of a clear sky when referring to one who habitually lives in the sky) two utterly unknown and enormous living creatures had revealed themselves.