All his life Hugh Gaylord had dwelt in cities. He had traveled far: sometimes in motors, usually in luxurious sleeping cars, occasionally in steamships. Yet he had never really been outside of cities. He knew the hurrying throngs, the great buildings, the busy streets. The shops, the theaters, the gaiety had been acquaintances as long as he could remember. He had never dreamed of a world without these things. Yet, in an instant, all of them seemed infinitely distant. Strangest of all, they suddenly didn’t seem to matter. It was an impression that all his life there had been a cloud before his vision, and all at once he could see clear. Here, not in those swarming cities, was reality. The cities had been built in a day; the other factors that had been so necessary in his life—his clubs, his motor cars, his amusements, even much of the great world of business—were merely mushroom growths of a little handful of centuries that men called the age of civilization. Strangely, they no longer seemed to him the basic things of existence. Rather now, for the first time in his days, he was face to face with life,—life in its simplest phases, with all its unrealities and superficialities swept away. This was no vista of the present: this scene of the white sheep bedding down for the night in the dim light of the herder’s fire. Rather it was an image of the uncounted ages. All the basic elements of life were here: the flocks, the herder’s little shelter, the fire glowing in the falling darkness, the watchful shepherd dog guarding the lambs, the beasts of prey lurking in the growing shadows. There was nothing here to perish or change. It had been the same for uncounted centuries,—since the first dim days when the nomads drove their flocks over the plains of Asia. Cities are born, grow great, are cursed with wickedness, and perish. The flocks still wander on the hills. Men catch new fancies, follow new teachings, build new orders, and pursue new ways. The firelight of the herder still glows in the twilight. Civilization rises and falls like the tide. The beasts of prey still lurk in the thickets to slay the sheep. Fashions, hobbies, pleasures, habits and modes of life, faiths and doctrines, even kingdoms and palaces start up, flourish, change and die,—and still the shepherd dog keeps his watch. He was suddenly called from his reverie by the voice of the guide beside him. “Fire’s about out,” the man said. “Time herder put on more fuel.” It was a commonplace remark, yet it compelled Hugh’s attention. His startled eyes turned to the Indian’s impassive face. “It’s not cold to-night,” he replied. “What’s the need of the fire?” The Indian made no immediate reply. He did, however, hold up his hand. Hugh listened. Somewhere back of them in the thicket a twig broke with miniature explosion. Then two leaves rustled together. “That’s why,” the Indian said. “Keep off varmints.”