That evening after dinner, under prompting from Perry, Dr. Hunt told of his adventures in Tierra del Fuego and in the interior of Patagonia in a search for a living specimen of the giant ground-sloth, the great Megatherium, a monster twelve feet in height. “Did you think that there were any giant sloths living still, Uncle George?” the boy asked. “I hardly thought so,” the scientist replied, “but I hadn’t sufficient reason to disbelieve the report. All through South America there are legends of the great ground-sloth having been domesticated by Man. And, as you probably know, every once in a little while, there are fantastic stories of Mylodon, twelve feet in length, having been domesticated like cows by Primitive Man.” “You mean that Primitive Man milked the sloth?” exclaimed Perry in amazement. “So the story runs. But I don’t think it can be regarded as true. In the first place, the Patagonians were not very far advanced in civilization; and in the second place, the sloths are notoriously slow in brain, so that they would not be teachable. Of course, one could say that the stupidity of the sloth made them fit for domestication, because they wouldn’t know enough to resent slavery.” “Then I should think they would have been preserved instead of dying out.” “Very well reasoned, Perry,” said his uncle, nodding his head approvingly. “That is a most important point. If the sloth could have been domesticated like the cow, the Patagonians would have had a better chance of survival, and if the Patagonians could have raised sloths, the sloths would have survived in herds also. No, Perry, I think the South American natives must have been more anxious to kill and eat the sloths than to domesticate them, though it is almost as strange to understand how a few scattered natives, with stone-tipped spears, could have caused the extinction of a race of giant animals that had survived all the changes of several million years. For you remember, Perry, that the ancestors of the ground-sloths, such as Prepotherium, date back as far as the Miocene Period.” “But is there any record of those huge ground-sloths having been found in South America except as fossils?” queried Perry. “No,” the professor replied, “there is not. But that is not a sufficient reason for saying that there never is going to be. Don’t forget the okapi! And the reason that I joined that expedition to Patagonia, Perry, was because one of the universities received what seemed like sure and accurate information about a still living ground-sloth. The matter was worth investigating. It might be true.” “Then you think it is possible, still?” “Quite possible, but unlikely. It is equally possible that there may still be a small herd of mammoth in the unexplored region west of Hudson’s Bay, but the reports that are brought in by travelers that they have seen a living mammoth, have never been verified.