“One branch turned into the llamas, which are now the beasts of burden in the Andes, and which were used by the Incas of Peru for the same purposes that we use horses. The llamas used to be in Colorado, too, and we have found their bones, fossilized. The other branch of the camelids crossed by the Behring Sea bridge, and developed into the modern camel in Asia, naturally reaching Africa in the latter part of that period before the coming of the European Ice Age.” “But what happened to our American giraffe-camels?” “They died out. In the late Pliocene Period they were all gone from the East and only browsed on the vegetation of California and the plateaus of the Southwest. Then the cold of the Ice Age struck North America and the North Pole ice covered half the United States. The giraffe-camels were not rugged enough for this, and as but one baby camel was born a year, they could not live. “The llamas had found their way to South America, over which the ice-sheet did not creep; the true camels had found their way to tropical Asia and Africa. These species survived those thousands of years of terrible cold by hugging the equator and so passed on into modern life, hardy and secure, while their North American ancestors, the giraffe-camels, failed in the Battle of Life. So, you see, Perry, although we always think of the camel as a foreign animal, he really is an emigrant from our own United States.” “We ought to get him back, then,” said Perry. “Why couldn’t we?” “It was tried,” replied the professor, “during the California gold-rush of ’49. Some camels were imported for the purpose of carrying supplies to the army posts in the arid regions, but for some reason or other, they never flourished. I suppose the herd was not large enough to keep the animals from inbreeding. So the camels were turned loose.” “Are there any still left?” “I doubt if there are any, now. Once in a long while, there is a report of a camel having been seen in Arizona. But the Indians killed most of them during the first twenty years after they were set free, and mountain lions disposed of the remainder. After all, Perry, a camel is an inoffensive ruminant, depending only on his speed for escape from any powerful carnivore. He is protected in the desert, for no heavy creature, such as tigers, live there, and hyenas and jackals eat dead flesh. But a mountain lion would easily kill him in a fight, and a camel would have to come to the wooded country for food and water. I don’t think camels will ever be plentiful in America again. The broncho and burro need fear no rival.” “So far as that goes,” rejoined Perry, wincing as he rose up at the signal that the caravan was about to move on again, “I’d sooner try to sit the worst bucking horse that ever was foaled than have my back twisted like a double-back-action corkscrew by this queer-jointed beast.”