“THE LAST AMERICAN” 305 
from his talons. Then he saw the flock huddled 
in their stupid terror at one corner of the pasture. 
The dog, of course, had disappeared. The 
farmer never saw him. He set down the pails 
and started up the slope. Yes—a lamb was miss- 
ing! The man cursed Baldy. Then he sud- 
denly remembered that a year ago young Rob 
Browning, before he went down to the city to 
work, had found somewhere up in the hills an 
eagle’s nest, and brought two young birds home 
(which, to be sure, had died). Rob said eagles 
used the same nests year after year. ‘That night, 
when the chores were done, the farmer got out 
the family ink bottle, spit on the pen, and wrote 
a letter to Rob. When the answer came, he 
called in two neighbors, and they started off up 
the mountainside, with guns on their shoulders. . 
Rob’s directions were, for them, easy to fol- 
low, for they had logged over these mountains in 
years past, or hunted ’coon and wildcat. After 
nearly three hours of steady plodding they 
emerged on a point of rock that commanded a 
view of the wooded hollow where the tarn lay, and 
they scanned the tree tops, almost immediately, 
