THE EAGLE AND THE SCOUT And so these two strolled on.

And presently they came to a point where the wood was more sparse, for they were approaching the rugged lower ledges of a mighty mountain, and the last rays of the dying sun fell upon the rocks and scantier vegetation of this clearer area, emphasizing the solemn darkness of the wooded ascent beyond.
Few, even of the scouts, had ever penetrated the enshrouding wilderness of that dizzy, forbidding height.

There were strange tales, usually told to tenderfeet around the camp-fire, of mysterious hermits and ferocious bears and half-savage men who lurked high up in those all but inaccessible fastnesses, but no scout from Temple Camp had ever ascended beyond the lower reaches of that frowning old monarch.
At Temple Camp, when the cheery blaze was crackling in the witching hour of yarn telling, the seasoned habitues of the camp would direct the eye of the newcomer to a little glint of light high up upon the mountain, and edify him with dark tales of a lonesome draft dodger who had challenged that tangled profusion of tree and brush to escape going to war and had never been able to find his way down again--a quite just punishment for his cowardice.

But time and again this freakish glint of light had been proven to be the reflection of that very camp-fire upon a huge rock lodged up there and held by interlacing roots.
Tom and Hervey stood upon a ledge of rock just outside the area of a great elm tree, and as they looked down and afar off, Black Lake seemed a mere puddle with toy cabins near it.
"I bet there are wild animals up there," Hervey said.
"Here's one of them now," commented Tom, pointing upward.
High above them in the dusk and with a background of golden-edged clouds, which gave the sun's last parting message to the earth, a great bird hovered motionless.

It seemed to hang in air as if by a thread.
Then it descended with a wide, circling swoop.