eep-like humbleness under a nomenclature now tolerated through usage;
and, from the photographs sent him, Hamil was very much disgusted to
find a big, handsome two-story house, solidly constructed of timber and
native stone, dominating a clearing in the woods, and distantly flanked
by the superintendent's pretty cottage, the guides' quarters, stables,
kennels, coach-houses, and hothouses with various auxiliary buildings
still farther away within the sombre circle of the surrounding pines.

To this aggravation of elaborate structures Portlaw, in a spasm of
modesty, had given the name of "Camp Chickadee"; and now he wanted to
stultify the remainder of his domain with concrete terraces, bridges,
lodges, and Gothic towers in various and pleasing stages of ruin.

So Hamil's problem presented itself as one of those annoyingly simple
ones, entirely dependent upon Portlaw and good taste; and Portlaw had
none.

He had, however, some thirty thousand acres of woods and streams and
lakes fenced in with a twelve-foot barrier of cattle-proof wire--partly
a noble virgin wilderness unmarred by man-trails; partly composed of
lovely second growth scarcely scarred by that, vile spoor which is the
price Nature pays for the white-hided invaders who walk erect, when not
too drunk, and who foul and smear and stain and desolate water and earth
and air around them.

Why Portlaw desired to cut his wilderness into a mincing replica of some
emasculated British royal forest nobody seemed able to explain. While at
Palm Beach he had made two sage observations to Hamil concerning the
sacredness of trees; one was that there are no trees in a Scotch deer
forest, which proved to his satisfaction that trees are unnecessary; the
other embodied his memories of seeing a herd of calf-like fallow deer
decorating the grass under the handsome oaks and beeches of some British
nobleman's park.

Why Portlaw concerned himself at all with his wild, out-world domain was
a mystery, too; for he admitted that he spent almost all day playing
cards indoors or contriving with his cook some new and succulent
experiment in the gastronomical field.

Sometimes he cast a leaden eye outdoors when his dogs were exercised
from the kennel; rarely, and always unwillingly, he followed Malcourt to
the hatchery to watch the stripping, or to the exotic pheasantry to
inspect the breeding of birds entirely out of place in such a climate.

He did like to see a fat deer; the fatter th