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 nest, using a very light cord just strong enough to hold it in place. Then he made his way back into the nest and with the sure instinct and uncanny skill which had so often aroused the envy of his fellows he set about his delicate task there. In fifteen minutes he had completed it, and after a final careful inspection to satisfy himself that the nest showed no evidences of his visit, he began his descent.

Just as he reached the ground he saw a tiny speck against the blue sky—a speck which might be only a soaring turkey vulture or ibis, but, on the other hand, might be the king or his mate. Stooping low, his hand clutching the treasure in his pocket, he hastened to his hiding place near the edge of the cassena thicket.

He was just in time. Five minutes later the king alit on the rim of the nest. The marshman's luck was still with him. It was the great bird himself and not his mate, who was noticeably smaller than her lord, though in nearly all cases the female eagle is the larger. And Jen's skill, his boasted woodcraft, held good also. His sharp eye and quick brain had made no mistake. He had studied the interior of the king's castle with an almost preternatural understanding of what it revealed as to the eagle's accustomed movements after alighting. Coming to rest upon the same smooth rounded stick