“I've seen some whopping big condors up in the Andes,” said Percival, “but twelve feet from tip to tip was what the natives called a full-grown specimen. What do you make of these birds, Flattner?”
“After seeing an iguana eighteen feet long, I'm ready to believe anything. A protracted and an enforced spell of sobriety is the only thing that keeps me from diagnosing my own case as delirium tremens. There's one thing sure. Birds as big as these, and iguanas as huge as the three we've seen,—to say nothing of the enormous flying fish Morris Shine claims to have seen,—take me back to the Dark Ages. I daresay we're seeing the tag end of the giants. God knows how old these birds and reptiles are,—hundreds of years, at least. I'd give almost anything to get one of those birds and stuff him. There was once a flying animal known as the pteranodon. It has been extinct for millions of years. Belonged to the class called pterodactyls. Who knows? If you fellows could shoot for sour apples, I'd have one of 'em.”
Christmas and New Year's day, long since past, had been celebrated in a mild, half-hearted way on board the Doraine. Easter was drawing near, and Ruth Clinton took upon herself the task of arranging special services for the children. She was going ahead with her plans when her aunt, with some bitterness, advised her to consult the “King of Babylon”—(a title surreptitiously accorded Percival by the unforgiving lady)—before committing herself too deeply to the enterprise.
“It would be just like him to cut Easter out of the calendar altogether,” said she.
“He cannot possibly have any objection to an Easter service,” protested Ruth, her brow puckering.
“There's no telling what he will object to,” said Mrs. Spofford.
“He is really quite tenderhearted, and awfully fond of children, you know. I am sure he will be very much pleased with the—Besides,” she broke off to say with considerable heat, “Mr. Percival is not as high and mighty as he imagines himself to be. Other people have something to say about the management of this camp. You forget,—and so does he perhaps,—that we have a council of ten. I rather fancy—”
“Pooh!” sniffed her aunt. “He is worse than all the Tammany bosses put together. The other men on the council of ten eat out of his hand, as Abel Landover says. His word is law,—or, I should have said, his smile is law. All he has to do is to grin and the argument is over. I've never seen anything like the way people give in when he smiles. It is disgusting.”
“Please don't forget, Auntie, that he did not smile on Saturday when Manuel Crust stopped him in front of the meeting-house and said he was going to take Sunday off from work up in the woods. He didn't smile then, did he? And there were a dozen men planning to take the day off with Manuel Crust, too.”
“I confess I was frightened,” admitted Mrs. Spofford, with a slight shudder. “That Manuel Crust is a—a dangerous man. He carries a knife. I saw it.”