While they were hard at work gathering plunder from the camp a dark shape flashed across the opening, and a moment later a beautiful Steller’s jay alighted in a small tree near the tent, raised his long crest, looked about him for an instant, and then hopping from one branch to another, reached the topmost spray of the tree, where he hung for an instant, swinging backward and forward on a slender twig. Then he darted down and alighted on the meat, and after another glance about him, attacked it with much vigor, sinking his sharp bill into the tender flesh at every stroke. He was a fine fellow, this Rocky Mountain blue jay, beautiful in color and shape, with dark blue wings and tail, a smoky brown body and head and a long crest, with light blue dots on his forehead. He was trim, graceful, alert and quick in all his motions, but he remained about the camp only a little while and then dashed away into the forest.
After the blue jay had gone, and the coast was clear, the gray jays came back again, and so persistently did they assail the meat that Jack finally drove them off, and threw a coat over it to protect it.
The daring and impudent gray jays were not, however, the only birds about the camp. Modest little juncos—birds like the black snow bird of the East—now and then crept out of the forest and made cautious advances to the neighborhood of the fire, where they feasted on the bread crumbs that had been dropped on the ground.
When Jack first saw them they seemed to him the most timid, shrinking little creatures imaginable, and he was astonished later to see two of them almost come to blows over a choice bit of bread that one had found. When another bird approached the dainty which its discoverer was picking to pieces, the owner grimly lowered his head and bristled up his feathers, prepared to defend his rights. The other little bird threw itself into a defensive position as if quite prepared for battle, but the two did not quite come to blows. After eyeing each other for a few seconds one made a little hop to one side and then the other moved off, and presently the ruffled feathers were smoothed down.
Back in the woods, Jack could hear now and then dull tappings and drummings, which told him that the carpenters among the birds were at work, and after a while one of these woodpeckers dashed into camp, and, alighting near the top of an old stub, stood there for a while as if waiting to be admired.
He was a handsome fellow, with a glossy black back, relieved by white shoulder knots and wearing a satiny cap of red. He was also an energetic worker, but liked frequent intervals of rest.
He hammered away on the wood as if his life depended on it, making the chips fly this way and that, but when he secured the grub that his keen ear told him was concealed there and had swallowed it, he would sit still for some moments as if considering its excellent flavor.
A sudden movement of the gray jays, which still loitered about in the hope of being able to steal something more, occasionally alarmed this visitor and caused him to dodge around to the other side of the stub with a little shriek of alarm, but he would at once peer out from behind it and, finding that he had been frightened without cause, went to work again.
Two rather distant cousins of this woodpecker also came into the camp. They were banded three-toed woodpeckers, somewhat more modestly clad in black and white, with yellow silk caps.
Jack noticed that they worked most on the trunks of the higher trees and on the larger limbs, corkscrewing about them and pecking away in modest fashion, as if anxious to escape observation.