brothers, or better known as the "Twins of Table Mountain." A certain
animation in the face of the second speaker,--the first-comer,--a
certain light in his eye, might have at first distinguished him; but
even this faded out in the steady glow of the lantern, and had no
value as a permanent distinction, for, by the time they had reached
the western verge of the mountain, the two faces had settled into a
homogeneous calmness and melancholy.

The vague horizon of darkness, that a few feet from the lantern still
encompassed them, gave no indication of their progress, until their feet
actually trod the rude planks and thatch that formed the roof of their
habitation; for their cabin half burrowed in the mountain, and half
clung, like a swallow's nest, to the side of the deep declivity that
terminated the northern limit of the summit. Had it not been for the
windlass of a shaft, a coil of rope, and a few heaps of stone and
gravel, which were the only indications of human labor in that stony
field, there was nothing to interrupt its monotonous dead level. And,
when they descended a dozen well-worn steps to the door of their cabin,
they left the summit, as before, lonely, silent, motionless, its long
level uninterrupted, basking in the cold light of the stars.

The simile of a "nest" as applied to the cabin of the brothers was no
mere figure of speech as the light of the lantern first flashed upon it.
The narrow ledge before the door was strewn with feathers. A suggestion
that it might be the home and haunt of predatory birds was promptly
checked by the spectacle of the nailed-up carcasses of a dozen hawks
against the walls, and the outspread wings of an extended eagle
emblazoning the gable above the door, like an armorial bearing. Within
the cabin the walls and chimney-piece were dazzlingly bedecked with the
party-colored wings of jays, yellow-birds, woodpeckers, kingfishers, and
the poly-tinted wood-duck. Yet in that dry, highly-rarefied atmosphere,
there was not the slightest suggestion of odor or decay.

The first speaker hung the lantern upon a hook that dangled from the
rafters, and, going to the broad chimney, kicked the half-dead embers
into a sudden resentful blaze. He then opened a rude cupboard, and,
without looking around, called, "Ruth!"

The second speaker turned his head from the open doorway where he was
leaning, as if listening to something in the darkness, and answered
abstractedly,--

"Rand!"

"I don't