Yet these are the only known chinchillas in the world that are reproducing in captivity. In warm California weather and the colder winters of the northwest, they continue to thrive, six years after M. F. Chapman brought them from the Andes. In that time, they have increased more than thirteen fold despite losses from theft and disease.

One naturally thinks of Russian sable when discussing rare furs. The great value of that fur comes not so much from its beauty as from the difficulty of trapping and matching the sables. Often two or three years worth is required to find a sufficient number of sable pelts to make one coat. Yet sables cannot be reared in captivity while chinchillas reproduce as well in American pens as in the Andes 16,000 feet above sea level.

They live their new lives in spacious stalls measuring six by sixteen feet; one male and six females to each stall. From two litters a year in the wild, they have in many instances to three in captivity, the average number of two young in each litter remaining the same.

"There are fewer chinchilla sales than sables," I was told by H. W. Blaine, a veteran fur expert, "but we can account for that largely by its scarcity. There probably are not more than three chinchilla coats in America made up ready for sale. Whenever a furrier receives an inquiry for a chinchilla coat, he scours the country for pelts, buying them in lots of three to a dozen. When he pieces them together they achieve a value of from $15,000 to $45,000, depending upon the number and quality of pelts."

As I held a fine male, stroking its long hairs, I realized why these rodents have been hunted since the remotest ages. Once the Incas wove warm cloth from their hairs, even domesticated them and ate the flesh after shearing the fleece. Though they have been known in South America for centuries, not until the turn of the century did any reach western markets. Immediately furriers became intensely interested and following the importation of a few skins to Paris, world-wide efforts began to bring chinchilla coats to wealthy men and women.

Yet Chapman is the only white man who has succeeded in raising them - and he has his difficulties. Someone recognized the tremendous value of the Chapman herd and in the dead of night stole into his mountain ranch at Tehachepi, Calif., (recently abandoned) and made away with thirty-five sturdy chinchillas. Sixteen were carrying young. The potential loss, therefore, amounted to fully seventy of the animals. Chapman, in swearing out warrants for the unknown culprits' arrest placed a value of $54,000 on the stolen animals.

Late last fall eighteen were traced to a ship bound for Germany. So closely did United States operatives press the hunt that they learned five died en route. Later one American confessed his part in the theft and today is paying the penalty in San Quentin prison. Two of those smuggled to Germany are alive today, all the others having perished. The other seventeen have not been traced.

Chapman's chinchilla exploit is packed with drama. Formerly a mining engineer, he went to South America nine years ago for a mining syndicate. He made his headquarters high in the Andes of Chile and Peru while living among the native Indians and Chileans became interested in the chinchillas. He had heard great tales of their former high position in the international fur trade. One man had exported 100,000 skins from Chile in 1884. In 1901 fully 1,000,000 skins were exported from that country.

San Pedro de Altacama was the most important local South American market then. From nearby Molinos, on the western border of La Plata, one man exported 3,000 dozen pelts annually for years. But the trade had languished, for the chinchillas had gradually disappeared from that region.

Undismayed by the many failures of which he had heard, Chapman continued his search. At last, his runners brought him eleven grown animals. For two years he kept them at an altitude of 11,000 feet, studying their habits, watching over their health. Then he carried them down the mountain and stopped a year at 8,000 feet above the sea. As the ice began to thaw after the third year, he loaded them in wire cages, strapped them to the backs of burros and completed the journey to the sea.

The worst part of the long trip lay ahead, the sea voyage. He boarded a steamer from Iquique, Chile, with the little fellows panting for breath. Accustomed to thriving in freezing gales far below zero, they suddenly were catapulted into a summer heat none had ever experienced. For forty days and nights, Chapman kept them in virtual refrigerators - ice-chilled cages curtained with moist canvas. Yet they suffered so that many times during that trip he applied ice packs to their heads as various animals passed out in the heat.

"To complicate matters," Chapman commented wryly, as we squatted over one of his finest pairs at his Inglewood, Calif., ranch, "when only four days out from California they shed their fur and we had to wrap the whole batch in blankets to keep them from freezing. At last, after what seemed an eternity, we landed a dozen under permit of the U.S. Biological Survey, the first, and last, to reach the United States alive."