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 stood, that this all-powerful master would watch over him from the bank and would hurl swift leaden death at any foe that attacked him on the way.

Marston, watching from his oak stump, saw it all and found in it confirmation of his suspicion that Cam was drunk. He glanced quickly towards the spot where, until that first shot rang out, the three great saurians had been basking at the surface of the water. Two of them had vanished altogether; but close to the place where they had been lying he saw two dark knobs, which might have been the blunt ends of waterlogged sticks, projecting an inch or so above the water and in front of them another knob. Presently all three of these knobs began to move, slowly at first, then, faster, yet hardly fast enough to disturb the placid surface of the lagoon.

Red Cam could not see them from where he stood, for the 'gator was behind and beyond the point of the willow-bordered peninsula, moving in a direction which would enable him to cut off the dog's retreat. And for some minutes black Brutus did not see them because they were approaching him from the flank and his eyes were fixed upon his goal. Then, at last, when he had covered nearly two-thirds of the distance to the cypress log where the wounded ibis stood, the dog, swerving aside to