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 mysteriously, and the ground showed no tracks of either man or wildcat, while the best hounds could strike no trail. Of greater concern to Norman was the fact that on the marshes wood ibises seemed to be growing shyer and rarer. One morning he saw a flock scatter and break with every evidence of panic as a big, dark, wide-winged bird sailed into view; and some days afterward a negro fisherman told him that he had seen an ibis killed in mid-air. Then another lamb was taken, and this time the owner saw the slayer—an eagle. The word went forth; and Norman knew that the bald eagles, which he admired for their strength and kingly bearing, must now expect sterner persecution at the hands of man. His resentment grew. On his trips along the marsh creeks he watched the sky with increased vigilance, and whenever he visited the wooded barrier islands his double-barreled gun went with him.

Mat Norman made his living by hauling freight in his launch through the maze of tidal waterways threading the wide wastes of marsh between the Low Country mainland and the chain of islands along the edge of the sea. Sometimes when business was slack he landed on one of these islands to fish in the breakers or to search for turtle eggs in the sands; and when, one crisp September morning, York Hawley, the colored marshman who was serving him temporarily as deck hand, suggested that