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 the plantation, and to Chad had fallen the duty of securing a turkey for the occasion. His father would have preferred a pair of wood ducks—summer ducks, as they were called in the plantation country—but a closed period of several years had been granted these birds by law, and Captain Stanton was too good a sportsman to be a law-breaker. Hence, although in the plantation country, with its many rivers and lagoons, wood ducks were still abundant all the year round, the old planter had regretfully reminded his son that they were taboo.

"Try for a turkey," he told the boy, as they stood talking on the front steps early that morning. "The Judge likes summer ducks better and is probably counting on them. But he can't have them this time; and a turkey's the next best thing."

Chad knew even better than his father the places which were most likely to yield the game that he sought. Yet poor luck had attended him so far, and now the early morning, the most favorable time for turkey hunting, had passed. Nevertheless, his hopes were high as he stole with infinite caution and hair-trigger alertness amid the trunks of the great trees deep in the Otter Woods as he called them because once he had watched an otter there for over an hour.

He knew that several turkeys, including one big