Page:Gray Eagle (1927).pdf/238

 protected them and of his father's warning to leave them alone. But for that law, he might yet carry home some game worth having—indeed, the finest game that the plantation country afforded.

As he neared the pool, he decided that just for the fun of it, he would stalk the ducks; not in order to shoot them, of course, but simply to see how close he could get to them without being discovered. To carry out this purpose, he turned and made his way across the wet ricefield to a low bank thickly grown with reeds, then walked along the bank in the direction of the pool. Close to the little pond this bank joined at right-angles another and larger bank which extended from the woods clear across the ricefield to the river shore; and just at the junction of these two banks, Chad saw a surprising thing.

He saw Ringtail, the fox, standing in the path on the larger bank; and he saw with interest, too, that Ringtail held the body of a male wood duck in his jaws, evidently the same duck that the fox had captured in the Otter Woods that morning. Plainly Ringtail was hot hungry and was saving his game until his appetite returned. But what was he up to now, the boy wondered. Why was he standing motionless on the ricefield bank, his head held high, his sensitive nose testing the air?

Chad, screened by the reeds, stood still as a