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UST as the sun's first rays lit the tops of the tallest cypresses of the lagoon a whitetail buck came to the edge of Anhinga Town. There he met face to face another woods wanderer. On a great pine log lying across the buck's path crouched a large male wildcat. Early in the night an otter had eaten a fish on this log, and the big lynx, hungry as always, had been sniffing at the spot where the feast had taken place. The buck's coming interrupted him and, arching his back slightly, he gave a low growl, glaring out of his fierce, glassy eyes at the tall, antlered intruder who stood facing him in the narrow trail.

The buck halted only for a moment. After ranging the woods and broom grass fields all night he was on his way to his bed in a dense myrtle thicket bordering a black gum swamp, and the shortest route to this thicket lay along the margin of the lagoon which was the site of Anhinga Town. Long ago he had outgrown the instinctive fear of the lynx which in his young days would have sent him racing off at full speed at sight of the big cat crouching on the log. He stood for a moment, head