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 held high, returning steadily the baleful glare of the wildcat's savage eyes: then, shaking his heavy velvet-covered antlers proudly, he strode forward.

The wildcat, apparently without turning his head to see where his leap would take him, jumped six feet backward and faded like a ghost into the cover of the cane thicket clothing the slope of the bank. Leaping lightly over the log, the buck passed on along the narrow path.

Meanwhile Anhinga Town was waking up. In fact, it seemed to be already wide awake, for from many of its houses issued noises of many kinds—noises which might well have given a visitor the impression that the inhabitants were quarreling violently with one another. These houses were situated in tall cypress trees standing in the water of the lagoon. They were all built mainly of sticks, but some were larger and more strongly constructed than the others and were placed much higher in the trees, and it was from these larger houses that the clamor came. These were the homes of great blue herons who had come to live in Anhinga Town and who were now as numerous there as the anhingas or snakebirds themselves.

Very early in the spring, before the snakebirds had returned from the tropical regions where they spent the winter, the herons had set about the business of getting their homes ready for the warm sea-