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 tense, unwavering orbs. Then he shouldered his gun and started homeward.

Before him at the top of the rise loomed the massive trunk of the great black oak which had played so singular a part in the afternoon's events. Mayfield knew that the eyes which had watched him from behind that oak still waited there. Yet he walked straight towards the tree, his gun slung carelessly across his shoulder. Only the odd contraction of the thin nostrils above his white mustache revealed his knowledge of a crisis yet to come.

He was abreast of the black oak, even a step or two beyond it, when he stopped short and turned his head quickly.

"Why, hello, Sam Woodfin!" he exclaimed.

The man who stood behind the black oak—a big man, bushy-browed, clad in corduroys and hunting boots, a rifle balanced in his right hand—glared at the hunter sternly out of stony gray eyes. On his shirt under the flap of his coat gleamed a game warden's badge. The blackness of his frown, the bulging veins in his forehead, were mute evidences of his temper. With an effort he spoke calmly.

"Mayfield," he said, "you don't like me and I don't like you, and some day I'm going to get you for killing deer out o' season. But there's one or two things I want to ask you. When did you learn that I was watching you from behind this oak?"