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Spady Gat bodies. He bit Deadlock through the flews, and again in the nose, as he was lifted on other muzzles, Bite’m still joined to the base of his rudder. The pack bore him down to the tide, where the worry broke up. Heads were lifted again, and tongues thrown. Hounds stooped to water; some swam after Captain, who was cutting the air with his knife-edge voice.

But Tarka was gone, and so was Bite’m, The terrier came to the surface a minute later, forty yards away, and swam inshore, spluttering and gasping, the short hairs of the otter’s rudder still between his teeth.