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 revived—and life for him meant hunting. That afternoon he saddled his wiry mare and rode off through the pinelands toward the river ricefields. He had an idea that the flat-horned buck had taken to lying amid the reeds on a certain causeway, long ago fallen into disuse, connecting a large wooded island at the river's edge with the mainland. The spot was difficult of access and Mayfield had no expectation of getting a shot at the buck that afternoon; but he wanted to locate the animal's bed as a step in preparation for the hunt which he planned for the next morning.

Riding along the edge of the wooded highland toward the place where the ruined causeway made out across the green wilderness of the old rice fields, Sandy Jim suddenly slapped his thigh. He had learned much about the habits of the giant gator which had appeared in the river that spring and whose thunderous voice, deeper, more resonant, more menacing than any other voice of the springtime saurian chorus, had first apprised Mayfield of the monster's coming. But he had never discovered this great gator's basking place. Now, on a sudden, the woodsman believed that he understood why. Almost the only suitable locality that he had failed to examine was the muddy slope at a certain point on the old causeway toward which he was riding. He had never thought of looking there; the in