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 sons hunted the flat-horned buck with their full pack of lanky, long-eared hounds, and on the third hunt, Sandy Jim, trying a snap shot from his mare's back, thought that he had drawn blood. But after that hunt the flat-horned buck vanished as completely as though the earth had swallowed him, and never once that fall or winter was hair or hide or track of him seen again.

Chagrined at his failure, Mayfield consoled himself as best he could. The buck, he believed, would return sooner or later, for these were among the best feeding grounds for deer in all the Low Country. As for the king of the river, he would come forth from his secret den with the first warm breath of spring and he would come forth bold and hungry, craving red meat. Until he had filled his empty stomach he would be less cautious than usual. A yelping cur tethered at the water's edge would interest him tremendously. Sandy Jim bided his time.

March came in windy and chill, but toward the end of the month the weather broke and spring burst suddenly upon the Low Country in a blaze of sunshine and a glory of song. Maples flamed in the swamps; the wood-edges swarmed with varicolored warblers; the wild turkey hens built their nests of grass, pine straw and cane leaves in the