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 feared none of the other wild four-foots, barring only the black bears when at rare intervals they passed through on their journeys from one of the great swamps to another, and the long armored alligators who were the masters of the rivers and lagoons.

But not once that winter did the boy see Byng, though several times he saw his handiwork. Sometimes it was a smooth-barked sapling scratched and scarred where a tall beast had reared on its hind legs and sharpened the claws of its front feet. Sometimes it was the scanty remnant of a rabbit devoured hide and all, and in the sand near by great rounded tracks nearly twice as large as those of the average wildcat. Occasionally, too, the boy had a feeling that he was being watched and followed. All his skill at woodcraft, however, failed to confirm this suspicion, and finally he decided that his imagination was playing him tricks and he determined to put Byng out of his mind.

It was otherwise with Byng. He could not put the boy out of his mind because the boy was forever crossing his path. The big lynx had a definite range marked by two rivers, neither of which he ever attempted to cross because, in the first place, he was not much of a swimmer, and, in the second place, alligators lived in them. The plantation house was situated midway between these rivers,