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 galloping up the long avenue of live oaks leading to the house. He greeted his visitor cordially; for if it was true that Sandy Jim sometimes followed upon the plantation lands a deer which his pack had jumped, it was true also that his woodcraft was of that rare quality which the boy always admired wherever he found it. If a man were a good enough woodsman the boy would forgive him most of his sins; and so, although there was much about the lean, stoop-shouldered, white-mustached swamp ranger that was far from admirable, the boy and he were friends after a fashion.

The old woodsman, lithe as an otter in spite of his seventy years, drew up his mare in front of the white-pillared portico and declined an invitation to dismount and come in.

"Remember that big wildcat you was after killin'?" he drawled.

The boy nodded.

"You kin kill him today if you want to."

"How's that?" asked the boy.

"Night before last he stole one o' my turkeys an' buried the carkiss in the woods a half mile from my house. I found the place an' set traps all round it. Las' night he come back to finish eatin' the carkiss an' one o' the traps got him. But he yanked the trap loose an' carried it with him. Must be a powerful brute."