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 thing else than fear and hate, the human being who was a part of those shadowy recollections that sometimes hovered in the background of his mind as he dozed away the daylight hours in some one of his many secret sleeping places. Again the panic, which had been swelling in him like a tide, halted and began to recede. He crouched low, his eyes fixed upon the boy, knowing that in those open woods the moment he moved he would be seen, still fearing discovery, though now discovery had been robbed of half its terrors.

The boy, holding the straining Airedale in leash, his gun balanced in his left hand, was heading straight for the cane thicket. So hot was the scent that at any moment he expected to come upon the lynx, and his eyes were searching the woods ahead of him. Near the edge of the canes, however, the scream of a red-shouldered hawk circling above the sweet-gum swamp to the right caused him to glance in that direction, and in a moment he saw the tawny form of the lynx in full view, standing out conspicuously against the green carpet of the thinly wooded savanna. Releasing his hold upon the leash, he let the dog plunge into the canes on the hot trail, while he himself turned at right angles and walked swiftly towards the lynx, holding his gun ready.

At a distance of ten paces he halted. The big cat had moved not a muscle, uttered not a sound. But