river, as he had heard the negroes call the saurian monarch, was a foeman worthy of his steel. Sandy Jim realized that he would need all his skill if he expected to stretch that great armored hide before the October frosts.
Many things Sandy Jim Mayfield knew about the deer and the alligators of the Low Country, for all his life he had lived close to these wild creatures, and all his life he had hunted them. But there were two things that he did not know—two things of primary importance to him just now. He did not know that the great gator, against whose cunning he had so confidently matched his own experience and skill, never waited until the October frosts before going into seclusion for the cold season, but always retired to his winter den in advance of most of his fellows, as soon as the crisp nights of September announced the approach of fall; and he did not know that the flat-horned buck, whose splendid antlers he so ardently desired, was that rare thing, a roaming, wandering whitetail, which, instead of remaining year after year in the same general region, ranged widely about the Low Country, never lingering in any district where he was persistently hunted. Three days after Mayfield's fruitless attempt to stalk the king of the river on the ruined causeway came a cold change and the giant saurian was seen no more that season. Three times Mayfield and his
