mind as to the identity of the great one-eared lynx that had fought the battle in the glade. That missing ear was a convincing identification mark. The black-and-tan hound, which had found the lynx kittens in the hollow oak stump and killed two of them, had mangled the right ear of the third so badly that, as soon as the boy reached the plantation house with his captive, he had clipped away the ragged and bloody remnants of that ear with a pair of sharp scissors.
In this way Byng was marked for life, and marked unmistakably, while, in addition, his great size would render him easily recognizable. As the boy, still thrilling with the strangeness of that dramatic meeting in the glade, walked homeward through the painted autumn woods and the yellowing broom-grass fields where nodding plumes of goldenrod shone in the morning light, he felt that for Byng and himself the woods gods had still other adventures in store.
That fall and winter were a busy time for the boy. He had taken over the management of the plantation and he worked hard. Yet, insatiable woodsman that he was, he contrived to spend part of nearly every day in the woods; and always he was on the lookout for the one-eared lynx, who was, he knew, the ruler of all the wild folk of those woods except the big, arrogant whitetail bucks, who
