Ted lingered on the fringes of the crowd, and in his mind's eye he conjured up an image of Nels Anderson. Nels always earned his pay plus a little bit more, and Ted wondered why Carl Thornton had fired him. But he wondered no more.

The great buck hung on Crestwood's game rack and bore Carl Thornton's deer tag, but it had never been killed today. The weather, though colder, still had not dipped to the freezing point and the big buck was frozen solidly. The others hung limp and pliable.

Failing to persuade Ted to hunt the big bucks for him, obviously Thornton had hired someone else and Ted's thoughts swung naturally to Smoky Delbert. Smoky would do anything for money and he knew how to bargain. If he'd hired Smoky, Thornton must have paid a stiff price and the rest was simple.

Crestwood's walk-in refrigerator had a freezing compartment that would accommodate a side of beef. It had been necessary only to bring the buck to Crestwood—no impossible or even difficult feat—hang it in the freezer, and on this, the first day of the season, bring it out again. Nels, of course, had been fired solely to keep him from discovering what was in the freezer. It would hurt both Thornton and Crestwood if it were known that Thornton had bought his buck. The favorable publicity for which he'd hoped, and which he'd certainly get unless Ted exposed him, would turn to scathing condemnation.

Alan Russell, Crestwood's part-time bookkeeper, broke from the crowd and came to Ted's side.

"Hello, Ted."

"Hi, Alan."

"Some buck, eh?"

"Sure is," Ted said wryly. "I can imagine Thornton telling his adoring guests just what a Daniel Boone he had to be to get it."

"After this season he won't be telling 'em at Crestwood."

"Why not?"

"Thornton's sold out."

"Sold out!"

"That's right."

"When did all this happen?"

"It's been hanging fire for a couple of months, but the prospective buyers met Thornton's price only three days ago. It was a stiff price."

"Are you sure?"

"I'm handling the book work."

Ted said happily, "Alan, I love you!"

The other looked suspiciously at him. "Do you feel all right?"

"I never felt better!"

Ted's heart sang. Game laws were game laws, and they applied to Carl Thornton as well as to everyone else. But Crestwood was important to the economy of the Mahela. One did not jeopardize the livelihood of those who worked there, or the sorely needed money Crestwood's guests spent in the Mahela, because of a single illegally killed buck or half a dozen of them. But now Ted was free to act. He sought and found John Wilson.

"Shall we go?"

"Guess we might as well. Looking holes right through this buck won't bring the other one in range. Wonder how the lucky cuss got it?"

"I have an idea."

"I expect you have. Br-r! It's getting cold."

"It will be colder. We have to hurry."

John Wilson looked at him curiously. "What's up?"

"I'll tell you in a minute."

They got into the pickup. Ted started the motor that had not yet had time to cool completely, and a trickle of warmth came from the heater. John Wilson looked sharply at Ted.

"All right. Give."

"Did you notice anything unusual about that buck?"

"Only that it's the biggest I ever saw."

"It's also frozen solid."

"I—I don't understand."

"The weather hasn't been cold enough to freeze deer. Thornton never killed that buck today."

"Then he—?"

"That's it exactly."

There was a short silence. John Wilson broke it with a quiet, "Is there a story behind it?"

"There is."

"Want to tell me?"

Ted told of his love for the Mahela, and of a heart-rooted desire to dedicate his life to helping people enjoy it. He spoke of his work at Crestwood, and of his great dream to have a similar place, one day. He related as much as he knew, which was as much as anyone knew, of the story of Damon and Pythias. He told of Carl Thornton's commissioning him to get both bucks before the season opened, of his refusal to do so and the consequent loss of his job.

He described the camp, and how and why it was built. Then the bombshell; Smoky Delbert's shooting and Al a fugitive in the Mahela. He spoke of his father's near-passionate interest in true conservation, and of his near-hatred for those who violated the sportsman's code. However, aware of Crestwood's importance to the Mahela, knowing that this violation would hurt and perhaps ruin Thornton, Al himself would not have reported it. But now that Thornton was leaving, was there any reason why he should be shielded?

There was another brief silence before John Wilson said quietly, "Don't do it, Ted."

"You mean let him get away with it?"

"Under any other circumstances," John Wilson said, "I'd say drive into Lorton and report him to the game warden. As things are with you now, if you do, you'll hate yourself. How are you going to decide exactly whether you turned him in to settle a grudge or because you're a believer in conservation? I agree that he should be arrested and fined. But arresting him won't return the buck to Burned Mountain. It won't do anything at all except bring Thornton a hundred-dollar fine, and he can spare the money. Yes, I'd say let him go and good riddance."

"But—"

"You asked my advice and you got it. If you turn him in, you'll hurt yourself more than you will him. By all means report law violators, but never let even a suspicion of personal prejudice influence your report. It won't work."

"I guess you're right."

"I hope I am."

That night the temperature fell to zero, and every buck on every game rack in the Mahela froze solid. There was no longer any evidence whatever to prove that Damon, as Ted thought of the great buck on Crestwood's game rack, had been taken by other than legal means.

Even if Ted wanted to do something now, his chance was gone.

For twenty days, always leaving the Harkness house before dawn and never getting back until after dark, Ted and his guest had hunted Pythias.

They had seen deer, dozens of them, and Ted had dropped a nice eight-point so close to his house that they had needed only fifteen minutes to dress it out, slide it in over the six inches of crisp snow that now lay in the Mahela and hang it on the game rack. John Wilson had had his choice of several bucks, and at least four of them had been fine trophies. But he had come to hunt the big buck that still lurked on Burned Mountain and he was determined to get that one or none.

It looked as though it would be none, Ted reflected as he sat in front of the blazing fire, tearing a bolt of red cloth into strips. Pythias, who had sucked in his woodcraft with his mother's milk, had only contempt for any mere human who coveted his royal rack of antlers.

The second day of the season, giving John Wilson ample time to post himself in the white birches, Ted had gone to the bed in which they'd seen Pythias on the first day. A small buck and two does had gone through, but Pythias had not. Most deer have favorite runways, or paths, that are as familiar to them as sidewalks are to humans. Pythias seldom used one, and he never took the same route twice in succession.

Hunted hard every day, he hadn't let himself be chased from the top of Burned Mountain. Staying there, he knew what he was doing. Sparsely forested, the top of the mountain was given over to a devil's tangle of twining laurel and snarled rhododendron. Some of the stems from which the latter evergreen grew were thick as tree trunks, and some of the winding, snaking branches were thirty feet long. It was heartbreaking work just to go through one, and impossible for a man to do so without making as much noise as a running horse. Once within the laurel or rhododendron, and some thickets were a combination of both, it was seldom possible to see seven yards in any direction. Often, visibility was restricted to seven feet.

Pythias haunted those thickets that varied from an eighth of an acre to perhaps eighty acres. Chased out of one, he entered another, flitting like a gray ghost through the scrub aspen that separated them. Then he lingered until the hunters came and entered another thicket. Only when going through the aspens, where he knew very well he could be seen, did he run. In the thickets he walked or slunk, and he never made a foolish move.

Every day there'd been snow—and John Wilson and Ted had had tracking snow for seventeen of the twenty days—they'd found Pythias' bed and his fresh tracks. His hoofmarks were big and round, and they indicated him as surely as a robe of ermine or a scepter marks a king. But except for the first day, when he'd been hopelessly out of range, the two hunters hadn't seen him even once. Pythias could never conceal the fact that he had walked in the snow. But he could hide himself.

Methodically, Ted continued to tear strips from his bolt of red cloth and lay them on the table. Tammie, grown fat and lazy during the three weeks he'd been confined to the house—even though Ted had let him out for a run every night—raised his head and blinked solemnly at the fireplace. Bone tired, John Wilson turned in his chair and grinned.

"You have enough of those red ribbons so you could fasten one on half the deer in the Mahela. Think they'll work?"

"I don't know of anything else. We've tried everything."

"It's been a good hunt," John Wilson said contentedly, "and a most instructive one. I don't have to have a buck."

"But you'd like one?"

"Not unless it's Pythias."

"We have one more day and I have plans. Here, let me show you."

Ted tore the last of his red cloth into strips, pulled his chair up to the table, took a sheet of paper and a pencil and drew a map. John Wilson leaned over his shoulder.

"This is the Fordham Road," Ted explained, "the first left-hand fork leading from the Lorton Road. Climb over the mountain and drop down the other side. The first valley you'll see, it's right here, is Coon Valley. You can't miss it, there's a turnout and hunters have been using it. Park the truck and walk up Coon Valley. In about half a mile, or right here, you'll come to three sycamores near a big boulder. On this slope," Ted indicated it with his pencil, "there's a thicket of beech scrub. You can see everything in it from the top of the boulder, Glory Rock. Climb it and wait."

"That's all? Just wait?"

"That's all. If I can put him out of the laurel, there's at least an even chance he'll cross the ridge and try to get back into the thickets at the head of Coon Valley. If he does, he'll come through the beech scrub."

"And if you can't?"

"He won't."

"What time do you want me there, Ted?"

"There's no great hurry. He isn't going to leave his thickets easily. It will take you about an hour to reach the mouth of Coon Valley and maybe another half hour or forty-five minutes to get set on Glory Rock. If you leave the house by half-past six, you should be there soon after eight. That's time enough."

"How long should I wait?"

"Until I pick you up, and I will pick you up there. I may not come before dark. If I can put him past you, I will."

"As you say, General."

The tinny clatter of Ted's alarm clock awakened him at half-past three the next morning. He reached down to shut it off, reset it for half-past five and stole in to put it near the still sleeping John Wilson. Ted breakfasted, gave Tammie his food and a pat, donned his hunting jacket, put the strips of red cloth into the game pocket and stepped into the black morning.

He bent his head against the north wind and started climbing Burned Mountain. He knew as he climbed that he was pitting himself against a force as old as time.

The woodcraft of Pythias, or any deer, shamed that of the keenest human. Deer could identify every tiny sound, every wind that blew and the many scents those winds carried. They knew everything there was to know about their wilderness and they were all masters of it. No human could hope to equal their senses.

But Pythias, the greatest and most cunning of all, was still a beast. He knew and could interpret the wilderness, but he couldn't possibly apply reason to that which was not of the wilderness. If his confidence could be shaken....

It was still black night when Ted reached the summit of Burned Mountain, but he had crossed and re-crossed it so many times in the past twenty days that he could do so in the darkness. Pythias was there, and possibly he already knew that Ted was back on the mountain. But he'd feel secure in the thicket where he was bedded and he would not go out until he was flushed.

Ted sought the aspen grown aisles between the thickets. He hung a strip of red cloth on a wind whipped branch, walked fifty yards and hung another. The night lifted and daylight came, and an hour later Ted tied his last strip of cloth to a twig. Carrying no rifle—but Pythias couldn't possibly know that—he put his hands in his pockets to warm them. Now he had to flush the big buck.

He and his guest had left the great animal in one of the larger thickets last night, but it was almost certain that he hadn't passed the whole night there. Ted circled the thicket, found Pythias' unmistakable tracks and followed to where the big buck had nibbled tender young aspen shoots and pawed the snow to get at the dried grass beneath it. Thereafter Pythias had done considerable wandering. Ted worked out the trail and discovered where his quarry had gone to rest in another thicket.

He tracked him in, and he'd done this so many times that he knew almost exactly what to expect. The big buck would wait until he was sure someone was again on his trail, then he'd get up and sneak away. There would be nothing except tracks in the snow to mark his going. A man could not travel silently through the thickets, but a deer could.

Deep within the thicket, Ted found the bed, a depression melted in the snow, to which Pythias had retired when his wandering was done. The tracks leading away were fresh and sharp, no more than a couple of minutes old, but they were not the widely spaced ones of a running buck. Knowing very well what he was doing, aware of the fact that he could not be seen while there, Pythias always walked in the thickets.

However, when he decided to leave this thicket, he had leaped through the scrub aspen separating it from the next one. It could have taken him no more than a second or so. If a hunter had been watching, he would have had just a fleeting shot and only a lucky marksman would have connected. Ted followed fast. There were no cloth strips in these aspens.

But when he came to where Pythias had intended to leave the next thicket, he discovered where the big buck had set himself for the first leap then wheeled to slip back into the laurel. Ten feet to one side, the strip of cloth that had turned him still whipped in the wind. Pythias had tried again to leave the thicket, been turned a second time by another fluttering cloth and leaped wildly out at a place where Ted had hung no ribbons.

The buck's pattern changed completely. He was safe in the thickets, knew it, and had never deigned to run while sheltered by friendly brush. Now he was running, either in great leaps that placed his bunched feet six yards apart or at a nervous trot. Ted began to have hopes.

Pythias had the acute senses of a wild thing plus the cunning of a wise creature that had eluded every danger for years. But the wilderness he knew changed only with the changing seasons. What did the fluttering cloths mean? Where had they come from? What peril did they indicate? Pythias' tracks showed that he was becoming more nervous.

Ted pushed him hard. The buck could not reason, but if he passed enough of them safely and discovered for himself that there was no danger in the red ribbons, he would pay no more attention to them. An hour and a half after taking the track Ted knew that, at least in part, he had succeeded.

Unable to decide for himself what the fluttering cloths meant, Pythias swung away from the thickets into beech forest. Now he ran continuously. In the thickets, knowing very well that he could not be seen, he had walked until the fluttering cloths introduced an unknown and possibly dangerous element. This was beech forest, with visibility of anywhere from fifty up to as much as two hundred and fifty yards. A hunter might be anywhere and well the buck knew it. He was going to offer no one a standing shot.

Ted followed swiftly, for now the hunt had a definite pattern. A young buck, chased out of the thickets on Burned Mountain, might linger in the beeches. A wise old one would hurry as fast as possible into the thickets at the head of Coon Valley, and the nearest route lay through the scrub beech at Glory Rock. Ted was still a quarter of a mile away when he heard the single, sharp crack of a rifle.

He left the trail and cut directly toward Glory Rock. A volley was very picturesque and sounded inspiring, but whoever ripped off half a dozen shots in quick succession was merely shooting, without much regard to aiming. Ted murmured an old hunter's adage as he ran, "One shot, one deer. Two shots, maybe one deer. Three shots, no deer."

He ran down the slope into Coon Valley and found John Wilson standing over Pythias. The hunter's delighted eyes met Ted's, but mingled with his delight was a little sadness, too.

"I now," John Wilson said, "have lived."

"You got him!"

"I got him, poor fellow!"

"He'll never be a better trophy than he is right now."

It was true. At the height of his powers, Pythias faced a certain decline. Soon he would be old, and the wilderness is not kind to the old and infirm that dwell within it.

John Wilson laughed. "I know it. Look at him! Just look at him! I'll bet his base tine is thirteen inches long!"

Ted said, "Ten inches."

"Are you trying to beat yourself out of seventy-five dollars? I did promise you twenty-five dollars for every inch in its longest tine, if I got a head that satisfied me! This is surely the one!"

Ted grinned. "I'll dress it for you," he offered.

He turned the buck over, made a slit with his hunting knife and pulled the viscera out. At once it became evident that John Wilson was the second hunter of whom Pythias had run afoul, for he had been wounded before. Ted probed interestedly. Entering the flank, the bullet had missed the spine by two inches and any vital organs by a half inch. It had lodged in the thick loin, and nature had built a healing scab of tissue around it.

Ted probed it out with his knife and almost dropped the missile. In his hand lay one of Carl Thornton's distinctive, unmistakable, hand-loaded bullets.

John Wilson asked, "He's been wounded before, eh?"

"Yes!"

"Ted, I swear that you're more excited than I am!"

Ted scarcely heard. He was here, beside Glory Rock, the day after Smoky Delbert was shot. Damon and Pythias, always together, and a deer so badly wounded that it couldn't possibly go on. Damon hadn't gone on. Only Pythias had. Hurt but not mortally, he had left enough blood on the leaves to convince Ted that there'd been only one deer.

"When do you suppose he picked that one up?" John Wilson asked.

"I don't know."

Carl Thornton, who got what he wanted, had decided to get Damon and Pythias himself.

"He's darn' near as big as a horse," Wilson said.

"Sure is."

A horse, a friendly, easily caught horse, that had gone down Coon Valley that night with Damon on its back, then been released to go back up it.

"You certainly know how to field-dress a buck."

"I've done it before."

Smoky Delbert, happening to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Thornton couldn't afford to be found out. Smoky would blackmail him.

Thornton paying Delbert's hospital bills.

"Did I hit him square?"

"A good neck shot."

Factory-loaded ammunition that almost never failed to mushroom. Hand-loaded cartridges that might fail.

John Wilson fumbled in his pocket. "Doggone, I seem to have lost my pipe."

Al, forever losing his tobacco pouch, had gone to see Carl Thornton the day Thornton fired Ted.

Ted wiped his knife blade on the snow, stood up and sheathed his knife. He looped a length of rope around the great buck's antlers.

"He'll be easy to get out of here," he said.