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brush. Not he. It was a quiet sneak 
with him, gliding away like a gray 
shadow, with nothing to tell of his dis- 
appearance but the clean-cut hoof- 
marks, and the frantic baying of the 
hounds. Did he always take the same 
track when they jumped him? Well, I 
reckon not. Did he come to the river 
always at about the same spot to drink, 
and at approximately the same time? 
Not since he could remember. Let 
them get him if they could. He was as 
wary as an eagle, as full of tricks as a 
fox. And what a towering deer he 
was, to be sure, and what a rivalry there 
was among the dark-eyed does for his 
attentions. Few were the upland bucks 
that ever dared to cross antlers witl: 
him for their favors. He was too big 
and fierce for any of them, and indeed 
he would never have escaped so many 
pitfalls and ambushes if he had not 
borne a sort of charmed life among the 
deer tribe. 
When it got too hot for him in his 
favorite haunts it was said he bore due 
east and swam the Mississippi river to 
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AND. His BUCK 
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an island that lay half way between 
Arkansas and the Lauderdale country 
in Tennessee. Anyway, he used to dis- 
appear when there was very consider- 
able stir around his particular neck of 
swamp, for as “Doc” Amory said— 
and everybody called him “Doc’s buck” 
—he would stand just about so much 
hunting and no more; not more than 
three chases with the hounds, and say 
from five to seven rifle bullets whistling 
past him and burying themselves in the 
cypress trunks or the enormous ash or 
cottonwood trees. He would change 
his address sure, then, and nobody in 
Mississippi county would see him again 
that winter. 
Many a buck had seen daylight for 
the last time in those swamps and up- 
lands, many a king of the white-tailed 
tribe had dug his antlers into the brush 
or cane in his dying struggles, but 
Doc’s buck still eluded all pursuers. 
Only one man had ever met him at 
close range, and that was our darky 
cook of Camp Plenty, who had taken 
a short-cut through the swamps one 

CAMP PLENTY, WITH THE COOK AND THE HEAVY EATERS ON PARADE 
