Spurting ahead, the old truck still missed by a wide margin a lean coyote that was running a scant twenty feet behind the buck. Tammie rose and bristled. Ted held him down. The collie was fast, but nothing except a greyhound was fast enough to catch a coyote. Visible for only fleeting seconds, this one disappeared in the forest. Failing to run the coyote down, Al stopped his truck. "Doggone! Of all times to be without a rifle!" "It looked to me as though he was chasing that buck," Ted observed. Al shook his head. "Just followin' it; one coyote couldn't kill a grown buck. But he can and will do a lot of damage 'mongst the small game. I'll have to nail that critter's scalp to the wall soon's I can. Let's have a look." They got out and examined the tracks in the dusty road. Al made careful observations of his own. He went a little ways into the forest and came back to the truck. "Looks like he's been crossin' here quite a few times. I'll fetch the rifle tomorrow mornin', on the chanst I'll nail him. If I don't, I'd best string some traps. Can't have coyotes in the Mahela." "We sure can't." Without completely understanding his father's bitter lesson--seeing his beloved wilderness all but denuded of game by thoughtless or greedy hunters and built back through sound conversation--Ted knew only that Al had an almost ferocious hatred for destructive elements wherever they were found. Therefore, the coyote could not be tolerated. Ted's eyes roved up Hawkbill, and the cool wind felt good on his face. When they mounted a hill, he strove for and caught a glimpse of the burned mountain behind Hawkbill. Al saw and interpreted his look. "They're there all right, and it's my bet they'll be there after deer season ends." "Not both of 'em," Ted asserted. "I'm going to nail one or the other." "Which one you aim to get? Damon? Or Pythias?" "Either will satisfy. How do you tell 'em apart?" "I imagine there'd be some small differences if a man was close. But on a far look, I can't tell which is which. They're alike as two peas in a pod. All I'm sure of is that I never saw bigger bucks." Ted said smugly, "Either should be as much advertising for the Harknesses as it could be for Crestwood." "Hadn't you ought to get it first?" Al asked wryly. "Well, here we are again." To the vast delight and relief of a colony of chipmunks that were snugly at home beneath it, the Harknesses had built their new camp on the site of the old. However, they had done so to save hauling lumber and because the old foundation was so solid; any benefits accruing to the chipmunks were merely incidental. The new camp was a one-story structure, twenty-six feet long by eighteen wide.