d. "You think that whatever did this was the same as the others?"

"Yes. The dog must have jumped it while it was eating at the heifer.
Same superficial scratches about the head, and deep cuts on the throat
or belly. The bigger the animal, the farther front the big slashes
occur. Evidently something grabs them by the head with front claws,
and slashes with hind claws; that's why I think it's a bobcat."

"You know," the private said, "I saw a lot of wounds like that during
the war. My outfit landed on Mindanao, where the guerrillas had been
active. And this looks like bolo-work to me."

"The surplus-stores are full of machetes and jungle knives," the
sergeant considered. "I think I'll call up Doc Winters, at the County
Hospital, and see if all his squirrel-fodder is present and accounted
for."

"But most of the livestock was eaten at, like the heifer," Parker
objected.

"By definition, nuts have abnormal tastes," the sergeant replied.
"Or the eating might have been done later, by foxes."

"I hope so; that'd let me out," Parker said.

"Ha, listen to the man!" the private howled, stopping the car at the
end of the lane. "He thinks a nut with a machete and a Tarzan complex
is just good clean fun. Which way, now?"

"Well, let's see." The sergeant had unfolded a quadrangle sheet; the
game protector leaned forward to look at it over his shoulder. The
sergeant ran a finger from one to another of a series of variously
colored crosses which had been marked on the map.

"Monday night, over here on Copperhead Mountain, that cow was killed,"
he said. "The next night, about ten o'clock, that sheepflock was hit,
on this side of Copperhead, right about here. Early Wednesday night,
that mule got slashed up in the woods back of the Weston farm. It was
only slightly injured; must have kicked the whatzit and got away, but
the whatzit wasn't too badly hurt, because a few hours later, it hit
that turkey-flock on the Rhymer farm. And last night, it did that." He
jerked a thumb over his shoulder at the Strawmyer farm. "See, following
the ridges, working toward the southeast, avoiding open ground, killing
only at night. Could be a bobcat, at that."

"Or Jink's maniac with the machete," Parker agreed. "Let's go up by
Hindman's gap and see if we can see anything."

* * * * *

They turned, after a while, into a rutted dirt road, which deteriorated
steadily into a grass-grown track through the woods. Fin