things had been stolen, then
altered to avoid identification, whoever did it had more than human
ability.

"Magic," Watson muttered.

"There's ... no ... such ... thing!"

"No, there absolutely ain't."

They sat looking with troubled eyes out over Dark Valley, till Jerry
said abruptly, "I'm going on up to see the Carvers."

Watson reached for the door handle. "They don't have no use for me. I'll
wait here. I got plenty to think about."

Jerry nodded. The sheriff would be remembering the seeds already
sprouting in the kitchen gardens. The leaves that had jumped out on the
old fruit trees. The lambs and calves capering in pastures washed with
the green of new grass.

The road was smooth, its ditches cleared and deepened. Bright clothing
napped on shiny new clotheslines (those were on the list, but how can
you identify a roll of wire?). Cordwood was stacked in every yard. New
shingles spotted the roofs, the windows held glass again, fresh paint
glistened on porches. In the fields, corn and oats and hay were shooting
upward....

Jerry found the Carvers waiting for him, their wrinkled old faces tense.
They didn't answer his greeting, just jerked their heads. They led him
past the cabin, through open brush, and halted at a bare place. Slowly,
Jerry sank to his knees.

Except for its size, it could have been a splayed-out cougar print. But
it was two feet across, and pressed more than an inch into the hard, dry
soil.

Finally Ed Carver nudged Jerry. The gnarled finger pointed to a twig of
wild lilac eight feet off the ground. Caught on the twig were several
coarse black hairs, six inches long. Jerry looked from them back to the
Carvers, then down at the ground again. He didn't speak. What was there
to say?

As they started back toward the cabin, Ed Carver said harshly, "We found
that two nights ago."

Jerry brooded for some distance, then he said, "Ned Ames has the best
hunting dogs in the country."

They looked at him disgustedly.

"Dammit, you have to do something! Come back to town with me. We'll get
some of the boys together, and hunt it down."

They had passed the cabin and reached the car. The Carver brothers
looked out over Dark Valley and shook their heads. "We've lived alone,"
Ed said. "We'll fight alone."

When Jerry told the sheriff about the giant spoor, Watson gave a
derisive snort. "Those old coots got bats in their belfries!"

"But I saw the print."

Watson dismissed such evidence with