"You didn't..."
Larson chuckled.
"When you and the doctor left last night, I was suspicious. I went down the road this morning and located your car. I took along a gun for protection. Spent an hour in the swamp. Got tired of tracking you after that."
Norm Boody had been studying them curiously.
"Bill said you were asking a lot of questions last night, Earl."
Larson spoke again before Robinson could answer.
"Of course we all go at things a little differently," he admitted. "However, I got an idea that the phantom wouldn't attack a man who didn't carry a gun. Earl left his in the car when he went into the swamp."
Robinson nodded.
"I went into the swamp," he admitted. "I had an idea the phantom might be sort of a ghostly protector of the herd. We have quite a slaughter of deer up here every fall. It must be hard on them if they have any feeling at all. What's so damn much different between men killing deer, or a deer killing a man? If the Phantom exists, he's sort of a protecting angel—or a God. If I had met him ..."
"You didn't?" Norm Boody asked sharply.