MY LAST HUNT ON THE KINZUA. 91 



weather was favorable. We waited for February when we knew 

 that the old dog coon would begin his rounds of calling on his 

 friends. 



We managed to pass the time away fairly well as we would 

 get a fox, mink, marten or something nearly every day so that 

 we busied ourselves. About the middle of February we had several 

 warm days and the time had now come for us to get busy and we 

 were out as soon as it was light. We would follow up all the 

 spring runs until we found the trail of a coon, then follow it up 

 until it went into a tree. Sometimes it bothered us which tree 

 to cut down for the coon would go from one tree to another so 

 that it was hard to tell which was the tree that was the home 

 of the coon (some call it a den). One day we chopped down 

 a great large oak, three or four feet in diameter and nearly sound 

 all the way through and nary a coon to be found. I asked Bill 

 why he did not say cuss words and he said he thought we had 

 spent enough wind in chopping the tree down, without wasting 

 any unnecessarily. 



Well, as I said, the coon had been up and down so many 

 trees that we did not know which one was the most likely one. 

 We went to a large basswood tree that had only one track going 

 to it and one away from it but when we pounded on it with the 

 axe, we saw that it was very hollow. I suggested to Bill that 

 we chop it down. Bill thought there were no coon in it and I 

 had but little faith myself but I told him that as he had been 

 wanting a wood job, here was his opportunity and Bill agreed with 

 me, so we laid off our coats and went to chopping. The tree was 

 only a shell. We soon had it down and to our surprise, coon 

 began to run in all directions. Not having had much hopes of 

 finding any coon in the tree we had not prepared ourselves with 

 clubs to kill the coon. We used the axe handle as best we could 

 but one coon got away and went into a hollow stump which we 

 had to cut down. We got five coon. We then took up the trail 

 of the coon that left the tree and after following it about a mile 

 it went into a large hemlock tree that had a hole in it close to 

 the roots. Pounding on it we discovered that it was hollow. 



