350 AN AMERICAN HUNTER 



to kill it in cold-blood would be too much like murder, 

 and let it go. This tender-heartedness was regarded as 

 much misplaced both by farmer and gardener; hence the 

 coon suffered. 



A couple of years later, on a clear, cold Thanksgiving 

 Day, we had walked off some five miles to chop out a 

 bridle-path which had become choked with down-tim- 

 ber; the two elder of our little boys were with us. The 

 sun had set long ere our return; we were walking home 

 on a road through our own woods and were near the 

 house. We had with us a stanch friend, a large yel- 

 low dog, which one of the children, with fine disregard 

 for considerations of sex, had named Susan. Suddenly 

 Susan gave tongue off in the woods to one side and we 

 found he had treed a possum. This time I was hard- 

 hearted and the possum fell a victim; the five-year-old 

 boy explaining to the seven-year-old that " it was the 

 first time he had ever seen a fellow killed." 



Susan was one of many dogs whose lives were a joy 

 and whose deaths were a real grief to the family; among 

 them and their successors are or have been Sailor Boy, 

 the Chesapeake Bay dog, who not only loves guns, but 

 also fireworks and rockets, and who exercises a close and 

 delighted supervision over every detail of each Fourth 

 of July celebration; Alan and Jessie, the Scotch ter- 

 riers; and Jack, the most loved of all, a black smooth- 

 haired Manchester terrier. Jack lived in the house; 

 the others outside, ever on the lookout to join the family 

 in rambles through the woods. Jack was human in his 

 intelligence and affection; he learned all kinds of tricks, 



