The Champion 'Coon Hunter's Story 169 



*' 'AH down/ shouted Joe, when me an* me 

 fightin' partner were just about winded. 



'* 'All dead,' I called back, an' then we laid 

 'em out in a row an' counted 'em in the moonlight. 

 There was seventeen of as fine a lot o' 'coons as 

 ever tasted corn. 



"An' I think, that that there night's 'coon 

 huntin' has never been equalled in these parts. 

 These here young chaps that's been talkin' 'coon 

 huntin' nowadays are in the first book at that kind 

 o' work. Of course, they haven't got the 'coons 

 now that we had in the good old days, but I doubt 

 it, anyway, that there 's any such three coon hunt- 

 ers in the land like Joe an' that dog an' me." 



"Pretty good 'coon story," said I, and I sug- 

 gested that he fill up his pipe in further anticipa- 

 tion of hunting history. I was not disappointed. 



"Maybe ye've heard about deer huntin' an' buck 

 fever," said the old man as he wreathed himself 

 about with clouds of aromatic smoke. "Maybe 

 ye could stand to hear about one o' my deer 

 hunts." 



I Sastened to assure him that we 'd be delighted 

 and he proceeded to unroll the films of memory 

 thus: 



a-chasin' the deee 



"One day in the fall of '54 I made the record of 

 my life in deer shootin'," he started off with his 

 story. "With my old smoothbore rifle and my 

 dog I wandered off into the woods an' that was a 



