60 WILD SPORTS IN THE SOUTH. 



somethin' onnateral in that painter. She won't tree, and she goes 

 in a straight line to t'other eend of creation, and now she 's going 

 back agin. Wall, here goes,' sez I, and I took another log and 

 ferried back agin to the north shore. There was the trail as clare 

 as mud, and big as an alligator's. Up the bank and away inter the 

 woods we went. There 's no sucking of cubs now. Yowler is a 

 hurryin' her along a leetle too fast for any sich family doin's. So 

 on we went right north. ' Jerusalem ! ' sez I to myself, ' keep on 

 this way, old steamboat, much longer, and you '11 be back where 

 you started from, and I '11 drive you into Colonel Jackson's pen, 

 and shut the door on you ! ' 



" 'Bout by the Black Mud Creek there 's a flat of land that had 

 been overflowed and had dried off, and as we come here I seed the 

 painter had jumped through, and every time she had jumped she 

 had come up to her belly in the mud, and once or twice had come 

 so low that her neck and chin had sunk in the mud. Thinks I, 

 that must put the cub under in the mud, yet I don't see the marks 

 of the little rat. 



" Jist then we got through the creek, and I seed whare the 

 old painter had lain down on the bank with her side to the 

 river. 



" Thar were her tracks as clare as Gospel, but whar was the 

 cub ? The cub was gone ! Whar had it gwine to ? It was clare 

 it hadn't gwine anywhare that Yowler and I had been ; it had been 

 left on the fur side of the Ouithlacouchee. It tuck just a minute 

 of thinkin', and it was all clare. The bee-line she had made, the 

 two full tits, the bee-line back agin ; what a cursed fool I was 

 not to have seen through it afore I had come so fur ! 



" The painter had littered two cubs somewhar near whar I had 

 seen her in the mornin' ; she had been chased, and knew the parts 

 was onsafe ; she had made up her mind to carry her cubs into the 

 Ouithlacouchee swamp, and had started with one when Yowler 

 struck her trail. That was the reason she sent Yowler back ; that 

 was the reason she wouldn't tree ; and jist keepin' in sound of the 

 dog's yelp, had gone right to the swamp, hid her cub, come back 

 on her back track to ketch the dog and lead him away, till she 

 could go back fur t'other cub, bein sartin' that the hound and his 



