620 BIG GAME OF NORTH AMERICA. 



to descend from the tree. I took my rifle, called old 

 "Boag," also a full-grown young pointer that was as 

 plucky as a Wildcat in a tussle with a 'Coon, and put out 

 to try what virtue there was in gunpowder. Arriving at 

 the tree, I got things in readiness. A good many small 

 branches grew from the trunk near the ground, and were 

 distributed from thence to the top, making the tree easy to 

 climb. I climbed up the tree to a height of about fifty feet, 

 and within ten feet of the top, wliere I came to a hole that 

 woodpeckers had dug out and that reached into the hollow. 

 Through this hole I could see the old cuss coiled up just a 

 little below, inside. The hole was hardly large enough to 

 admit the bottle of powder, so I took my pocket-knife and 

 enlarged it so that I could pass the bottle in. This the old 

 'Coon didn't like at all, and resented the intrusion by sav- 

 age growls. He made several attempts to snap my fingers 

 while I was at work. 



"But never mind, old boy; I'll give you something to 

 chew on directly." 



I struck a match, set the cotton rags on lire, coiled the 

 fuse around the flask, dumped the infernal machine in 

 on top of the 'Coon, and then made haste to get down the 

 tree; for I wouldn't have been uj) there when the mine 

 exploded for all the ' Coons in Old Town woods. 



Some fifteen minutes after reaching the ground, I heard 

 the fuse begin to s^mtter, and also heard the "Coon scram- 

 bling up the hollow — concluding, no doubt, that a bumble- 

 bee had gotten into his bed; when presently — "Whang I " 

 went the powder, like the roar of an old army-musket fired 

 into a large barrel. 



A dense column of smoke, rotten wood, and other debris 

 flew from the top of the hollow, and in the midst of it, out 

 popped the old plantigrade, with a tremendous leap clear 

 from the tree, coming down and striking the ground like a 

 bag full of wind, but apparently none the worse from the 

 effects of the powder, save that the wool on his rump was 

 somewhat scorched. The Pointer bounced him as soon as 

 he struck the ground. The 'Coon was as large-framed as 



