512 BIG GAME OF NORTH AMERICA. 



"After a 'Coon this time of night? Is that the way to 

 hunt ' Coons ? Certainly, there can't be much sport in tramp- 

 ing through the dark woods on such a night as this. Why 

 not hunt them in the day-time? " 



Poor, unappreciative fellow, who has never known the 

 fun of racing through the dark aisles of the forest, falling 

 over twisted roots or rotten logs, dodging under low, out- 

 stretched limbs, keeping time to the enlivening music of a 

 dozen hounds in full cry! Yes, and how well would either 

 of us like to have him with us, to initiate him by losing 

 him and leaving him to keep up with us as best he could! 

 The latter he would be compelled, under the circumstances, 

 to do; for it would be worse than useless for him to under- 

 take to find his way, unaided, out of these dark, wild 

 woods, to light and civilization. A few brier-scratches, a 

 slight rent or two in his coat, or a few beggar-lice adhering 

 to his garments, would go a long way toward taking all 

 the taste for 'Coon-hunting out of him. Many's the time 

 we have cooked such fellows. Once was enough; they 

 wanted no more. 



But softly, my dear friend; before you condemn such 

 sport, come with us, and enjoy the music of the woods 

 after night -fall — -the low, murmuring trill of the brooklet, 

 the soft, gentle breeze in its whispers through the tops of 

 the lofty oaks, the tall shell-bark hickories, the towering 

 maples, and the wide-spreading elms; the silence broken 

 occasionally by the ghostly ' ' to-who-who-who-who-ah ' ' of 

 the great horned owl, as he calls to his mate from his perch 

 on the dead limb of some ancient monarch of the forest. 

 The very stillness is of itself music to the ardent lover of 

 Nature and Nature's God. 



Silently we travel from point to point, guided, in our 

 wanderings through the trackless woods, by the constella- 

 tions of Orion, the great Northern Dipper, Ursus Major, 

 and the Pleiades, whose silent tongues tell us our course. 



Just at dusk on a warm evening in early November, as a 

 gentle breeze came up from the south, Henry Fry rode up 

 to my gate, accompanied by his two black-and-tan hounds, 



