The Possum 165 



testing — he trailed nothing but possums and 

 coons, though he could do no less than join 

 in the crying when Music's growling note 

 said " Varmint ! " There were not so many 

 wild-cats, but almost every season one was 

 killed. The negroes never let a cat slip if 

 they could help it — Major Baker had a stand- 

 ing offer of a lamb and a pig for barbecuing, 

 to each man who killed a wild-cat. The cats 

 if they multiplied would, he knew, cost him 

 very many pigs and lambs. When old and 

 savage, they kill, not from hunger, but purely 

 for the sake of killing. Their harborage was 

 the sink-holes about in the swales, especially 

 the big swale, which had a water-shed of many 

 acres. When the dogs ran them to their holes 

 somebody threw a lighted torch into the hole, 

 and when the wild-cat leaped out, yowling and 

 spitting, trying to turn on his back, or to sink 

 his claws in a dog as he leaped, he was knocked 

 down with long poles, and quickly killed. 

 Whoever gave him the finishing stroke cut off 

 his ears, and the tip of his blunt tail to show 

 he was a real wild-cat, not merely a tame cat 

 gone wrong. But even if the tail was long, 

 the Major did not grudge the reward. 



Towards twelve o'clock, when the moon 

 stood high enough to light up tall timber, the 

 possum-hunt was apt to turn into a coon-hunt 

 — particularly if it had had great luck in pos- 



