140 
FOREST AND * STREAM. 
|Teb. IS, 1896. 
on bevies. Down 55 minutes. Top made one point, which 
he left when he heard his handler's whistle. 
Tory Fashion ran a bye. He was started in on marked 
birds. Sent on, he roaded, pointed, went on and flushed 
the bevy. He then took a long cast after the scattered 
birds on forbidden ground and pointed them. Sent on, 
he pointed a bevy and next made a point on the scattered 
birds. He ranged well. Down 32 minutes, beginning at 
2:23. 
Second Round. 
Six dogs were retained in this round. 
Tony Boy and Tory Dotlet started at 3:08. Down 59 
minutes. Dotlet after the heat was half over was very 
tired, and her range had gradually lessened. Tony Boy 
was going strong and ranging wide at the finish. He 
was brought in to back one of Dotlet's bevy points, when 
he independently joined in the point, and she did the 
same when called in to back his point on one bevy. He 
made a good find and point on a bevy, and also pointed 
two singles well. He flushed one single. Dotlet made a 
good find and point on a bevy, and a point on scattered 
birdB. 
Revenue and Tony Gale were started at 4:14. Down 
40 minutes. The heat was light in point work. Much 
ground was beaten. " Revenue appeared to be out of form, 
as he was going heavily and not up to bis first heat. Tony 
Gale worked diligently. He made a point on two singles. 
Mr. Titus withdrew Revenue after running 36 minutes. 
Lady Mildred and Tory Fashion started at 5:05. The 
handlers rode horseback in this heat. Tory pointed a 
bevy, one single, and made one barren point. Lady made 
five points on singles, three of which were indifferent, 
and she made two points which were worthless. Down 
32 minutes, They ranged well. 
A COON HUNT IN THE SNOW IN 
OLD VIRGINIA. 
In December of 1892, when the whole country was 
covered with snow, my brother Walter and I, in talking 
over matters one day, conceived the idea of tairing a trip 
to Virginia, to visit one of our old friends in the country, 
Mr. S. , and to take a coon hunt in the snow. We were 
not long in making up our minds, and arranged to start 
a few days later. After getting together our traps, rifles, 
etc. , off we started, reaching the old plantation without a 
mishap. Our friend was delighted to see us, and we at 
once proceeded to get into trim for a hunt, We had just 
been in the country a day when Tom S., son of our host, 
came unexpectedly upon the scenes. This settled the 
much-talked-of affair immediately, as Tom was as fond of 
hunting as were ourselves. 
The snow was at least 12 or 15in. deep, which indicated 
at once that we were to have a glorious time, and as our 
host's old darky — Coleman — had been reconnoitering the 
whole of the day before to find out where the best hunt- 
ing grounds were, and had just returned, informing us 
* that "I neber see so many coon tracks before in all my 
born days," we knew that our most ardent hopes were 
about to be realized. So that night old Coleman was in- 
structed to have his two dogs, Ranger and Jack, ready 
early the next morning for the fray, and after other 
minor details were looked after we repaired to bed to 
dream of the "free wool" that would fly the following 
day. 
By 5 o'clock in the morning we were all astir. Both 
Ranger and Jack, whom Coleman had brought over, 
seemed to know by instinct what was coming, as they 
kept up an incessant yelping and howling until we started. 
At 6:30 we were off. The sun was just peeping over 
the snow-clad trees on the banks of the adjacent river, 
causing them to resemble myriads of sparkling diamonds. 
COLEMAN AT HOME — U B*ILING THE POSSUM." 
There were six of us altogether, as Mr. C, a jolly old 
farmer from the neighborhood, came to Mr. S.'s the night 
before to join us. We were all armed with sixteen-shot 
Winchester rifles, .32cal., with the exception of our host 
and Coleman. Mr. S. had a five- shot Winchester repeat- 
ing shotgun, with which he claimed he could down an 
elephant, although he had on several occasions stood and 
looked with wondering eyes at a nimble buck which had 
been made to leave unwillingly its lair, by the wary 
huntsman with his hounds, forgetting entirely that his 
trusty Winchester was in his hands until the game was 
out of range. It is unnecessary to explain to the hunts- 
man the cause of Mr. S.'s bewilderment on these occa- 
sions. Coleman was armed with an old Springfield 
"muskit," as he termed it, and an axe. 
W ell, we had in a few minutes gotten over to the river 
and started up through the woods, Coleman leading the 
way to his coon tracks. As soon as we got pretty well 
into the woods we let the two dogs loose, They started 
up the river bank at full tilt, as though trying to see which 
could scent game first. We had perhaps traversed about 
half a mile of the woodland when Ranger began to yelp, 
a sure sign that game was near. In about twenty seconds 
later, off the dogs bolted, We could see from the slight 
elevation we were on down into a ravine ahead of us and 
in which direction the dogs were running. Suddenly 
Tom S., who was slightly in advance of the rest of us, 
raised his rifle and fired twice in rapid succession, and in 
looking in the direction of his aim we saw the coon (for 
coon it was) going over the hill ahead, with Ranger and 
Jack in hot pursuit. 
Tom's rifle had not done the execution he had expected. 
He exclaimed as we got up to where he was, "Confound 
the luck! those two shells were the old ones I reloaded 
and failed to crimp the bullets tightly in; I was afraid that 
I would miss." 
"Well, there is no use in crying over spilt milk," we 
all exclaimed. "Let's be after those dogs or they will be 
entirely out of hearing in a few minutes." So off we 
started on a dead run through the deep snow, which 
greatly impeded our progress as a matter of course; but 
after we had kept up our gait for a quarter of a mile, we 
heard the dogs baying, I said, "Now, boys, we'll have it!" 
In a short time we came up to where the dogs were at 
the foot of an immense pine tree — a coon's haven usually 
in this section, as the pines are so tall and thick it is 
impossible to see anything in the tops of them. The dogs 
TREED. 
were running around the tree, jumping upon it, scratching 
and biting madly at the bark. I told Tom S. to go on the 
lower side of the tree next to the river, while the rest of 
us scattered around on all sides to see if we could get a 
glimpse of his coonship, Old Coleman, who had been 
shading his eyes and peering up into the thick branches 
of the pine, suddenly called out, "Here he, boss! here he! 
I see his eyes a-blinkin'." I went over to where he was 
and in looking in the direction he indicated I could just 
see the'coon's head; he was lying close to a large limb at 
its junction with the body of the tree about 60ft. from the 
ground. Raising my rifle I fired. My bullet, however, 
only struck the limb he was against, as I could see from 
the flying bark, and only served to make him change his 
position slightly. Just as he moved, Walter, who was on 
the opposite side of the tree from me, spied him and fired. 
Almost at the crack of the rifle down he tumbled. When 
we got to where he had fallen he was quite dead, the ball 
having entered his head on the right side and gone 
entirely through. Walter was very much elated to have 
bagged the first game. 
After we had stood around discussing for a few mo- 
ments what direction we should now take, and after 
watching old Ranger and Jack nosing the coon and 
growling at each other as to which should have possession 
of it, we started off again, following, as before, the mean- 
dering course of the turbulent stream below us. We 
moved along in silence for some time, expecting every 
moment to see the dogs make a break for game in some 
direction, but in this we were disappointed to a certain 
extent, as we had perhaps traveled a mile from the point 
where we had killed the first coon before anything of 
interest happened. 
We were all beginning to get pretty well tired out by 
this time tramping through the snow, when suddenly old 
Coleman, who was slightly in advance of us, dropped to 
the ground as though he had been shot, looking back as 
he did so and beckoning us to stop. There was a little 
rise of ground some 50yds. ahead of us which cut off our 
view, and we could not see the object of Coleman's pre- 
caution. We knew, however, that his keen and hawk- 
like eye had discerned something in the way of game, 
and our only trouble was to get the dogs in. They had 
gotten behind us and were coming up the hill as we 
stopped. As they trotted along in the path that we had 
made through the snow, we did not have much trouble 
in catching them, as they came up to where we were. 
Tom S. caught the collar of Jack and Walter caught hold 
of Ranger. As soon as Coleman saw we had the dogs 
secured he waived his hand to us to keep still, and he 
crawled along through the snow until he reached the 
little hillock ahead of us, where he could getbahind some 
holly bushes which entirely obscured him from anything 
that might be in the ravine below. 
He had been crouching for fully a minute behind the 
bushes as though he were inanimate, when just then he 
slowly raised his musket and let drive. Witn the report 
of his piece up flew a flock of about twenty wild turkeys. 
We saw then what had caused him to so suddenly drop 
in the snow. The turkeys evidently did not know from 
which side they had been assailed, and being so fright- 
ened they flew in our direction and within gunshot of 
Mr. S., who was equal to the occasion; picking out a big 
gobbler, he banged away and down it came with a thud 
in the snow. His aim, though, had been rather too low, 
and he had only broken one of the gobbler's wings, and 
as soon as he touched the snow he started to run and we 
had to turn the dogs loose before we could catch it. Old 
Ranger soon ran it down, however. 
As soon as we had secured Mr. S.'s trophy we turned 
our attention to Coleman, who was just then coming up 
to us with one of the largest gobblers we ever saw. He 
was a monster. We afterward weighed him, and he 
tipped the scales at 24^lbs. Coleman was so excited he 
could scarcely talk, but when he regained his equanimity 
he blurted out: "Boss, I sure did knock him dat time. 
When I peeped from behind dat bush and saw dis here 
old gobbler a-lookin' as doe he done specked somethin' 
was wrong in de air, I thought be looked big as a elephunt, 
but] I jest knowed ole Betsey (this is what he called his 
musket) would lay him out. She neber fails when you 
p'int her in de right d'reetion." 
Mr. S.'s turkey was much smaller than Coleman's, but 
still it was quite a large one. We now had quite as much 
game as we could carry between us, and we took turns at 
carrying the two turkeys and coon. Our exercise by this 
time commenced to tell upon us; we were all beginning to 
get pretty hungry and tired, and as it was nearly 12 o'clock 
we decided to eat our lunch before proceeding further. 
Picking out an old fallen hickory, after brushing away 
the snow, we seated ourselves and set about enjoying our 
cold dinner and to spinning yarns. 
After eating our lunch, which we were not long in 
doing — it being too cold to keep still for any length of 
time — we were about to continue our journey, when Cole- 
man (who had sneaked off with the dogs), just as Mr. C. 
was in the midst of relating an amusing account of one 
of the many turkey hunts he had taken a few years back, 
came up, holding by the tail a tremendous possum. The 
dogs had found him in a hollow stump down near the 
river and Coleman had captured it alive. "What are 
you going to do with him, Coleman?" I asked. "Lor! 
boss," he replied, "we just gwine to hab de finest time 
you eber hearn tell of, eatin' dat 'possum' and drinkin' 
'simmon beer." (The colored people in the South take 
ripe persimmons in the fall and winter, and after mixing 
them with the sif tings from wheat flour — using a little 
water to make the mass stick together — make immense 
cakes of them, which they bake in a large oven. After 
they are sufficiently cooked they then put the cakes into a 
barrel of water, letting it stand for a week or two, when 
a beverage is secured of which they are extremely fond.) 
And as he said it he smacked his lips as though he had 
already begun his contemplated feast. 
We now moved on, and soon had another coon treed, this 
time in a tall gum tree with but few branches where he 
could not shelter himself. We told Mr. C. to try his hand 
at this one, and he soon had him bagged, firing only one 
shot at him. It was now impossible for us to carry all of 
our game. We were getting more or less tired from our 
tramp, so we sent Coleman over to a neighboring colored 
man's house to ask him if he would not take our game 
home for us. Coleman soon returned with this man, and 
after telling him he could take one of the coons for his 
trouble, we were off again. 
We now left the river, as Mr. S. insisted upon our going 
over to a body of woods surrounding a large mill pond 
not very far distant from where we were, as he thought 
we would find more game there. We had just gotten 
THE CROWE. 
into the edge of the woods when the dogs began to cry. 
They were running from us very rapidly, and owing to 
the snow we could scarcely keep within hearing of them. 
However, we soon heard the deep bass voice of old Ranger, 
treeing. 
Making our way in the direction of the soundi as rap- 
idly as possible, we soon came up to where the dogs were, 
at the foot of an old hollow gum tree with the top broken 
off. About 30ft. from the ground we could see an open- 
ing into the hollow. We were satisfied the coon was in- 
side, as old Ranger never gave a false alarm, but how to 
get him out without cutting the tree down was the ques- 
tion. Presently Tom S. said, "If one of you will hold 
my rifle I'll try and climb the tree and run a stick down 
into the hollow and see if I cannot make the coon or' 
whatever it is come out." 
Then old Coleman, hearing him say this, remarked: 
"Boss, you better be keerful bow you climbs up dar, 
'cause a coon when he find he cornered like dis am gwine 
to be mighty savage, and he might took a notion to bite 
you if he comes outen dat hole." 
Tom, however, paid no attention to what Coleman said 
and, handing his rifle to Walter to hold, he started to 
climb the tree. Mr. S., who had heard what Coleman 
said, did not want Tom to go up the tree and said, "Don't 
go up that tree, Tommy." Mr. C. was getting excited by 
