January, 1919 
FOREST AND STREAM 
11 
Nothing is more fascinating than Southern woods where sunlight steals through 
off again, up farther, till as we followed 
him on with the beams of light we saw 
him, a furry ball, up in the high branches, 
with eyes shining green and his hair on 
end, or so it seemed. He was a long shot 
where he was, and a hard one. But the 
old trapper winged him with a twenty- 
two rifle shot, and down he came crash- 
ing through the branches, to make one 
flying leap out in the dark, where we 
heard him land among the big fans of a 
cabbage palm, with a rattle like a cow 
tramping through dry fodder. 
Now Robin Hood the pointer was hav- 
ing his first ’coon hunt, and evidently 
enjoying himself to the limit. He fairly 
screamed his delight in frantic barks and 
wild leaps up the tree trunk. He was 
sure to the tip of his tail that he wanted 
that ’coon till I shined the lights in the 
palm top at which Robin was barking. 
There was Mr. ’Coon, evidently not badly 
hurt either, and fighting mad; for far 
from trying to hide, he was coming down, 
snarling, almost spitting fury from his 
green eyes and bristling fur. And he 
came straight on down, till Robin gave 
one frightened gasp and ran. 
I never saw a dog change his mind so 
quickly, and, indeed, I didn’t blame him. 
I had always thought that ’coons were 
sort of sly, cunning, peaceful citizens till 
I saw this old he come down after the 
dog. Also I love my old pointer, and 
didn’t want him to tackle the beast. To 
tell the plain truth, I was scared some 
too; for he came right down on my side, 
and with no shadow of flinching, spitting 
fire from his green eyes, and looking 
huge in the carbide light. So I let go 
swiftly, one barrel after the other, with 
my shotgun, and Mr. ’Coon dropped 
dead. . . . Then I felt sorry to down 
a valiant soul like that by sheer brutal 
machinery. He ought to have had the 
privilege of dying like a warrior — in hot 
clinch with the dogs. I am convinced that 
he would have made Liberty steak 
of old Robin; still, there are some things 
a sportsman hates to do, and I just hated 
to shoot that spitting ball of sheer pluck. 
But when I examined his teeth, and his 
muscular body, and his heavy fur, I real- 
ized that he was an easy champion over 
an inexperienced pointer, scarcely beyond 
his pup’s age. I may add in explanation, 
that I have his hide now, and the old 
trapper declared it was the huskiest ’coon 
he had seen for many moons. 
A fter that, we didn’t have much 
luck. And as it was getting late, 
we decided to make for home. You 
will remember that I mentioned the mist 
that gathered over the clearings. Well, 
it was here on the prairie just about head 
high, and I had an interesting argument 
with the old trapper, who declared he 
knew exactly where we were, and not 
only that, but knew every stick and tree 
about there. It is always interesting to 
match instinct with a testing machine, 
and I happened to have two, right in 
front of me, my pocket compass, and the 
north star, 
“Which way is home?” I said. 
“Right there,” and the old trapper 
pointed northeast. 
“Which way do you think is home?” I 
asked of our other friend. 
“That way,” and he pointed due west. 
The old trapper scorned him. “Why, 
Boss,” he said, “I tell you I know every 
bit of ground and tree and ditch here 
for miles. I’ve walked over them from 
‘kaint see’ to ‘kaint see,’ and many a time 
at dark.” 
“Well, now,” said I, “think out just 
where we ought to be, considering all 
our turnings and twistings, and tell me 
what direction by compass camp lies.” 
“Southwest,” came the answer. 
“And which way is southwest?” 
“Right there,” and the trapper still 
pointed northeast. 
Even when the compass was held in 
the carbide gleam he still insisted he was 
right. Positively he knew by feeling 
just where he was. “But there is the 
north star, and by that you are pointing 
northeast as the way home.” 
It made no difference, he clung to his 
statement. And I could not but agree 
with him so far as feeling was concerned. 
So we all sat down, smoked a pipe with 
our eyes shut, then got up and focussed 
on the north star, thus getting our sense 
of direction righted. And immediately, 
feeling agreed with star and compass, we 
went straight home. Again another il- 
lustration of the value of a compass in 
strange country. 
I T was almost midnight when we rolled, 
dead tired, into our bunks. But next 
night we were over the prairie again, 
this time eight miles away, on the banks 
of a small river running through an un- 
ending swamp. Far as the eye could 
close tree trunks over masses of flowers 
reach from the height of the log road 
trestle, swamp. And such swamp — cov- 
ered with growth and water hyacinth it 
looked solid. But Robin Hood found out 
it wasn’t, for jumping right off the bank 
into it, he plumped through the dense 
growth and out of sight in black water. 
After that he stayed on undoubtedly 
solid ground. 
As we stood there in the gathering 
dusk, bellowing like great frogs’ voices 
came to us. In fact I thought they were 
frogs, till an old settler asked me if I’d 
seen the ’gators. 
“No, not yet.” 
“Well, you hear them.” 
And then I realized that this froggy 
noise all around us was the sure enough 
bellowings of ’gators. 
It would seem that any man would be 
able to recognize an alligator when he 
saw it, wouldn’t it? Well, here is what 
happened to me. Right within sight of 
that trestle I waded into a shallow part 
of the swamp after some ducks. I downed 
one or two, and started in to retrieve 
them. Every once in a while as I stepped 
along in hip boots, a swirl like a giant 
bass makes, would go off right within a 
yard of me. And I mentally registered 
a purpose to come in here fishing. With 
my eye lifted for an instant from the 
dead duck, floating on the weeds, I turned 
back to it. It had gone. The same thing 
happened to the second one. And in two 
hundred yards of that slow tramp 
through the shallow swamp over a dozen 
such swirls went out from beneath my 
feet. It was only next day that I realized 
I had been unconsciously stepping among 
gar pike and 'gators. And here is how I 
found out. Cummings, the Veteran, and 
I were shooting duck in Indian Mound 
pond, a small lake right off this big 
swamp. And duck after duck, thus 
downed neatly, simply disappeared, with- 
out rhyme or visible reason. I was telling 
the camp boss about it, and he simply 
grunted, “ ’Gators.” 
Of course I was sceptical, but on my 
next trip to the pond I took particular 
notice. We downed two pair of ducks, 
and there they were floating crumpled 
on the surface. We retrieved the nearest 
one, and went on to the next in a slow- 
moving, heavy punt. The duck simply 
disappeared, and the third. Just as I 
came alongside of the fourth, the duck 
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