FOREST AND STREAM 
371 
Some Coon Hunts 
The Dogs Were Specialists—On Rabbits and Skunks—But They Knew^How to Go After Coons Too 
B UGLE, the foxhound, was evidently very 
much puzzled, also somewhat annoyed, 
judging from an occasional short ough! 
He had picked up the trail of a coon a mile or 
so above the covered bridge at Neversink village. 
Mr. Coon had been fishing the Neversink during 
the night, probably for some of the big trout that 
were coming up the stream to spawn. 
Owing to a slight mishap, he was later than 
usual in starting for home. He had stuck that 
inquisitive nose under one of our deadfalls set for 
mink. Hair on the edge of the heavy slab of 
rock and sundry rips in the earth told the story. 
There had been quite a struggle. No doubt he 
had left with a headache. 
Herman Christian and I were bound for the 
Big Bend on a mixed hunting trip, perhaps to 
set a trap or two. The day was one of last No¬ 
vember’s best. It had been necessary to cross 
the stream several times. Herman, who wore 
rubber hip-boots, weighed about 180 pounds; I 
had on low hunting shoes, and balanced the 
scales at no after a hearty meal. Quite natu¬ 
rally Herman played ferryman. 
Bugle and Rove had accompanied us. The 
former is a full-blooded foxhound, with a good 
voice and a decided preference for red foxes, 
although he will take a chance at any animal that 
leaves a scent. After a brush or two with reddy 
he becomes blase as to rabbits and pretends to 
be afraid of the briars. With tail vibrating rapid¬ 
ly he would sometimes execute a stiff-legged 
tango around a likely-looking briar-patch. This 
was done to attract Rove’s attention. After that 
good natured and obliging purp had explored the 
ground Bugle would trot off to look up a cotton¬ 
tail that did not loaf in briar patches. I saw 
him put this over on Rove more than once; that 
poor innocent never seemed to get wise to it. 
Rove, Bugle’s side partner in the rabbit busi¬ 
ness, also was a specialist—a skunk dog, and a 
good one. He was a shaggy, long-haired, short¬ 
legged, excitable pup of many blends, with lan¬ 
guage aplenty, and spoke the sharp ki-yi dialect. 
When worked up over a hot scent his ki-yi’s 
flowed forth in one steady stream. 
I slid from Herman’s broad back as we made 
the last crossing and sat down to fill a pipe and 
watch him set a deadfall. Bugle was still worry¬ 
ing over that trail. Rove was down the stream 
trying to dig out a rabbit. In the wet sand along 
the creek we discovered where the coon had 
crossed. Herman whistled for Bugle, who no 
sooner landed on our side than he picked up the 
trail and was soon giving tongue in good shape, 
up in the woods. 
Now, Pointed Nose, I am afraid you made a 
mistake when you climbed the hill. You should 
have avoided that springy strip of ground. If 
you have stopped short of your den in the rocks 
there’s trouble a-brewing for you. So there was. 
From almost the very ridge of the hog’s back 
By W. L. Hall. 
we heard Bugle tree, and after a sharp climb 
found him dancing at the foot of a big black 
birch. The tree, which inclined at a sharp angle 
from a rocky ledge, was partly hollow, but had 
to be cut. The few small limbs near the top were 
crushed by the fall and the trunk split. 
In this mass of wreckage sat the coon, to all 
appearances not the least bit embarrassed by the 
“What of the Hunting?” 
strange company into which he had fallen, first 
giving me and the dog the “once over’’ and then 
taking a mental picture of Herman on the rocks 
above. Having decided what to do he ambled off 
toward the rocks, his head turned sideways to 
watch the dog, his furry coat fluffed in anger 
until the hairs stood out almost straight from 
his body. 
“Shall I shoot him?” asked Herman. 
“No, let the dog take his first lesson in coon 
fighting,” I replied, and I tried to sic Bugle on 
him. To my astonishment the dog hung back, 
not seeming anxious to get at him; then it occur¬ 
red to me that the coon did somewhat resemble 
a light-colored porcupine. Bugle had tackled his 
last porky only a few weeks before. He had had 
to be tied up in a blanket while the quills were 
yanked out with a pair of stout pinchers. But 
under my repeated urging the dog closed in. took 
a sample bite, got one in return from the coon, 
and the fight was on. 
That coon, with odds of four to one against 
him—one large man, one small ditto, a husky 
dog and a gun—put up a fight on that sloping- 
hillside that should have won him freedom. We 
had sticks to use on the coon, but little chance to 
use them without hitting the dog. They rolled, 
tumbled and fought nearly to the bottom of the 
hill. At last a fall from a ledge separated them 
long enough for the coon to climb out of reach 
of the dog. In the end it was the gun that dropped 
him from a small tree. Bugle was bleeding from 
a dozen cuts. At the start he had a notion that 
all he had to do was to grab the coon in the back 
or belly and shake the life out of him. He knows 
better now. 
“Whew! but he was some scrapper!” said Her¬ 
man, mopping his expansive brow with a colored 
bandana. “If he’d been a few pounds heavier 
he’d a-treed the three of us.” The coon proved 
to be a male, and he weighed exactly nineteen 
and three-quarter pounds. 
A real old-fashioned coon hunt properly begins 
when the night is young and ends any old time 
before or after daylight next morning. When I 
arrived at Herman’s place the middle of October, 
we began planning for a coon hunt. He had sent 
$25 for a dog, guaranteed to be the real thing 
on coons. We waited more than two weeks for 
that dog, expecting him every day by the stage 
coach. When after partridges, squirrels or rab¬ 
bits, about eleven miles from home, Herman 
would have a presentment that the dog would 
arrive that day by the three-thirty coach. Then 
would begin a forced march to beat the coach to 
the covered bridge, while we speculated as to 
whether the dog would be too fatigued after his 
journey to hunt coons that night. Herman’s legs 
were long, mine short. As he hit only the high 
places until the bridge was reached, I was some¬ 
what the worse for wear, and began to cultivate 
a growing dislike for that dog. 
At last we decided to try out our home talent— 
Bugle and Rove. To our knowledge, neither one 
had ever treed a coon at night, so we started 
with little faith in the success of our experiment. 
A mile or so up the river we had found a tree 
that bore all the ear-marks of being the home 
of a coon, and we had been saving it for the new 
dog. The tree stood a few hundred yards from 
the river, near an old lumber road. If a coon 
bunked there he would probably go down to the 
river about eight or nine o’clock to see if the 
trout were rising. 
We had gone up the steep road about two- 
thirds of the way to the tree when there came 
a sharp ki-yi from Rove, followed almost in¬ 
stantly by Bugle’s war cry. The dance was on, 
with Mr. Coon headed for the water on a line 
that brought him within twenty yards of us be¬ 
low the side of the road, through thick under- 
