FOREST AND STREAM 
783 
voice in a back alley tom-catty wail of baffled 
plan and procedure. 
Yawcob (being sole owner of this night dis¬ 
turber) was elected to climb the tree. 
Using rails, ji-jitsu, the delsartian, and just 
plain “boost” we got him up to the first limb, 
and let nature take her course again. 
Such a puffing and a blowing! such a cascade 
of pieces of “pants” and bark! 
“Bill,” said chum to me, “I guess here is where 
we make one of those front page ‘masterly re¬ 
treats,’ and retire on the reserves. That’s no 
coon!” 
Freetz stood manfully by the guns. From the 
blackness came a-panting like a gas engine with 
the muffler off. The two shining points moved 
out further on a dead limb. 
“Lo-o-o-ok oudt!” Followed an ominous 
crack. 
Again a cry. “Look oudt! She’s goming 
dowen!” 
The limb broke and down came Yawcob, cradle 
and—the biggest woods tom cat you ever saw! 
Tom’s tail was swelled until it looked like the 
bat used by Mister Gowdy when he rapped that 
famous pill into the stands during the recent 
controversy. He “lit” with all four sets of claws 
going with the precision of a machine-gun plat¬ 
oon in action. 
Yawcob “lit,” under the rule that in falling, 
bodies the heaviest come down first, or words 
to that effect. The cat was a good second and 
made Yawcob’s head (for his cap had sailed off 
into the darkness) look like a real estate pros¬ 
pectus in red ink. 
From Yawcob’s frame, Tom hit the end 
cushion and “kissed” “Miseree.” Then dog, with 
cat on back, now practically one, bored through 
the saturated atmosphere in a course south by 
east. 
Ever and anon, now rapidly softened by dis¬ 
tance, came the agonized nerve-shattering, tear¬ 
making yelp of a cur that has received the worst 
of it! 
So far as any of us know, the pair is going yet. 
The trouble was that Yawcob’s wife wouldn’t 
speak to him for a week, claiming on prima 
facie evidence, that Yawk had been fighting. 
Freetz, as soon as he saw that the “coon” had 
landed, started out on a little side hunt of his 
own. We could see his lantern go bobbing about 
as he “moused” hither and yon. Very will- 
’o-wispy it all looked out there in the drizzle. 
The lantern paused by a big elm log. “Kum 
here kvickley,” said Freetz. “Here’s vun mit 
diss log herein!” 
Then he stooped, run his arm into the dark 
cavity and, with a wild scream, staggered back¬ 
ward clutching his face and sending his lantern 
sailing on a comet-like parabola, to smash down 
on the rocks of the ravine below. 
Came darkness; darker than dark; and, slowly 
settling over the damp and muggy earth stole 
that all-penetrating, all-fired, all-powerful smell 
of exploded skunk "shell!” 
Here is a brief picture as the electrics flash 
on the scene: A pretty black and white animal 
proudly but daintily pussy-foots it about a wild 
and spitting Dutchman: 
When Charlie and I reached a safe-to-leeward 
point of vantage, we were both out of breath. 
Putting the sprayed member of the party, and 
his “same by absorbtion” comrade on the safe 
side, (Yawcob carrying the remaining lantern), 
we hastened toward the sound of the bellows of 
Jasper’s hound. 
Nearer and nearer came the bugle of the dog: 
nearer the encouraging shouts of the party. “Oh, 
you Rawjah! go to hit, you ole meat houn’! Tree 
’im; done bring joy to Sallie’s shack. Tree ’im, 
you scoun’rel beas’!” 
Now the man who laid one strand of barbed 
wire about eight inches from the ground, and 
then failed to notify Yawcob, was no friend of 
his! The big fellow caught his foot in this 
contrivance of Satan. When he struck, the 
earth trembled. What he said, would not get 
through the mails: and—the second lantern was 
smashed! 
Running blindly, knocking into trees, falling 
over logs and tripping over vines, we came sud¬ 
denly to an open pasture lot, rail-fenced and 
“comfy.” Freetz took that fence like a bird: 
he never missed a stroke of his piston-like legs. 
There was, on the opposite side, a Jersey bull 
of uncertain temper. Freetz hit him squarely 
above the water line, and the animal, with a 
volcanic bellow that must have shot his “cud” 
out into space, rose and pursued the Teuton. 
Freetz beat him to the fence, but lost his hat 
in a race that, considering the handicap the bull 
had, in not having the flying start that Freetz 
did, was some performance! 
The hound had changed his direction; evident¬ 
ly the coon he was trailing was out on an un¬ 
usual promenade. Just where we were, none of 
the quartet had the faintest idea. Jasper with 
his owl-like eyes was threshing along somewhere 
in the wake of the dog. From somewhere came 
the murmure of water. 
The two Teutons reached a tiny log bungalow 
perched on the river bank, at the same instant, 
not knowing that there was a nasty drop down 
a steep bank to the stream below- 
Over they went, clasped in each others’ arms, 
gathering momentum like a snow slide. The 
way they tore up brush and earth was a caution. 
The river sang its Lorelei song, and they went 
to their doom. 
With a noise like the breaking of a log-jam 
during the spring run, the bosom of Freetz’s 
“pants” caressed the pellucid tide. Yawcob 
caromed against his partner’s stomach, looped- 
the-loop and struck on his digestion apparatus 
with a noise that set a farm dog to barking in 
a barnyard a mile across the flats. 
Jasper came to see what the display of ad¬ 
jectives meant and was ordered to work the camp 
ax overtime and build a fire. We left the pair 
to launder themselves and to dry-clean their 
frames and then we went coon hunting. Jasper 
had disappeared again, but by flashing our elec¬ 
trics, we were able to make fair time. 
After a long time, with mainly up and down 
going for us (mostly up), the old hound bayed 
“treed” just as plainly as if he had sent word 
on a souvenir postcard. 
Brier scratched, shin barked tired but happy, 
my chum and I finally “arrived.” Jasper was 
there, squinting up into a big, half-dead walnut 
whose upper limbs were caught in a wild grape 
tangle. It was a black and nasty mess aloft. 
“I done knows dat thar’s a ’ole he feller up 
dar; but I’ll be gum-swizzled ef I can see ’im 
eyes,” said Jasper. 
Neither could we. 
“Dat ole houn’,” cried the darky, “him nebber 
fools me yit. He up dar; but whar is he?” 
Without saying a word a roman candle was 
pulled out. 
“Can that dog of yours fight?” asked chum. 
“Ken he fight?” was the scornful reply. “Him 
jes’ naturally whop a whole alley full of cats.” 
“All ready, professor? let ’er go!”—this from 
chum. 
“For de Ian’s sake, white man, what you all 
doin’?” This from Jasper. 
Fiz-z-z, spit, spit-t-t! A white one. 
Splutter-r-r-r fiz-z-z-z, Pop! A red one. 
Ze-e-e- plip, BANG! A red and a blue one 
right into the heart of the wild grape tangle. 
Down through the falling sparks hurtles a 
dark object,fuzzy and mad. 
The hound is right on the job: for a time, 
things move! 
On his back, using feet and fangs where they 
do the most good, the old he-coon snarls and 
The “Midsummer Night Dream” of Yawcob and Freetz. 
