April 2, 1910.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
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ward while we followed, but we did not hear 
another sound from Sport for fully a half hour. 
"Come on, let’s go back to the road. We can 
locate him better there in case he has gone on 
the other side. He knows enough to come back 
on our tracks if he don’t strike a ’coon—he may 
possibly have got on to a fox or something.” 
It was a most beautiful night and aside from 
the excitement of getting a ’coon, the view was 
worth coming to see. The air was deliciously 
cool and refreshing. The bright, full moon il¬ 
luminated the heavens and hillsides about us 
with splendor, shedding its beams of softest light 
upon the dark green mountains, making every 
rock, tree and shrub almost as visible as in the 
sunlight. Scarcely a sound broke the stillness, 
save the omnipresent cricket, or away to the 
westward the occasional croaking bark of a dog 
fox. From this elevation, ..which was the highest 
< in that vicinity, we could see miles and miles of 
mountain country. Pistol Pond lay at our feet 
like a sheet of quicksilver, gleaming through 
the pine tops far below. 
After enjoying this lovely panorama to our 
heart’s content for at least a half hour, and not 
hearing from the rest of the combination, we 
descended the hill toward the south and called 
lustily to Stan who, with one of the lanterns, 
had gone back on the trail to hunt for the dog. 
‘‘Heard anything from Sport?” called Stan, half 
a mile away. “Not a yelp,” said Barnes. “Guess 
he’s out er sight after that fox we heard.” “Not 
much; foxes ain’t his meat to-night,” was his 
reply. “Tell yer what I do think, Al, that pup 
has run on to a nest of young ’coons and is eat¬ 
ing ’em up; he’s killed somethin’ sure; he’ll eat 
a woodchuck quick as a wink; he’s tumbled on 
to somethin’ sure, for don’t you remember when 
he first run off on to that track how he snarled 
short and quick like as if tackling somethin’ ?” 
. Stan was getting anxious now for the pup’s 
health, so he cried out with some emotion: “Say, 
Al, ye don’t think there’s anything around in the 
woods big enough to chew up a dog, do ye?” 
“No, course not; nothing bigger’n a fox or a 
’.coon round here now, though there used to be 
wildcats some years ago.” 
Stan and Al fell to discussing the fate of the 
hound, and declared they would give anything 
to know what had happened to the dog that 
night. However, we were just about to make 
tracks for the road again when “Yep, yep, yep, 
wow-ow-o-o-o” suddenly rung out on the clear 
night air with startling nearness, coming toward 
us from the south. 
“Speak to him, pup,” cried Stanley in a parox¬ 
ysm of joy. “Hold him, boy,” he yelled, making 
a bee-line toward the dog. 
“Now, what has that feller been up to all this 
time? Hold on a minute, Stan,” said Barnes, 
“he’s headin’ this way; let’s git out into the road 
an’ he may run on to us.” 
We scrambled quickly through the thick bushes, 
over the stone wall into the road, eagerly harken¬ 
ing to that tuneful dog solo. 
“He’s follerin’ on south,” cried Barnes, “an’ 
he’s gettin’ hot on the trail. I know where he 
is goin’, too. That ’coon’s goin’ for them big 
chestnuts ’bout a mile up the road on the left. 
Come on, boys, we’ll get a ’coon supper after 
all.” 
“That’s ’coon talk from Sport, and don’t ye 
forget it,” exultingly said Stan, as he pounded 
along the road in his heavy boots. “Suppose 
Sport’s been hangin’ to that ’coon all this time, 
Al? Tell ye what, I wouldn’t take $100 fer that 
pup, right now.” 
Down on the back track we went, thoroughly 
alert, the frequent baying of the dog telling us 
that the scent was getting hot. It was surpris¬ 
ing to me to see how Barnes could tell from the 
different tones in the dog’s voice just how the 
hunt was progressing. He would frequently re¬ 
mark: “Sounds kinder ‘foxy’ that bark, Stan,” 
or “He’s huntin’ in water now,” and “He’s lost 
him agin.” 
We stopped on the roadside as the dog ceased 
baying, and listened eagerly. In a few minutes 
from our left, north of the road and apparently 
only a quarter of a mile away, the good dog 
sang again, like the tolling of a chime bell. 
Come this way, boys, he’s got him treed,” 
exclaimed Barnes in his low, eager voice. 
Hoorray!” shrieked Stan, vociferously, “the 
pup’s got him; come on, mister, with that light 
and don’t lose them climbers goin’ through the 
woods,” and we plunged through the dark 
bushes. 
“Watch out for the ledges and keep close to 
me, cried Al as he slid through the underbrush 
at the roadside, vaulted the fence like a gray 
phantom and disappeared toward the North pole 
like the vanishing lady. I plunged recklessly 
after him with an excited imitation of the 
hound s war cry; he was now indeed singing 
sweet hunters’ music. “Then, oh then, the temp¬ 
est of my soul began.” Until up to that moment 
we had not really begun to hunt, nor had we 
used our legs much, although we had been out 
about two hours. 
Before I made this little ’coon trip my idea 
of a hunt was simply to go to a place where the 
animal is supposed to have crossed the road, put 
the dog on his track, the ’coon runs up the near¬ 
est tree, you stand very comfortably in the mid¬ 
dle of the road, take deliberate aim, pull the 
trigger and the dogs do the rest. In size I sup¬ 
posed it about as large as my derby hat. But 
what a chase that ghostly Barnes led me! A 
wet bog marsh in September is the toughest place 
on eai th to penetrate and a ’coon is shrewd when 
he picks one out to die in. Right on Barnes’ 
heels I traveled, guarding the lighted lantern, up 
a steep bank of turf against a barbed wire fence. 
With a smothered oath, Barnes sparred for an 
opening, slid through it, down and over a hill 
covered with rocks, stumps and briers along a 
steep ledge where I fell off a cliff into a hole 
ten feet deep with a jar that shook me up, mean¬ 
time getting a stinging blow on the mouth with 
the tree-climbers that started the first blood of 
the hunt and put out the light. The “spook” 
pulled me together, lighted the lantern, adjusted 
the hardware, added a gun to my load and we 
resumed our flight. The dog’s baying grew 
nearer and nearer. I could hear Stan shouting 
encouragingly across the valley to his pet; faster 
and faster flew the goblin shape ahead of me, 
occasionally crying out: “Keep up with that 
light, 1 his way, mister,” “Don’t give up; we’re 
most there.” 
I set my teeth hard and plunged madly along. 
The many thumps and bruises I received made 
me reckless and I determined to keep that phan¬ 
tom in the seven-league boots in sight or drop 
dead trying, so I put on such a sprint that I ran 
into Barnes and hung to him like a ’coon dog 
through to the finish. But how soaking wet I 
was from bushes, trees and perspiration. 
On we stumped through the hummocks, pools 
and alders. Now on a dry bunch of weeds, then 
down to our knees in mud and brackish water, 
dodging under limbs, leaping on sunken logs and 
brushwood, and once slipping into a hole up to 
the middle, filling my shoes with mud. All this 
time I kept a death grip on the lantern, Barnes’ 
gun and the tree climbers. After a spell of this 
I got reckless; my blood was warming. I 
shouted, laughed, chaffed Barnes about his long 
legs and called to the dog, for I tell you there 
was something gloriously exciting in those sur¬ 
roundings. I did not care a picayune for bumps, 
scratches, thumps, soaks or barriers. I looked 
j.or the toughest places to conquer. My hunting 
blood which had been dormant for many years 
was seething hot. I wanted that ’coon; I was 
transformed into a dog and caught his music. I 
actually barked on the trail, causing Barnes to 
remark: “You got more sand in you than I 
ever expected.” “No, Al,” I said, “it’s mud.” 
Here a wet alder brush, slamming back from 
Barnes’ rushing body, struck me squarely be¬ 
tween the eyes, paining me to the quick, so that 
I stood for a moment dazed, until I heard Al 
say: “Come here quick with that light—here is 
the brook. Well, I’ll be hanged if that ’coon isn’t 
up a tree on the other side of the stream and 
we’ve got to go round to the bridge.” 
I lifted my lower half out of the ooze where 
I was slowly miring and made a detour toward 
the south, crossed the blackish water and came 
to a point opposite to where we had retreated 
from, the dog now barking furiously as we drew 
near. It was so dark we could not see a thing 
until we stumbled on the murky stream again. 
Al began to swear. “Here’s the stream again and 
that tree is on the other side where we were be¬ 
fore,” said he. “I did not locate it right. Ex¬ 
cuse me, mister. I’m a lobster; that’s what I am.” 
“Hold him, Sport; he’s got him,” shrieked 
Stanley, crashing through from somewhere, hold¬ 
ing high the lantern trying to locate the dog still 
out of sight across the inky water barking sav¬ 
agely. • 
“I wouldn’t go round again for $100,” I 
shouted; “I'm goin’ across that brook.” 
“Hold on a minute; see if I can’t find a shal¬ 
low place for you, mister.” 
Don’t mind, I’ll go through here anywhere; 
I’m soaking wet already and you can’t hurt a 
drowned dog by wetting him, so here goes,” I 
said, balancing myself on a dead limb, and 
plunged in. 
“Don’t lose the hardware,” yelled Barnes. 
The water was warm and the bottom so soft 
that I sunk to my arm pits. Then with a mighty 
effort, holding high the outfit, I scrambled out 
among the solid hummocks at the edge of the 
brook and rushed breathlessly to a large pine 
tree fifty feet away on higher ground around 
which the dog was bellowing furiously, now that 
we were in sight. 
“Good boy, old doggy. Hooray! we’ve got 
him, boys,” and Stan fell all over the excited 
dog. 
We dropped exhausted, winded and soaking 
wet at the foot of the great tree. “By Jupiter.” 
said Barnes between gasps as he lay flat on his 
back, “I’ve hunted for twenty-five years and that 
is the toughest hole I was ever in. Look at 
this,” elevating his long legs in the air. The 
water rushed out of his hip boots in twin rivu- 
