下载掌阅APP，畅读海量书库
立即打开
A razzle-dazzle fight it surely was! On one side of the camp, between the camping-ground, which Uncle Eb had cleared with many a backache, and the woods, was a narrow strip covered with a stunted, prickly growth of wild raspberry bushes and tiny cherry-trees. These had sprung up after the pines had been cut down, as soon as the sun peeped at the long-hidden earth.
Into it the bare-legged trio dared not venture, knowing that they would get a worse scratching and tearing than if the coon itself mauled them.
But they could see and hear a whirling, howling, clawing, spitting, rough-and-tumble conflict going on in the midst of this miniature jungle.
"Whew! Whew!" gasped Cyrus. "Here's your first sight of a wild coon, boys. I wish to goodness it had been a different sight, but I suppose he must pay for his thieving."
"Tiger'll make him do dat. Bet yer life he will! He's death on coons, if ever a dog was," yelled Uncle Eb, gambolling with excitement, his eyes bulging and widening until they looked like oysters on the shell.
The soft, battered, gray felt hat which replaced his fur cap in the daytime surged off his gray wool, and frisked gently away towards the camp-fire. There, coming in contact with a red ember, it scorched and shrivelled into smoking, smelling ashes, all unnoticed in the tumult of the fight.
Whirling round and round, now under, now over, dog and coon rolled presently forth from the bushes, nearer to the feet of the spectators. Then Neal and Dol could get a clearer view of the strange animal. A breeze of exclamations came from them, mingling with the yelping, snarling, and clucking of the combatants.
"Good gracious! Look at the stout body and funny little legs of the fellow!"
"Doesn't he fight like a spitfire?"
"I'm glad he's not clawing me!"
"He's not much like any picture of a raccoon I ever saw in a Natural History!"
"I guess he wouldn't resemble them greatly, especially in that attitude, Dol," said Cyrus, as soon as there was a lull in the boys' comments.
The raccoon had now rolled on his back, and was fighting so fiercely with teeth and claws that a despairing cry broke from Uncle Eb,—
"Yah! He's makin' Tiger's wool fly!"
It was then that the old guide began to deliberate about rushing forward and despatching his coonship with the butt end of his rifle. Cyrus would gladly have stopped the tussle long before, for there was too much savagery about it to suit him; but he could only have done so by stunning or killing one of the combatants.
A heart-rending howl from Tiger. The coon had caught him by his lower jaw. Uncle Eb, clutching his empty rifle like a club, was starting to the rescue, when the dog with a sudden, desperate jerk freed himself. Mad with rage and pain, he tried to seize the raccoon's throat. But his enemy managed to elude the strangling grip, and getting on his feet, again caught Tiger, this time by the cheek, causing another agonizing yelp.
Now, however, the undaunted dog whirled round and round with such rapidity as to make Mr. Coon relax his hold, and, gathering all his strength, flung the wild animal off to a distance of several feet.
Probably the raccoon felt that he had enough of the conflict, and was doubtful about its final issue. He seized the chance for escape. While the spectators gasped with excitement, they beheld him, with his head doubled under his stomach, roll over and over like a huge gray India-rubber ball, until he reached the nearest tree, which happened to be one of the young pines that shaded the camp. Quick as lightning he climbed up its trunk, uttering a second shrill, far-reaching cry of one note.
"Listen! Listen, fellows!" cried Cyrus. "That raccoon is a ventriloquist. The cry seemed to come from somewhere far above him. I had a tame coon long ago, and I often heard him call like that. I tell you he's a ventriloquist, and a mighty clever one too.
"The one piercing note was to warn his mate," went on the naturalist, after a moment's pause; "or in all probability, though we have been speaking of the animal as 'he,' it is really a female, for I have heard that peculiar call given more frequently by a mother to warn her cubs."
All that could now be seen of the animal—on whose gender new light had been cast—was a gray ball curled up on a tasselled bough near the top of the pine-tree, and a glimpse of a black nose over the edge of the limb.
"Wal! 'tain't no matter wedder de critter is a male or a fimmale; I'm a-goin' to bring it down from dar mighty quick," said Uncle Eb, fumbling with the cartridge-box which was attached to his broad leather belt, and preparing to load his rifle, while he cast murderous looks aloft.
"No, you don't, then!" said Cyrus hotly. "The creature has fought pluckily, and it deserves to get a fair chance for its life. I'll see that it does too. You oughtn't to be hard on it for liking pork, Uncle Eb."
"Coons will be gittin' into eatin' order soon," murmured the guide, smacking his lips, and handling his gun undecidedly. "Roast coon's a heap better'n roast lamb."
"Well, they're not in eating order yet, and won't be till next month," answered Garst. "Come, you've got to let this one go, Uncle Eb, to please me."
"Tell ye wot: I'll call Tiger off" (Tiger was alternately licking his wounds and baying furiously for vengeance about the tree which sheltered his enemy), "den, wen de coon finds de place clear, bime-by he'll light down from dat limb, I'll start off de dog, and let 'em finish de game atween 'em."
Cyrus considered for a minute, then decided that on the coon's behalf he might safely accept the compromise.
"Let's get into our clothes, fellows!" he cried to Neal and Dol. "Now we're going to have some fair fun! I guess there won't be any more fighting; and I want you to see how cunningly the raccoon will cheat the dog and escape, if he gets an even chance."
In five minutes the trio were out of their blankets and in their ordinary day apparel. The old guide had hung the wet tweeds to dry by the blazing camp-fire before he started out to visit his traps, carefully stretching them to prevent their "swunking" (shrinking). Thus they were again fit for wear.
A half-hour of waiting ensued, during which every one was on the tiptoe of expectation. They had all withdrawn to some distance from the tree. Uncle Eb had been obliged to drag Tiger away, and was bathing his cuts out of the camp water-bucket in a shady corner. The dog, recognizing that he was a patient, submitted without a growl or budge, until his master, who had been keeping a keen eye on that pine-tree, suddenly loosed him, and started him off afresh with a loud "Whoop-ee!" and a—
"Ketch him, Tiger! ketch him!"
The coon had "lighted down."
Away went the wild creature into the woods. Away after him, went dog, guide, student, and boys, plunging, tumbling, rushing along helter-skelter, with a yell on every lip.
"There he is! See him? That gray ball rolling over and over!" shouted Cyrus. "I'll tell you what, now; he's going to resort to his clever dodge of 'barking a tree.' There never was a general yet who could beat a coon for strategy in making a retreat."
The forest surrounding the eminence on which Uncle Eb's camp was situated consisted mostly of pines, with here and there the brilliant autumn foliage of a maple or birch showing amid the evergreens. The trees down the sides of the hill were not densely crowded, but grew in irregular clumps instead of an unbroken mass. This, of course, afforded a better opportunity for the pursuers to catch glimpses of the fugitive animal.
On finding that it was again chased, the raccoon at first took shelter in a dense thicket of scrub oak, which formed in places a tangled undergrowth. Tiger quickly followed up its trail, and it was driven thence.
Then Cyrus and the boys caught sight of it spinning over and over like a ball, towards a maple-tree with widely projecting limbs and thick foliage; for it knew well that in speed it was no match for the dog, and therefore resorted to a neat little stratagem. The next minute, being hotly pressed, it scrambled up the friendly trunk.
"He's treed again, yonkers! Come on!" shouted the guide, indifferent to the creature's probable gender.
Tiger sat on his haunches at the foot of the maple, setting up a slow, steady bark.
"Keep where you are, fellows! Watch the other side of the tree!" whispered Cyrus, his face twitching with excitement.
In his character of naturalist he had managed to find out more about the coon's various dodges than even the old guide had done.
In breathless wonder the Farrars presently beheld that ingenious raccoon steal along to the end of the most projecting limb on a different side of the tree from the one it had climbed, so that a screen of boughs and the trunk were between it and its adversary.
Then it noiselessly dropped from the tip of the branch to the ground, alighting, like a skilled acrobat, on its shoulders, doubled its pointed black nose under its stomach, and again rolled over and over for a considerable distance, when it got on its short legs and scurried away, while Tiger still bayed at the foot of the maple-tree, thinking the vanished prey was above.
"That's what I called the coon's dodge of 'barking a tree,'" said Cyrus. "Don't you see, when hard pressed, he runs up the trunk, leaving his scent on the bark; then he creeps to the other side under cover of the foliage, and drops quietly to the ground. So he breaks the scent and cheats the dog."
"Good gracious!" exclaimed Neal with an expressive whistle.
"Perhaps it's because of his long gray hairs that he has so much wisdom," Dol suggested.
"A bright idea, Chick!" chuckled the student, tapping the boy's shoulder.
"We keep on speaking of him as 'he' when you said the thing was probably a female," put in Neal.
"That doesn't matter. I'm not certain. Look at old Tiger! He's having fits now that he has discovered how he's been tricked."
The dog was circling out from the tree, with wild, uncertain movements, nosing everywhere. Presently he struck the scent again, and darted off like a streak.
But the raccoon had by this time reached a dark stream of water which coursed through the over-arching forest at the foot of the hill, as if it was flowing through a tunnel. Here this astute animal crossed and recrossed under the gloom of interlocking trees, mid dense undergrowth, until its trail was altogether lost.
Tiger, having further "fits," nosing about, darting hither and thither, venting short, baffled barks, finally gave up in despair.
The pursuing party turned back to camp.
"Did ye ever see ennyting to ekal de cunnin' o' de critter," said Uncle Eb gloomily; "runnin' up dat tree on'y to jump off, so as he'd break de scent an' fool de dog? Ye'll learn a heap o' queer tings in dese woods, chillun, 'fore ye get t'rough," he added, addressing the English lads.
"We've learned queerer things than we ever imagined or dreamed of, already, Uncle Eb," Neal answered.
Meanwhile, Cyrus and Dol had begun to discuss the size of the escaped coon.
"I should think it measured about two feet from the tip of its nose to the beginning of the tail, and that would add ten or eleven inches. Probably it weighed over thirty pounds," said the experienced Garst.
"A fine tail it had too!" answered Dol; "all ringed with black and buff—not black and white as the books say. There was hardly an inch of white about the animal anywhere. Its thick gray hair was marked here and there with black; wasn't it, Cy?"
"Rather with a darker shade of gray, bordering on black. I think old Tiger can testify that the creature had capable teeth; and it possesses a goodly number of them—forty in all; that's only two less than a bear, an animal that might make six of it in size."
"Whew! No wonder it's a good fighter!" ejaculated Dol.
"But the funniest of the coon's or—to give the animal its proper name—the raccoon's funny habits is, that while it eats anything and everything, it souses all meat in water before beginning a feed. That's what it would have done with our bit of pork,—dragged it to a stream, and washed it well before swallowing a morsel.
"I caught glimpses of a raccoon chasing a jack-rabbit in this very section of the woods, last year," went on the student, seeing that Dol was breathlessly listening. "The big animal killed the little one under a dead limb; and I traced its tracks through some mud, where it tugged the rabbit to the brink of the nearest brook to be dipped and devoured.
"After the meal, Mr. Coon halted on an old bit of stump as gray as himself, close to where I lay under cover, trying to get a peep at his operations, but, unluckily, in my excitement I touched a bush, and broke a twig not as big as my little finger. I tell you he just jumped off that stump as if it scorched him, and disappeared."
"What about that tame coon you owned, Cy?" Dol asked. "You haven't got him now."
"Bless your heart, I should think not!" Here the student indulged in a chuckle of mirth. "That coon was the fun and bane of my life. No fear of my being dull while I had him! I had him as a present, when he was only a cub, from a man out here who is my special chum among woodsmen, Herb Heal, the guide in whose company we're going to explore for moose, and the soundest fellow in wind, limb, and temper that ever I had the luck to meet. I guess you English boys will say the same when you know him.
"Well! when my friend Herb bestowed upon me that baby raccoon, I called the little innocent 'Zip,' and kept him in-doors, letting him roam at will. But after he grew to manhood, I was obliged to banish him to our yard and chain him up; and there his piteous, sky-piercing calls, which seemed to come from the roof of a house near him, first showed me what a ventriloquist the animal can be."
"Why on earth did you banish him?" asked Neal.
"Because his plan of campaign, when loose, was to follow me about like a devoted cat, climbing over me whenever he got the chance, with slobbery fondness. But as soon as I was out of the way he'd steal every mortal thing I possessed, from my most precious instruments to my latest tie and handkerchiefs. I never saw anything to equal his ingenuity in ferreting out such articles, and his incorrigible mischief in destroying them. I chained him in the yard after he had torn my father's silk hat into shreds, and made off with his favorite spectacles. Whether he wore them or not I don't know; he chewed up the case; the glasses no man thereafter saw. I couldn't endure his piteous cries for reconciliation while he was in banishment, so I gave him away to a friend who was suffering from an imaginary ailment, and needed rousing.
"Talking of fathers, boys, reminds me that I feel responsible to Francis Farrar, Esq., for the welfare of his lusty sons. Neal had a pretty tiring time last night, and only about two hours' sleep since. I don't suppose any of us are outrageously hungry, seeing that we had some kind of breakfast at an unearthly hour. Here we are at camp! I propose that we turn in, and try to sleep until noon. What do you say?"
Their leader having wound up his talk, thus, neither of his comrades ventured to oppose his suggestion, though they felt little inclined for slumber.
"Pleasant day-dreams to you, fellows!" said Cyrus three minutes afterwards, flinging off his coat, and throwing himself on his mattress of boughs, while he wiped the steady drip of perspiration from his forehead and cheeks. "This day is going to be too warm for any more rushing. Our variable climate occasionally gives us these hot spells up to the middle of October; but they don't last. So much the better for us! We don't want sizzling days and oppressive nights, with mosquitoes and black flies to make us miserable. October in this country is the camper's ideal—month"—
The last sentence was broken by a great yawn, followed presently by a snort and an attempt at a shout, which quavered away into a queer little whine. Garst had passed into dreamland, where men revel in fragmentary memories and pell-mell visions.