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“I did n’t know but he might make trouble for the other dog,” answered Isaac, after a moment’s silence. He felt almost disloyal to the faithful creature, and had been missing him all the way. “‘Sh! there’s a bark!” And they all stopped to listen.

The fire was leaping higher; they all sat near it, listening and talking by turns. There is apt to be a good deal of waiting in a coon-hunt.

“If Rover was young as he used to be, I’d resk him to tree any coon that ever run,” said the regretful master. “This smart creature o’ Topliff’s can’t beat him, I know. The poor old fellow’s eyesight seems to be going. Two–three times he’s run out at me right in broad day, an’ barked when I come up the yard toward the house, and I did pity him dreadfully; he was so ‘shamed when he found out what he ‘d done. Rover’s a dog that’s got an awful lot o’ pride. He went right off out behind the long barn the last time, and would n’t come in for nobody when they called him to supper till I went out myself and made it up with him. No; he can’t see very well now, Rover can’t.”

“He ‘s heavy, too; he ‘s got too unwieldy to tackle a smart coon, I expect, even if he could do the tall runnin’,” said John York, with sympathy. “They have to get a master grip with their teeth through a coon’s thick pelt this time o’ year. No; the young folks gets all the good chances after a while;” and he looked round indulgently at the chubby faces of his boys, who fed the fire, and rejoiced in being promoted to the society of their elders on equal terms. “Ain’t it time we heard from the dog?” And they all listened, while the fire snapped and the sap whistled in some green sticks.

“I hear him,” said John Henry suddenly; and faint and far away there came the sound of a desperate bark. There is a bark that means attack, and there is a bark that means only foolish excitement.

“They ain’t far off!” said Isaac. “My gracious, he’s right after him! I don’t know’s I expected that poor-looking dog to be so smart. You can’t tell by their looks. Quick as he scented the game up here in the rocks, off he put. Perhaps it ain’t any matter if they ain’t stump-tailed, long’s they ‘re yaller dogs. He did n’t look heavy enough to me. I tell you, he means business. Hear that bark!”

“They all bark alike after a coon.” John York was as excited as anybody. “Git the guns laid out to hand, boys; I told you we ‘d ought to follow!” he commanded. “If it’s the old fellow that belongs here, he may put in any minute.” But there was again a long silence and state of suspense; the chase had turned another way. There were faint distant yaps. The fire burned low and fell together with a shower of sparks. The smaller boys began to grow chilly and sleepy, when there was a thud and rustle and snapping of twigs close at hand, then the gasp of a breathless dog. Two dim shapes rushed by; a shower of bark fell, and a dog began to sing at the foot of the great twisted pine not fifty feet away.

“Hooray for Tiger!” yelled the boys; but the dog’s voice filled all the woods. It might have echoed to the mountain-tops. There was the old coon; they could all see him half-way up the tree, flat to the great limb. They heaped the fire with dry branches till it flared high. Now they lost him in a shadow as he twisted about the tree. John York fired, and Isaac Brown fired, and the boys took a turn at the guns, while John Henry started to climb a neighboring oak; but at last it was Isaac who brought the coon to ground with a lucky shot, and the dog stopped his deafening bark and frantic leaping in the underbrush, and after an astonishing moment of silence crept out, a proud victor, to his prouder master’s feet.