FIFTY DOLLARS ON HIS HEAD
Farmer Slown was sitting on his doorstep reading another special edition
of the village paper. Opposite him stood a stranger watching with
amusement the changing expression on the Farmer's red face.
"That's the line I referred to," he interrupted the other man. "See,
right here!" He pointed to a paragraph. The Farmer began to read it
aloud.
"And so," he read, "the great monster of the woods, the prehistoric
mammal, turned out to be nothing more than a little skunk. The boy who
made the discovery described it as jet black all over except for white
stripes on its head and neck. Could a more ridiculous ending possibly
be--"
"That's enough," said the man, "did you notice it said jet black except
for white on its head and neck? Well I've come to buy that skunk. What
do you want for him alive?"
"But he got away, vanished before we came back from the house after
scrubbing the boy."
"That's all the better; might have got hurt otherwise, eh? He will stay
around here somewhere. Now what I want you to do is to set some traps
until you catch him. I've brought the traps. They're made like boxes,
plenty of room inside. What do you say?"
"Catch a live skunk!" the Farmer exclaimed suspiciously. "Not I, do it
yourself." Then the thought came to him that perhaps the man really
would be fool enough to pay money for a skunk. "How much will you give
for him," he asked.
"Twenty-five dollars," was the prompt reply. The Farmer could scarcely
conceal a gasp of surprise. Why, his goat wasn't worth that much! His
eyes narrowed;
"Not enough," he answered craftily.
"Thirty-five, then."
"Not enough," croaked the Farmer again experimentally. The man regarded
him doubtfully.
"Well," he said at length, "fifty is my limit. But he's got to be unhurt
and well, do you understand?" The Farmer stood up.
"All right," he agreed, "I'll catch him for you. Let's see your traps.
I've had two of mine set for several nights but haven't caught
anything."
"What do you use for bait?"
"Socks," grunted the Farmer shamefacedly. "He seemed to like them." The
man held back a smile, gave some instructions and then turned to his
boat for the trip back to the village. He owned a farm on which he
raised skunks in pens much as a poultryman raised chickens except that
it was the fur of the skunks which was marketable. The more black fur
there was on a skin, the more valuable it was, therefore an almost
entirely black skunk like Striped Coat was worth a good sum to the farm.
While Striped Coat was thus being sold alive, he was safely sleeping
with his family in the holly tree burrow to which he had run after
discovery by the boy. A less sensible skunk might have remained and been
killed but Striped Coat was not one of that kind.
It was on the third night after this, that he and the others came across
the first of Farmer Slown's new traps. The family had just come from
Goose Creek, for now that it was time for them to take care of
themselves in the world, the mother's milk had failed them and they
needed water as well as food.
Wandering along a path made by old Muskrat in his search for grass
roots, they caught the scent of a freshly killed chicken and found that
it came from a long box which had an opening at one end. The mother,
nervous as usual, looked at this with such suspicion that the others
held back too, although much interested in the smell of this kind of
food.
They kept wandering around the box sniffing, until all at once the runt
of the family, a pretty black and white little fellow, could resist it
no longer and slipped in. They crowded about the entrance
when--bang--down came a board with a clatter, nearly smashing a nose or
two and completely shutting the entrance.
Those on the outside sprang back, but the runt was caught and could only
add to their alarm by frantic scratching on the hard wood inside. That
was lesson enough for Striped Coat; he knew now that a box with a hole
was something dangerous even if it contained good food.
In that way the family lost the runt. Soon afterwards quarreling divided
the remainder, the mother and Striped Coat staying together and still
living in the holly tree burrow. Sometimes they all met at night in
their hunting, but these meetings grew less frequent until Striped Coat
and the mother seemed to have the woods around Farmer Slown's entirely
to themselves.
It was to be sure the time of plenty. Every rain brought out many kinds
of edible toadstools in the woods, blackberries hung heavily from their
stems, grasshoppers and crickets had grown big and fat, white grubs
swarmed under the grass roots around the Farmer's field. Also there were
great green tomato worms, turtles, frogs, toads and little snakes, nests
of yellow jackets, bees and other insects. Mice too were plentiful and
unwary.
So Striped Coat grew amazingly just as did all the other young woods
folk. At first he grew long and lanky, with short patchy fur and spindly
tail, in much the same way as a young hawk before it acquires its full
plumage; later he filled out, his fur becoming thick and glossy. By the
end of August he was as large as his mother and still growing. He was
wise enough not to be lured into the Farmer's traps and, like his mother
he now had the right of way over the other woods animals, being indeed
treated with all the dignity of a full grown skunk.
[Illustration: In much the same way as a young hawk before it acquires
its full plumage]
More men than the Farmer were after him however, for the news had spread
that he was worth fifty dollars, and that sum, walking around as it
were, loose and unclaimed in the woods, was a decided lure to everyone.
Ever since the great mystery of Farmer Slown's lost clothes had been
cleared up by the boy's description of Striped Coat, he had become a
marked individual, spoken of, oddly enough, as Striped Coat, the black
skunk. Whenever the word skunk was mentioned, people soon switched the
conversation to him.
The question to be solved was, where did he have his den. With that
discovered, the matter of trapping or digging him out would be a simple
one. The old trappers of the neighborhood said little but waited
patiently for the coming of late autumn, when the leaves would no longer
be on the bushes. And every day brought this danger time just that much
nearer.