Notwithstanding the solitude of the place where the strife, apparently
fatal, has occurred, and the slight chances of its being seen, its
sounds have been heard. The shots, the excited speeches, and angry
exclamations, have reached the ears of one who can well interpret them.
This is a coon-hunter.
There is no district in the Southern States without its coon-hunter. In
most, many of them; but in each, one who is noted. And, notedly, he is
a negro. The pastime is too tame, or too humble, to tempt the white
man. Sometimes the sons of "poor white trash" take part in it; but it
is usually delivered over to the "darkey."
In the old times of slavery every plantation could boast of one, or
more, of these sable Nimrods; and they are not yet extinct. To them
coon-catching is a profit, as well as sport; the skins keeping them in
tobacco--and whisky, when addicted to drinking it. The flesh, too,
though little esteemed by white palates, is a _bonne-bouche_ to the
negro, with whom animal food is a scarce commodity. It often furnishes
him with the substance for a savoury roast.
The plantation of Ephraim Darke is no exception to the general rule.
It, too, has its coon-hunter--a negro named, or nicknamed, "Blue Bill;"
the qualifying term bestowed, from a cerulean tinge, that in certain
lights appears upon the surface of his sable epidermis. Otherwise he is
black as ebony.
Blue Bill is a mighty hunter of his kind, passionately fond of the
coon-chase--too much, indeed, for his own personal safety. It carries
him abroad, when the discipline of the plantation requires him to be at
home; and more than once, for so absenting himself, have his shoulders
been scored by the "cowskin."
Still the punishment has not cured him of his proclivity. Unluckily for
Richard Darke, it has not. For on the evening of Clancy's being shot
down, as described, Blue Bill chances to be abroad; and, with a small
cur, which he has trained to his favourite chase, is scouring the timber
near the edge of the cypress swamp.
He has "treed" an old he-coon, and is just preparing to ascend to the
creature's nest--a cavity in a sycamore high up--when a deer comes
dashing by. Soon after a shot startles him. He is more disturbed at
the peculiar crack, than by the mere fact of its being the report of a
gun. His ear, accustomed to such sounds, tells him the report has
proceeded from a fowling-piece, belonging to his young master--just then
the last man he would wish to meet. He is away from the "quarter"
without "pass," or permission of any kind.
His first impulse is, to continue the ascent of the sycamore, and
conceal himself among its branches.
But his dog, remaining below--that will betray him?
While hurriedly reflecting on what he had best do, he hears a second
shot. Then a third, coming quickly after; while preceding, and mingling
with the reports are men's voices, apparently in mad expostulation. He
hears, too, the angry growling of a hound, at intervals barking and
baying.
"Gorramity!" mutters Blue Bill; "dar's a skrimmage goin' on dar--a
_fight_, I reck'n, an' seemin' to be def! Clar enuf who dat fight's
between. De fuss shot wa' Mass' Dick's double-barrel; de oder am Charl
Clancy rifle. By golly! 'taint safe dis child be seen hya, no how.
Whar kin a hide maseff?"
Again he glances upward, scanning the sycamore: then down at his dog;
and once more to the trunk of the tree. This is embraced by a creeper--
a gigantic grape-vine--up which an ascent may easily be made; so easily,
there need be no difficulty in carrying the cur along. It was the
ladder he intended using to get at the treed coon.
With the fear of his young master coming past--and if so, surely
"cow-hiding" him--he feels there is no time to be wasted in vacillation.
Nor does he waste any. Without further stay, he flings his arm around
the coon-dog: raises the unresisting animal from the earth; and "swarms"
up the creeper, like a she-bear carrying her cub.
In ten seconds after, he is snugly ensconced in a crotch of the
sycamore; screened from observation of any one who may pass underneath,
by the profuse foliage of the parasite.
Feeling fairly secure, he once more sets himself to listen. And,
listening attentively, he hears the same voices as before. But not any
longer in angry ejaculation. The tones are tranquil, as though the two
men were now quietly conversing. One says but a word or two; the other
all. Then the last alone appears to speak, as if in soliloquy, or from
the first failing to make response.
The sudden transition of tone has in it something strange--a contrast
inexplicable.
The coon-hunter can tell, that he continuing to talk is his young
master, Richard Darke; though he cannot catch, the words, much less make
out their meaning. The distance is too great, and the current of sound
interrupted by the thick standing trunks of the cypresses.
At length, also, the monologue ends; soon after, succeeded by a short
exclamatory phrase, in voice louder and more earnest.
Then there is silence; so profound, that Blue Bill hears but his own
heart, beating in loud sonorous thumps--louder from his ribs being
contiguous to the hollow trunk of the tree.