“Oh, Mister Coon! oh, Mister Coon,
Oh, why can’t ye once more balance on the moon.”
It was quite dark before they were fairly started. The shadows gloomed
thick about them. The stars were in the sky. The sound of the boyish
voices whooping and calling, and singing snatches of the coon-song,
echoed far and wide among the solemn woods and the listening rocks. The
dogs answered to the eager urgency of their masters by wheezing and
snuffing about the ground as they ran with their muzzles down, but the
best among them, even the preëminent Bose, could conjure no coon where no
coon was.
“What ails ’em ter take ter sech a piece o’ briars,” Skimpy cried out
suddenly with an accompaniment of a ripping sound. “Ef I tear up these
hyar clothes o’ mine enny mo’ I’ll hev some rents ter mend in my skin,
fur my mother hev sot it down ef I gin her so many repairs ter make
she’ll gin me some.”
This terrifying prospect did not unduly alarm Skimpy nor hinder his
joyous pursuit of the coon. He was the first fellow to fall into the
briars and to flounder into the branch. His nimble feet followed more
closely than any others their canine precursors. It was he who cried
out and encouraged the dogs and kept them together, and even the
self-sufficient and experienced Bose hearkened to his counsel and lent
himself to guidance. Skimpy was close upon the docked tail of this animal
when suddenly the wheezing Bose emitted a short sharp cry and sprang off
in the darkness with all the dogs after him.