The haunted hound; (14 page)

CHAPTER TWELVE

lathan really had fun. With Judy and Mr. Worth there everything seemed so easy. As they went along down the river, never hurrying, nor apparently caring about anything except what might be around the next bend, Mr. Worth told stories about coon hunts, or Judy and Jonathan just talked about nothing.

And the w^ay they ate! All Mr. Worth had in his bundle was a frying pan and stewpan, some salt and pepper, a slab of smoked bacon, and a half-dozen or so big Bermuda onions. Wrapped up in Judy's blanket, which Jonathan carried half the time, was a long flashlight, a hatchet, and some corn meal. Every now and then, as they went along, Mr. Worth would say, 'Til catch up with you at the next bend or so,'' and go off up little trails that Jonathan hadn't even noticed. Each time, when he caught up with them again, he'd have found some potatoes or lettuce or something to eat. Once he brought a \\atermelon.

Around three o'clock in the afternoon Mr. Worth said, "If we have any luck, we'll be running coons all night. So

why don't we get some sleep right now? Then we won't miss it tonight/'

There was a grassy place up under the trees where Mr. Worth and Judy spread out their blankets. Jonathan picked the softest sand he could find and lay down.

Judy tied the two dogs to a tree and then looked over at him. "You'd better lie down on my blanket, Jonathan, or the red bugs will gnaw one of your legs off/'

It was better over on the blanket and the grass didn't tickle him. He lay on his back, looking up at the blue sky through the lace of the tree limbs. Judy lay over on her side, looking up, too. 'Ton having a good time?" she asked quietly, so as not to bother Mr. Worth lying on his blanket a few feet away.

"I realJy am," Jonathan said. ''What do you do on a coon hunt, Judy."

''Run," she said.

"Is that all?"

"It's enough. You run for a while, then you look down and find out that youVe worn out your feet and are just running on your leg bones/'

Jonathan laughed.

"All right," she said, sounding angry. "You wait. After a while you'll be running on your knee bones/'

"What happens when you wear out all your bones and can't run any more?"

"By that time the dogs will have the coon treed."

"That's good," Jonathan said. "Then what do you do?"

''You get him out of the tree. Then the dogs grab him and kill him."

''Does he fight?"

Judy turned her head to look at him. "You wait," she said.

Mr. Worth was gently snoring by then and Jonathan was beginning to feel a little drowsy. All around there was a soft humming from all the bugs and insects, and a sighing noise from the river. Birds sang quietly, and the clouds drifted by. He was warm and well fed, and it wasn't long before he was sound asleep.

Judy watched a green stinkbug walk up the collar of Jonathan's shirt and up past his ear. She knew better than to pick it off with her fingers—it would stink up Jonathan's head for a long time. So she got a blade of grass and held it in front of the stinkbug until it walked out on it. She threw it away, without scaring it, and then went to sleep.

"Coons'll be really prowling around on a night like this," Mr. Worth declared.

They had eaten supper just before sundown and were now ready to go.

"We'll leave a little fire burning on the sand bar, but I guess we'd better hang our bedrolls from a tree limb, Judy."

"What for? Nobody's going to come around here in the middle of the night. Uncle Dan."

"I don't want any wild hog rolling himself up in my blanket," Mr. Worth said. "Take the pistol out and I'll hang 'em up."

''I haven't got the pistol/' Judy said.

''You haven't? Maybe I've got it then." Mr. Worth un^ rolled his bundle but didn't find the pistol.

Judy couldn't find it either.

''Well, we don't need it/' Mr. Worth decided, "but I sure thought you brought it."

He untied the two coon hounds—Slewfoot and Strive— slipped the hatchet down inside his belt, and said, "Let's go.

Jonathan, remembering what Judy had told him, was all set to start running, but Mr. Worth just ambled along while the dogs galloped up and down the riverbank, apparently enjoying themselves.

It was dark, and Jonathan wondered why Judy never turned on the flashlight but stumbled around as much as he did.

In a little while, though, the dogs left them. Mr. Worth walked along slowly, stopping sometimes to listen, but not appearing to be in any hurry.

"Thought we ran all the time," Jonathan said.

"You wait," Judy told him.

Then the dogs began to bark.

The sound did something to Jonathan. It made his heart begin to pound and he shivered all over.

One dog had a deep, rolling voice and the other had a high, clear one. The way the voices went together sounded like music to Jonathan.

"They've got a hot one," Judy said, jumping up and down a little. "Let's go. Uncle Dan!"

''Hold on/' Mr. Worth said, cupping his car to listen. ''I think those dangcd dogs are running that coon backwards.'*

''Backwards?'' Jonathan said to Judy.

'They're running the trail backwards. They're going toward where the coon just came from."

''How can you tell?"

"I can't/' she admitted. "Uncle Dan can though. When he gets the dogs straightened out, you'll hear the difference. But only because you heard it wrong the first time."

Mr. Worth began to run then, loping along and yelling to the dogs. Judy and Jonathan ran along behind him.

When they got to where the dogs were Mr. Worth stopped and held out his hand for them to stop, too. Then he just stood there for a long time, looking down at the dogs. "Slew," he said scornfully. "Strive."

The dogs were so ashamed of themselves that they both lay down on the ground and rolled over on their backs.

"Now get up and go the right way," Mr. Worth said.

The dogs scrambled up and tore off into the darkness.

In a little while they began to bark again.

Jonathan found out then what Judy meant by the difference. The first time they had barked it had thrilled him, but this time—there just wasn't anything like it. Their voices filled up the whole world. The dogs seemed to be calling back to him: "Come on, Jonathan. Come on. We've got a big old coon. Come onf

"They've got him now," Mr. Worth said, starting to run. "But they sure gave him four or five minutes to get started

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ill. It'll take us most of the night to make up for that. Danged old dogs/'

Mr. Worth led the way, then Judy, then Jonathan.

It was rough running. The coon ran straight away from the river, picking the thickest bushes and briar patches. He jumped into every little creek along the way, and when he couldn't find any thick woods, he'd find a swampy place.

Every now and then the sound of the dogs would change for a little while. Each time Mr. Worth would stop for a second to listen, then run again.

''That's a smart old coon," Judy said. "He's climbing a little way up every big tree he comes to."

'Why?" Jonathan asked.

"So the dogs'll think he's up it and will stop to bay him up the tree."

Mr. Worth said, "He might slow Strive up a little that way, but he won't fool old Slewfoot. That old dog can out-think any coon on four feet."

They ran and ran, the barking of the dogs always ahead of them and far away. Jonathan got a stitch in his side that felt as if somebody was driving a carving knife into him with a hammer. But he couldn't stop running because Judy didn't and after a while the stitch stopped hurting.

As they ran, Mr. Worth told them what was going on. For a while the coon kept going back and forth across a stream so that the dogs had to waste a lot of time on each bank picking up his trail again.

Once or twice he backtracked, turning right around and

running back toward the dogs before cutting off in a new direction.

Then the old coon ran straight away for more than a mile.

''Wonder where he's going?" Mr. Worth asked.

B\' that time the moon had come up and it wasn't so dark. Jonathan, s\\eat running off him e\er\'\vhere, was dr\'-mouthed and wobbling when they came out of the woods. Ahead of them in the moonlight was a wide, flat, open field, and Jonathan was glad to see something that would be a little easier to run in than the woods and up and down the hills.

But the field had just been plowed. Jonathan's feet sank to the ankles in the soft dirt and nearly every furrow tripped him.

Ahead of him, in the moonlight, he could see Judy and Mr. Worth running, the furrows making them go up and do\^n like the horses on a merr\--go-round.

Then, added to the hounds' rolling tongues, a flock of chickens began to squawk and holler.

''Oh, oh,'' Mr. Worth said, "we might lose that old coon right here."

The chickens were crowing, screeching, and squalling as the coon ran right up their roosts and doun again. And when the dogs started milling around so did the chickens.

By the time they got into the yard the owner of the chickens was up out of bed and yelling. As he stood in the door with the light behind him, Jonathan saw that he had a gun.

Mr. Worth paid no attention to him as he ran right past him, heading for the chicken yard. ''Just running a coon, mister/' he yelled. "Get your hat and shoes and come on!"

''I thank you, no,'' the man yelled. ''But don't tree that coon in my hen house."

Mr. Worth got the dogs out from among the chickens and on the trail again, which now led back toward the river.

By this time Jonathan didn't know how he was making one foot lift up and swing forward with each step, and he was sure that he would never be able to take another one. But he kept on running, somehow, with Judy just ahead of him, her flying hair looking hazy in the moonlight.

Jonathan was getting a breath about every five minutes by the time they got back to the river, and he was sure he was going to have to quit and lie down if they kept on much longer, but now they were closer to the dogs, and the way they barked seemed to give him some strength.

Suddenly, then, the barking stopped. Not to have it ringing in his ears made him feel funny.

Then it started again, but it was a different kind. Stri\'e was making a really excited noise and Slewfoot was sort of whining.

"They've treed him!" Mr. Worth said, and started running again.

The dogs were jumping at the trunk of a big water oak not far from the river. Mr. Worth ran all the way around the tree and, at last, stopped. "We got him now," he declared.

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'There's no other tree he can get in. So all vveVe got to do is get him down where the dogs can take care of him. Where's the flashlight, Judy?"

Judy handed it to him and he shone it up into the limbs of the tree.

For a long time Mr. W^orth tried to find the coon while the dogs kept whining and Judy and Jonathan just panted.

After a while Judy said, "You got any feet left, Jonathan?''

''Vm afraid to look," he told her.

''Me, too."

Mr. Worth couldn't find the coon and kept getting madder and madder.

''If he's really smart," Mr. Worth said, "he'll put his hands over his eyes so they won't shine. And he picked out a mighty leafy tree."

"But he'll peek through his fingers after a while," Judy declared. "Coons are too curious anyhow."

Then Mr. Worth yelled, "There he is!"

Way up in the top of the tree Jonathan could see one little shining eye.

"See," Judy said, "he's just peeking now."

"How we going to get him down?" Mr. Worth asked. "If we had that pistol, I'd just pop him out of there." He walked around the tree. "Take a week to cut this oak down with nothing but a little bitty hatchet. Guess I'll have to climb her."

"I'll climb her," Judy said.

Jonathan, a little scared about it, said, "I'll climb her."

''No," Mr. Worth decided, 'you all stay on the ground and don't let that old coon get away. Til climb her.''

He scrambled up to the first fork and then they could hear him working his way up the tree. ''Shine the light on him so's I can see/' he called down.

Judy held the light on the coon and said, "Get a stick, Jonathan. Get me one, too. Because when that coon gets down here he's going to be mad all over."

Jonathan hunted around in the bushes and found two good, thick sticks. He gave one to Judy and then waited as Mr. Worth climbed higher and higher in the tree.

"Here he comes," Mr. Worth called down.

He sounded a little excited but not disturbed. But the next noise he made was all disturbed.

"Get away.' Get away/" he yelled.

Then the branches started swaying, a shower of leaves fell, and Mr. Worth said, "Oh, oh," and the crashing started.

Judy and Jonathan moved toward the foot of the tree as the crashing kept on. Judy tripped on something and went flat on her face, the flashlight flying off, end over end, and landing in the sand, still burning.

In the dark, with Judy trying to get up and the dogs barking again and running around, and the crashing going on up in the tree, Jonathan couldn't tell exactly what was happening. Something dark and fighting finally fell out, hitting the ground with a thud. It hadn't even bounced before both dogs were on top of it, growling and snarling.