Page:The lady or the tiger and other stories, Stockton (Scribner's 1897 ed).djvu/106

96 streaked the other way to the root o' the tree, giv' one hop over the stump, an' was off. I seed him do it, an' the dogs see him, but they wasn't quick enough, and couldn't stop 'emselves—they was goin' so hard fur the crotch.

"Ye never did see in all yer days sech a mad crowd as that thar crowd around that tree, but they didn't stop none to sw'ar. The dogs was arter the 'coon, an' arter him we went too. He put fur the edge of the woods, which looked queer, fur a coon never will go out into the open if he kin help it; but the dogs was so hot arter him that he couldn't run fur, and he was treed ag'in in less than five minutes. This time he was in a tall hick'ry-tree, right on the edge o' the woods; and it wa'n't a very thick tree, nuther, so the niggers they jist tuk ther' axes, but afore they could make a single crack, ole Haskins he runs at 'em an' pushes 'em away.

"'Don't ye touch that thar tree!' he hollers. 'That hick'ry marks my line!' An' sure enough, that was the tree with the surveyors' cuts on it, that marked the place where the line took a corner that run atween Haskinses farm and Widder Thorp's. He know'd the tree the minute he seed it, an' so did I, fur I carried the chain for the surveyors when they laid off the line; an' we could all see the cut they'd blazed on it, fur it was fresh yit, an' it was gittin' to be daylight now, an' we could see things plain.

"Well, as I tell ye, ev'ry man uv us jist r'ared and snorted, an' the dogs an' boys was madder'n the rest uv us, but ole Haskins he didn't give in. He jist