Page:The lady or the tiger and other stories, Stockton (Scribner's 1897 ed).djvu/108

98 was Haskins' 'coon," I said. "Why, you saw, when the man threw the blazing chunk into the big tree, that it had no bands on its tail."

"That's so," said Martin; "but ther' aint no man that kin see 'xactly straight uv a dark mornin', with no light but a flyin' chunk, and 'specially when he wants to see somethin' that isn't thar. An' as to bein' certain about that 'coon, I jist tell ye that ther's nothin' a man's more like to be mistook about, than a thing he knows fur dead sure.

"Well, as I tell ye, when we seed that that thar 'coon wa'n't Haskinses 'coon, arter all, an' that we couldn't git him out er that tree as long as the ole man was thar, we jist give up and put across the field for Haskinses house, whar we was a-goin' to git breakfus'. Some of the boys and the dogs staid aroun' the tree, but ole Haskins he ordered 'em off an' wouldn't let nobody stay thar, though they had a mighty stretchin' time gittin' the dogs away."

"It seems to me," said I, "that there wasn't much profit in that hunt."

"Well," said Martin, putting his pipe in his pocket, and feeling under his chair for his string of fish, which must have been pretty dry and stiff by this time, "the fun in a 'coon-hunt aint so much in gittin' the 'coon, as goin' arter him—which is purty much the same in a good many other things, as I tell ye."

And he took up his fish and departed.