Page:The lady or the tiger and other stories, Stockton (Scribner's 1897 ed).djvu/92

82 have much trouble a-findin' him, fur we know'd pretty much whar he lived, and we went right thar. Taint often anybody hunts fur one pertickerler 'coon; but that was the matter this time, as I tell ye."

It was evident from the business-like way in which Martin Heiskill started into this story, that he wouldn't get home in time to have his fish cooked for supper, but that was not my affair. It was not every day that the old fellow chose to talk, and I was glad enough to have him go on as long as he would.

"As I tell ye," continued Martin, looking steadily over the toe of one of his boots, as if taking a long aim at some distant turkey, "we put off, hot and heavy, arter that ar 'coon, and hard work it was too. The dogs took us down through the very stickeryest part of the woods, and then down the holler by the edge of Lumley's mill-pond,—whar no human bein' in this world ever walked or run afore, I truly b'lieve, fur it was the meanest travellin' groun' I ever see,—and then back inter the woods ag'in. But 'twa'n't long afore we came up to the dogs a-barkin' and hovvlin' around a big chestnut-oak about three foot through, an' we knew we had him. That is, ef it wa'n't Haskinses 'coon. Ef it was his 'coon, may be we had him, and may be we hadn't. The boys lighted up their lightwood torches, and two niggers with axes bent to work at the tree. And them as wasn't 'choppin' had as much as they could do to keep the dogs back out o' the way o' the axes.

"The dogs they was jist goin' on as ef they was mad, and ole Uncle Pete Williams—he was the one