“Good,” answered Garry. “We aren’t much on shooting animals just for the sake of shooting.”
The trio of men led the way to where the man called Tom had said he had seen a raccoon a few days before. Sandy was eagerly sniffing at the ground, and soon he gave vent to a low growl.
“By gosh, I believe he’s got the scent already,” chuckled one of the men. “It may be some other kind of an animal, but I doubt it. All I’ve seen around here is the raccoon, although there were a few rabbits at different times. Still the raccoon is the most likely to be out prowling at this time of night.”
Soon Sandy was off, with his nose close to the ground. After a few moments he had left them entirely, and they followed only by means of his occasional barks. After almost half a mile of chasing, they heard a series of wild barks, and knew that Sandy had driven something to bay.
In a few moments they had caught up to the dog, and there sure enough he had something treed and was venting his pleasure by loud and vociferous barks.
They peered up into the tree and could see nothing. In the meantime one of the men had discovered a hole at the foot of the tree.
“Now one of you fellows get some branches, dry ones of course, and we’ll soon have Mr. Coon all trapped as nice as you please.”
One of the men, assisted by Dick, soon gathered an armful of dry sticks. Getting a boost from his friend, Tom soon shinnied up the tree, and stopped after he had gotten about fifteen feet up well into the branches, for it was a small tree.
“Here’s the upper end of the hollow,” he called down. “Now you fellows start your fire at the hole down there, while I spread the bag over this hole.”
The smudge was soon started, and fanning it with their coats, they drove the smoke into the hollow tree trunk. They were always careful not to let the flames of the fire get to the tree, or they might have started a forest fire that would have been disastrous. As a matter of fact, several bad forest fires have started from an unskillful attempt to smoke some animal out of a tree.