“Perhaps it’s a coon,” said Uncle Isaac.
“A coon? How could a coon get on to this island?”
“How could he get here? How could the squirrels and woodchucks get here? God Almighty put ’em here.”
Going to the tree, Joe peered a long time among the branches; at length he exclaimed, “Here he is: get your gun, Ben!”
“I shot away the last powder I had to kindle fire this morning; but we’ll stone him down.”
They pelted him with stones in vain, the thick limbs causing them all to glance.
“Climb up and get him, Joe.”
“Climb up yourself, Ben; they say their bite’s rank ‘pizen.’”
“I’ll have that coon,” said Ben, “if it takes all day. Cut the tree down, Joe.”
As it fell, the coon leaped from it; and though the stones fell thick and fast around him, he ran up the bank and under the logs. Then began a most exciting race, the men rolling the logs here and there, and striking at him between them, till finally he broke cover, and ran for the woods, with the whole scout at his heels. Ben overtook him just as he was running up a tree, and, catching him by the tail, flung him over his head: he landed on Joe’s back, who, having a mortal terror of the bite of a coon, roared with agony; but the creature, too frightened to bite, rolled off his back to the ground, and passing Uncle Isaac, who was so full of tickle that he could not lift a finger to stop him, ran under the timber again. As he was now too far gone to try another race for the woods, he hid under a log, one end of which lay upon a block, and the other on the ground.