“We’ll make for that,” thought Billy. “If the old marauder is out and comes home to find a lot of monkeys perched in his tree he’ll think he is having the worst nightmare that ever horrified a healthy coon. How I shall laugh at the sight of him!”
TOM AND HARRY INVITED THEM TO THE HOUSE.
Billy didn’t dream of the tragedy he was about to witness.
Soon they had come to the big chestnut tree, and the monkeys, without being told, quickly climbed into its lofty branches, waiting for Billy to decide on the next move.
While he was considering how he could best put in his unexpected appearance at Cloverleaf Farm, he thought he saw two figures of what seemed to be small boys hiding behind a clump of blackberry bushes not very far away. They came shortly after he arrived and evidently did not see either him or the monkeys.
He was right, for Tom and Harry Treat had come out with their guns to try and get a shot at Mr. Coon, who of late, it seems, had been very bold and had acquired the very bad habit of robbing the hen roost at Cloverleaf. Only the night before he had imprudently selected for his midnight supper the finest young white Leghorn rooster on the place. This was the more provoking because the boys had expected to enter this same rooster at the county fair to be held the next week. The Coon had now gone too far in his depredations and it was decided to put an end to him at whatever cost of time and trouble. This explains why they were watching with their guns at this time of night the old chestnut tree, for it was well known to be the Coon’s house.
Presently a scratching inside the trunk of the tree might have been heard and very soon the head of the ill-fated Coon appeared at the door of his house. He crawled lazily out on the great limb near at hand and was about to scratch himself, as was his wont, when he espied one of the monkeys. He couldn’t believe his own eyes, so he winked hard and looked again. Instead of one, he now saw a whole group of his archenemies here and there and everywhere, all silently watching him, Colonel Mandrill the nearest to him of all. With that he closed both eyes and toppled off the big limb to the ground. Just then two shots rang out on the still air, and at the same time both Tom and Harry rushed forward to make sure that the Coon did not even yet get away. He was dead. There could be no doubt of that, but no mark of a bullet was found upon him. At the unexpected sight of the monkeys, his old and most-dreaded enemies, he had perished of heart failure.
While the boys were wondering how it was that the Coon had died while the bullets from neither of their guns had touched him to their increased amazement and utter astonishment, Billy Whiskers appeared before them, coming from the other side of the great chestnut trunk.