That night and the following one, Tuké, the dog, slept so close to “Seventeen’s” cage that when his mother and his two brothers came back to make another try at rescuing him, they did not dare approach. But on the third night everything was as it should be. They went directly to the shop, got the file, and hurried to the cage.
“But mamma,” said the little raccoon, “I guess I’d rather stay where I am. They feed me all the eggs I want, and they are very kind to me. Today they told me that if I was good, they would soon let me go about the yard loose. There are two of them, with yellow hair. And they are man cubs, just as we are ’coon cubs. We shall have a fine time playing together.”
The three wild raccoons were very sad to hear all this; but they made the best of it, and went away, just promising to come back and see “Seventeen” every night.
And so they did. Each evening, as soon as it was dark and whether it was fair or rainy, the mother raccoon came with her two cublets to see their little brother. He gave them bread and chocolate, which he handed out between the wires of his cage; and they ate it on the ground nearby.
In two weeks, he was let loose to run about the yard; and every night he went back to his cage of his own accord to sleep. He had his ears tweeked a number of times, when the farmer caught him too close to the hen coop; otherwise he had no trouble at all. The two children became much attached to him; and when the wild raccoons heard how kind those man cubs were to their little brother, they began to be as fond of them as he was.
But one night, when it was very dark and very hot and a thunderstorm was gathering on the mountains, the wild raccoons called to “Seventeen” in vain. “Seventeen! Seventeen! Seventeen!” But he did not answer. In great alarm they crept up to the cage and looked in.
Pstt!
They drew back just in time. There in the door of the cage a big rattlesnake lay coiled. They had almost touched him with their noses. And now they knew why “Seventeen” failed to answer! The rattlesnake had bitten him and probably he was already dead.
The three raccoons decided they must first punish the rattlesnake. They rushed upon him from three directions and snipped his head off before he knew what they were about. Then they hurried inside the cage. “Seventeen” was lying there on the floor in a pool of blood, his feet up in the air, and his sides shaking as he panted for breath. They caressed him with their tongues and licked his body all over for more than a quarter of an hour. But it did no good. “Seventeen” finally opened his mouth and stopped breathing altogether. He was dead. Raccoons ordinarily are not much harmed by rattlesnake poison. Some other animals are not hurt at all. But this snake had bitten “Seventeen” right through an artery; and he had died, not of the poison, but from loss of blood.
The mother raccoon and her two cublets wept over his body for a long time; then, since they could do nothing further for him, they left the cage where he had been so happy and went back to the woods. But they kept thinking all the time: “What will the two man cubs say when they find that their little playmate is dead? They will probably be very, very sad and cry a long time!” They had grown to love the man cubs just from what “Seventeen” had said of them; and one thought was in their three heads—to relieve the sorrow of the two man cubs as best they could.