Before he had a chance to stir either paw, he withdrew both and sat up sputtering. Another coon was coming. As though it were not outrageous enough for a coon or anything else to trespass on a pool that Old Joe had marked for his private fishing, the stranger paid not the slightest attention to his warning growl.
Obviously the intruder needed a lesson in manners and Old Joe would be delighted to teach it. When the strange coon came near enough, he discovered the reason for its lack of courtesy. It was a mere baby, a little spring-born male, and it hadn't learned manners. But it would. Old Joe launched his charge.
The trespasser stopped, squalled in terror, and with Old Joe in hot pursuit, turned to race full speed back in the direction from which he had come. Seventy-five yards from where he started, Old Joe rounded a tussock and stopped so suddenly that his chin almost scraped a furrow in the sand.
Just in front of him, her bristled fur making her appear twice her usual size, was the same mate whose den tree he'd sought out when he left the great sycamore in February. Old Joe was instantly transformed from an avenger bent on punishment to a husband bent on appeasement. Experience had taught him how to cope with every situation except that which must arise when he chased his own son, whom he did not recognize, and came face to face with his mate, whom he definitely did.
Old Joe had time for one amiable chitter. Then, in the same motion, she was upon and all over him. Her teeth slashed places that Old Joe hadn't previously known were vulnerable while her four paws, that seemed suddenly to have become forty, raked. For a moment he cowered. Then, since she was obviously in no mood to listen even if he had known how to explain that it was all a mistake, he turned in inglorious flight.
She chased him a hundred yards and turned back. Old Joe kept running. He reached the other channel, swam Willow Brook, climbed the opposite bank, and finally slowed to a fast walk. He hadn't seen his mate since they'd left her den tree to go their separate ways, and he hadn't had a single thought for either his wife or his two sons and three daughters.
He had one now, a very profound one. They could have the pool where crawfish abounded and, for that matter, both channels of Willow Brook at least for this night. Having met his match, Old Joe hadn't the least desire to meet her again.
He put another half mile between them before he considered himself reasonably safe. With the feeling that he was finally secure, came a realization that his dignity had been sadly ruffled. He was also hungry, but broken pride could be mended and hunger satisfied with one of Pine Heglin's few remaining guinea hens.
No longer threatened, Old Joe became his usual arrogant self. Despite Pine's exalted opinion of his big dog, Old Joe knew the creature for the idiot it was. The guinea hens, though wild, were stupid enough to seek the same roost every night, and they roosted in a grove of small pines. Old Joe, who'd taken his last guinea hen six nights ago, went straight to the grove.
He had no way of knowing that sometimes the gods smile on those who refuse to court favor.