Trails and Tramps in Alaska and Newfoundland

by William S. Thomas

Presently our eager ears catch the low grunt of a dog as he gets the first whiff of the trail, not fresh, but spent. By the reflected light we see Towser wag his tail, slowly at first, but as the scent gets warmer the tail wags more vigorously. Soon one long, loud wail resounds in the stillness of the night and ere the echo dies away in the distance it is repeated, and we know the chase is on. Everybody runs toward the sound. The quarry has taken to the tree and the dogs bay up, but before the party reaches the scene of action the dogs are off again. They find the trail where the coon has followed a grapevine for some distance, taken the ground again, and “put one over” on the old dog. After considerable delay the dog finds his mistake, picks up the scent and away he goes, and directly, on the other side of the ridge, bays up. Then the party goes pell-mell in that direction. And so the hunt proceeds, now here, now there, up hill and across ravine, until at last the coon is treed, and the dogs by their change of voice tell the news and summon the party, which arrives in installments, out of breath, at the foot of the tree where the dogs are panting after their long chase.

Every one is eager for the finish. The tree-climber of the party takes off his coat, hat, and shoes and begins the ascent to shake Mister Coon from the tree. A shout comes from the tree-top, “Here he is; look out below!” then follows a shake or two and a large house cat disappears into the darkness before the dogs can take hold. When the cat came down it alighted on all fours near the girls, and what with the girls screaming, the dogs barking, and the cat spitting, night was made hideous. We soon called the dogs off and “hied” them on for a fresh trail.

By and by the dogs took another hot scent. Down the hill, clambering over a stake and rider fence,—a ruse which for a moment confused the dogs,—then across a cornfield to the creek went the coon with the dogs in hot pursuit; he followed the course of the creek for several rods, then dashed through at the shallows and bid fair to make good his escape to the woods beyond. But old Stump had been through that maneuver before; the rest of the dogs knew it and followed him over to the other bank, up the hill, under the cliff, and erelong bayed up. Following as fast as possible over and under dead trees, a jump of several feet over an embankment, a slide of several feet more, a brief climb and we reached the dogs, who, excitedly voicing their triumph, formed a circle around the tree as though appealing to us for action.

The night was dark and just such a night as was well suited for “shining” the eyes of the coon. Lying flat on the ground and staring into every part of the tree, I finally descried two objects shining like stars near together in the zenith. We knew they were the eyes of the treed coon. Calling the dogs we prepared to photograph them and the coon in the mix-up. Setting up the kodak about twenty feet from the spot where we figured the coon would drop from the tree, we fixed the pan for the flash, loading it with an ounce of flash-light powder. One of the party held the dogs and another lighted Roman candles and shot them towards the coon. Thus we had the artist at the kodak, the man in charge of the flash at the pan, the coon hunters holding the dogs, and one of Payne’s pyrotechnic men setting off the fireworks. The combination was too much for the coon. About that time the big dog began to jerk at his chain, and the pit-lamp in the hands of the man who held him registered on the exposed sensitive film a sort of stylographic record of the efforts of the dog to get at the coon as soon as the latter landed on the ground. As the coon dropped we set the flash off, and caught both the dog and coon about the time they came together at the very spot on which we had focused the lens.

The chase ended, the quarry caught, we straggled back over the hills to the distant trolley line, as Orion rose high toward the zenith. A few hours more, and the eastern sky would grow gray. Tired, but happy, we jogged along, most of us in silence, for about that time in the morning after a coon hunt, the songs and jokes of the early evening are stale, and our spirits, with the night, are on the wane. Like an exploded skyrocket, we are getting back again to earth as fast as we can after our excursion into the realm of darkness.

Dog and Coon in the Mix-up

Note the forefoot of the coon between the dog’s hind legs; his banded tail to the right of the dog’s right forefoot. The zig-zag line in front of the man at the left indicates the movement of his hand in which was a pit-lamp and the end of the dog’s chain just prior to the flash.]

Another denizen of the woods is frequently interrupted in his night prowlings by the dogs hunting for coon. I refer to the oppossum, who is himself frequently the object of the quest. In the Southern States the negroes are very fond of hunting for ’possum. A successful hunt means a good dinner, the pièce-de-résistance being the trophy of the chase stuffed with sweet potatoes. Roasted and served as only an old “mammy” can roast and serve it, ’possum defies comparison. Perhaps roast suckling-pig comes the nearest, but even this lacks the flavor of the woods. We are used to thinking of the ’possum as a lethargic animal, but that is only when he is “playing ’possum.” He is really quite agile, and when treed by the dogs, furnishes no end of excitement by climbing, not into the tops of the trees, as does the coon, but merely far enough to be safe from his pursuers. I have yet in anticipation the pleasure of obtaining a flash-light of the hounds on their hind legs, pawing and clawing at a tree on which, just beyond their reach, the ’possum lies stretched indifferently on a horizontal limb. One really ought to have a dictagraph, so that when the picture is thrown on the screen, it may be with the appropriate accompaniment of the baying and barking of the hounds and the shouts of the hunters.