"There's a traveling man frae Boston in town, Mary, and he was
edifying the boys a little, and Jimmy dinna like it. He's going
to show him a little country sport to-nicht to edify him."
Dannie outlined the plan of Jimmy's
campaign. Despite
disapproval, and a sore heart, Mary Malone had to smile--perhaps
as much over Dannie's
eagerness in telling what was contemplated
as anything.
"Why don't you take Jimmy's gun and go yoursilf?" she asked. "You
haven't had a day off since
fishing was over."
"But I have the work to do," replied Dannie, "and I couldna
leave--" He broke off
abruptly, but the woman supplied the word.
"Why can't you lave me, if Jimmy can? I'm not afraid. The snow
and the cold will furnish me protiction to-night. There'll be no
one to fear. Why should you do Jimmy's work, and miss the sport,
to guard the thing he holds so lightly?"
The red flushed Dannie's cheeks. Mary never before had spoken
like that. He had to say something for Jimmy quickly, and
quickness was not his forte. His lips opened, but nothing came;
for as Jimmy had boasted, Dannie never lied, except for him, and
at those times he had careful
preparation before he faced Mary.
Now, he was overtaken unawares. He looked so
boyish in his
confusion, the mother in Mary's heart was touched.
"I'll till you what we'll do, Dannie," she said. "You tind the
stock, and get in wood enough so that things won't be frazin'
here; and then you hitch up and I'll go with you to town, and
stay all night with Mrs. Dolan. You can put the horse in my
sister's
stable, and whin you and Jimmy get back, you'll be tired
enough that you'll be glad to ride home. A visit with Katie will
be good for me; I have been blue the last few days, and I can see
you are just aching to go with the boys. Isn't that a fine plan?"
"I should say that IS a guid plan," answered the delighted
Dannie. Anything to save Mary another night alone was good, and
then--that coon hunt did sound alluring.
And that was how it happened that at nine o'clock that night,
just as arrangements were being completed at Casey's, Dannie
Macnoun stepped into the group and said to the astonished Jimmy:
"Mary wanted to come to her sister's over nicht, so I fixed
everything, and I'm going to the coon hunt, too, if you boys want
me."
The crowd closed around Dannie, patted his back and cheered him,
and he was introduced to Mister O'Khayam, of Boston, who tried to
drown the clamor enough to tell what his name really was, "in
case of accident"; but he couldn't be heard for Jimmy yelling
that a good old Irish name like O'Khayam couldn't be beat in case
of anything. And Dannie took a hasty glance at the Thread Man, to
see if he wore that hated pleated coat, which lay at the bottom
of Jimmy's anger.
Then they started. Casey's wife was to be left in
charge of the
saloon, and the Thread Man half angered Casey by a whispered
conversation with her in a corner. Jimmy cut his crowd as low as
he possibly could, but it numbered fifteen men, and no one
counted the dogs. Jimmy led the way, the Thread Man beside him,
and the crowd followed. The walking would be best to follow the
railroad to the Canoper, and also they could cross the railroad
bridge over the river and save quite a distance.
Jimmy helped the Thread Man into a borrowed
overcoat and mittens,
and loaded him with a twelve-pound gun, and they started. Jimmy
carried a torch, and as torch
bearer he was a rank
failure, for
he had a
careless way of turning it and flashing it into people's
faces that compelled them to jump to save themselves. Where the
track lay clear and straight ahead the torch seemed to light it
like day; but in dark places it was suddenly lowered or wavering
somewhere else. It was through this
carelessness of Jimmy's that
at the first cattle-guard north of the village the torch
flickered
backward, ostensibly to locate Dannie, and the Thread
Man went crashing down between the iron bars, and across the gun.
Instantly Jimmy sprawled on top of him, and the next two men
followed suit. The torch plowed into the snow and went out, and
the yells of Jimmy alarmed the adjoining village.
He was hurt the worst of all, and the busiest getting in marching
order again. "Howly smoke!" he panted. "I was havin' the time of
me life, and plum forgot that cow-kitcher. Thought it was a
quarter of a mile away yet. And liked to killed meself with me
carelessness. But that's always the way in true sport. You got to
take the knocks with the fun." No one asked the Thread Man if he
was hurt, and he did not like to seem unmanly by mentioning a
skinned shin, when Jimmy Malone seemed to have bursted most of
his inside; so he shouldered his gun and limped along, now
slightly in the rear of Jimmy. The river
bridge was a serious
matter with its icy coat, and danger of specials, and the
torches suddenly flashed out from all sides; and the Thread Man
gave thanks for Dannie Macnoun, who reached him a steady hand
across the ties. The walk was three miles, and the railroad lay
at from twenty to thirty feet
elevation along the river and
through the bottom land. The Boston man would have been thankful
for the light, but as the last man stepped from the ties of the
bridge all the torches went out save one. Jimmy explained they
simply had to save them so that they could see where the coon
fell when they began to shake the coon tree.
Just beside the water tank, and where the embankment was twenty
feet sheer, Jimmy was cautioning the Boston man to look out, when
the
hunter next behind him gave a wild yell and plunged into his
back. Jimmy's grab for him seemed more a push than a pull, and
the three rolled to the bottom, and half way across the flooded
ditch. The ditch was
frozen over, but they were
shaken, and
smothered in snow. The whole howling party came streaming down
the embankment. Dannie held aloft his torch and discovered Jimmy
lying face down in a drift, making no effort to rise, and the
Thread Man
feebly tugging at him and imploring some one to come
and help get Malone out. Then Dannie slunk behind the others and
yelled until he was tired.
By and by Jimmy allowed himself to be dragged out.
"Who the
thunder was that come buttin' into us?" he blustered. "I
don't allow no man to butt into me when I'm on an imbankmint.
Send the fool back here till I kill him."
The Thread Man was pulling at Jimmy's arm. "Don't mind, Jimmy,"
he gasped. "It was an accident! The man slipped. This is an awful
place. I will be glad when we reach the woods. I'll feel safer
with ground that's
holding up trees under my feet. Come on, now!
Are we not almost there? Should we not keep quiet from now on?
Will we not alarm the coons?"
"Sure," said Jimmy. "Boys, don't hollo so much. Every blamed coon
will be scared out of its hollow!"
"Amazing!" said the Thread Man. "How clever! Came on the spur of
the moment. I must remember that to tell the Club. Do not hollo.
Scare the coon out of its hollow!"
"Oh, I do miles of things like that," said Jimmy dryly, "and
mostly I have to do thim before the spur of the moment; because
our moments go so domn fast out here
mighty few of thim have time
to grow their spurs before they are gone. Here's where we turn.
Now, boys, they've been
trying to get this biler across the
tracks here, and they've broke the ice. The water in this ditch
is three feet deep and freezing cold. They've stuck getting the
biler over, but I wonder if we can't cross on it, and hit the
wood beyond. Maybe we can walk it."
Jimmy set a foot on the ice-covered
boiler, howled, and fell back
on the men behind him. "Jimminy crickets, we niver can do that!"
he yelled. "It's a glare of ice and roundin'. Let's crawl through
it! The rist of you can get through if I can. We'd better take
off our
overcoats, to make us smaller. We can roll thim into a
bundle, and the last man can pull it through behind him."
Jimmy threw off his coat and entered the wrecked oil engine. He
knew how to
hobble through on his toes, but the pleated coat of
the Boston man, who tried to pass through by stooping, got almost
all Jimmy had in store for it. Jimmy came out all right with a
shout. The Thread Man did not step half so far, and landed knee
deep in the icy oil-covered slush of the ditch. That threw him
off his balance, and Jimmy let him sink one arm in the pool, and
then grabbed him, and scooped oil on his back with the other hand
as he pulled. During the
excitement and struggles of Jimmy and
the Thread Man, the rest of the party jumped the ditch and
gathered about, rubbing soot and oil on the Boston man, and he
did not see how they crossed.
Jimmy continued to rub oil and soot into the hated coat
industriously. The dogs leaped the ditch, and the
instant they
struck the woods broke away baying over fresh tracks. The men
yelled like mad. Jimmy struggled into his
overcoat, and helped
the almost
insane Boston man into his and then they
hurried after
the dogs.
The scent was so new and clear the dogs simply raged. The Thread
Man was wild, Jimmy was wilder, and the thirteen contributed all
they could for laughing. Dannie forgot to be
ashamed of himself
and followed the example of the crowd. Deeper and deeper into the
wild, swampy Canoper led the chase. With a man on either side to
guide him into the deepest holes and to shove him into bushy
thickets, the skinned, soot-covered, oil-coated Boston man toiled
and sweated. He had no time to think, the
excitement was so
intense. He scrambled out of each pitfall set for him, and
plunged into the next with such uncomplaining
bravery that Dannie
very
shortly grew
ashamed, and crowding up beside him he took the
heavy gun and tried to protect him all he could without falling
under the eye of Jimmy, who was keeping close watch on the Boston
man.
Wild yelling told that the dogs had treed, and with shaking
fingers the Thread Man pulled off the big mittens he wore and
tried to lift the gun. Jimmy flashed a torch, and sure enough, in
the top of a
mediumhickory tree, the light was reflected in
streams from the big shining eyes of a coon. "Treed!" yelled
Jimmy
frantically. "Treed! and big as an
elephant. Company's
first shot. Here, Mister O'Khayam, here's a good place to stand.
Gee, what luck! Coon in sight first thing, and Mellen's food coon
at that! Shoot, Mister O'Khayam, shoot!"
The Thread Man lifted the wavering gun, but it was no use.
"Tell you what, Ruben," said Jimmy. "You are too tired to shoot
straight. Let's take a rist, and ate our lunch. Then we'll cut
down the tree and let the dogs get cooney. That way there won't
be any shot marks in his skin. What do you say? Is that a good
plan?"
They all said that was the proper course, so they built a fire,
and placed the Thread Man where he could see the gleaming eyes of
the frightened coon, and where all of them could feast on his
soot and oil-covered face. Then they opened the bag and passed
the sandwiches.
"I really am hungry," said the weary Thread Man,
biting into his
with great
relish. His jaws moved once or twice experimentally,
and then he lifted his
handkerchief to his lips.
"I wish 'twas as big as me head," said Jimmy,
taking a great
bite, and then he began to curse uproariously.
"What ails the things?" inquired Dannie, ejecting a
mouthful. And
then all of them began to spit birdshot, and started an inquest
simultaneously. Jimmy raged. He swore some enemy had secured the
bag and mined the feast; but the boys who knew him laughed until
it seemed the Thread Man must
suspect. He
indignantly declared it
was a dirty trick. By the light of the fire he knelt and tried
to free one of the sandwiches from its sprinkling of birdshot, so
that it would be fit for poor Jimmy, who had worked so hard to
lead them there and tree the coon. For the first time Jimmy
looked thoughtful.
But the sight of the Thread Man was too much for him, and a
second later he was thrusting an ax into the hands accustomed to
handling a thread case. Then he led the way to the tree, and