They wouldn't give up. Once again they crossed over to the other shore. It was no use. The coon hadn't touched that bank. They came back. Old Dan went up the river and Little Ann worked downstream.
An hour and a half later they gave up and came to me begging for help. I knelt down between their wet bodies. While I scratched and petted them, I let them know that I still loved them.
'I'm not mad,' I said. 'I know you did your best. If that coon can fool both of us, then we're just beat. We'll go someplace else to hunt. He's not the only coon in these bottoms.'
Just as I picked up my ax and lantern, Little Ann let out a bawl and tore out down the riverbank. Old Dan, with a bewildered look on his face, stood for a moment looking after her. Then, raising his head high in the air, he made my eardrums ring with his deep voice. I could hear the underbrush popping as he ran to join her.
I couldn't figure out what had taken place. Surely Little Ann had heard or seen something. I could tell by their voices that whatever it was they were after, they were close enough to see it and were probably running by sight.
The animal left the bottoms and headed for the mountains. Whatever it was, it must have realized my dogs were crowding it too closely. At the edge of the foothills it turned and came back toward the river.
I was still trying to figure out what was going on, when I realized that on striking the river the animal had again turned and was coming straight toward me. I set my lantern down and tightened my grip on the ax.
I was standing my ground quite well when visions of bears, lions, and all kinds of other animals started flashing across my mind. I jumped behind a big sycamore and was trying hard to press my body into the tree when a big coon came tearing by. Twenty-five yards behind him came my dogs, running side by side. I saw them clearly when they passed me, bawling every time their feet touched the ground.
After seeing that there was nothing to be scared of, once again I was the fearless hunter, screaming and yelling as loud as I could, 'Get him, boy, get him.'
I tore out after them. The trails I knew so well were forgotten. I took off straight through the brush. I was tearing my way through some elders when the voices of my dogs stopped.
Holding my breath, I stood still and waited. Then it came, the long-drawn-out bawl of the tree bark. My little hounds had done it. They had treed their first coon.
When I came to them and saw what they had done I was speechless. I groaned and closed my eyes. I didn't want to believe it. There were a lot of big sycamores in the bottoms but the one in which my dogs had treed was the giant of them all.
While prowling the woods, I had seen the big tree many times. I had always stopped and admired it. Like a king in his own domain, it towered far above the smaller trees.
It had taken me quite a while to find a name suitable for the big sycamore. For a while I had called it 'the chicken tree.' In some ways it had reminded me of a mother hen hovering over her young in a rainstorm. Its huge limbs spread out over the small birch, ash, box elder, and water oak as if it alone were their protector. ^ Next, I named it 'the giant.' That name didn't last long. Mama told us children a story about a big giant that lived in the mountains and ate little children that were lost. Right away I started looking for another name.
One day, while lying in the warm sun staring at its magnificent beauty, I found the perfect name. From that day on, it was called 'the big tree.' I named the bottoms around it 'the big tree bottoms.'
Walking around it, and using the moon as a light, I started looking for the coon. High up in the top I saw a hollow in the end of a broken limb. I figured that that was the coon's den.
I could climb almost any tree I had ever seen but I knew I could never climb the big sycamore and it would take days to chop it down.
There had been very little hope from the beginning, but on seeing the hollow I gave up. 'Come on,' I said to my dogs. 'There's nothing I can do. We'll go someplace else and find another coon.'
I turned to walk away. My hounds made no move to follow. They started whining. Old Dan reared up, placed his front paws on the trunk, and started bawling. ^ 'I know he's there,' I said, 'but there's nothing I can do. I can't climb it. Why it's sixty feet up to the first limb and it would take me a month to cut it down.'
Again I turned and started on my way.
Little Ann came to me. She reared up and started licking my hands. Swallowing the knot in my throat, I said, 'I'm sorry, little girl. I want him just as badly as you do, but there's no way I can get him.'
She ran back to the tree and started digging in the soft ground close to the roots.
'Come on now,' I said in a gruff voice. 'You're both acting silly. You know I'd get the coon for you if I could but I can't.'
