I told him to wait a little while. There would be plenty of time for whooping.
He snorted and said he thought a hunter always whooped to his dogs.
'I do, Grandpa,' I said, 'but not before they strike a trail.'
We walked on. Every now and then we would stop and listen. I could hear the loud snuffing of Old Dan. Once we caught a glimpse of Little Ann as she darted across an opening that was bathed in moonlight. She was as silent as a ghost and as quick as a flitting shadow.
Papa said, 'It sure is a beautiful night for hunting.'
The judge said, 'You can't beat these Ozark Mountain nights for beauty. I don't care where you go.'
Grandpa started to say something. His voice was drowned out by the bell-like cry of Little Ann.
In a whisper, I said, 'Come on, Dan. Hurry and help her.'
As if in answer to my words, his deep voice hammered its way up through the river bottoms. I felt the blood tingling in my veins. That wonderful feeling that only a hunter knows crept over my body.
Looking over at Grandpa, I said, 'Now you can whoop.'
Jerking off his hat and throwing back his head, he let out a yell. It wasn't a whoop, or a screech, it was about halfway in between. Everyone laughed.
The coon was running upriver toward our campground. We turned and followed. I could tell by the dogs' voices that they were running side by side, and were hot on the trail. Closing my eyes, I could almost see them running, bodies stretched to their fullest length, legs pounding up and down, white steam rolling from their hot breath in the frosty night.
Grandpa got tangled up in some underbrush, and lost his hat and spectacles. It took us a while to find the glasses. Papa said something about getting them wired on with bailing wire. Grandpa snorted. The judge laughed.
The coon crossed the river and ran on upstream. Soon my dogs were out of hearing distance. I told Papa we had better stay on our side of the river and keep going until we could hear them again.
Twenty minutes later we heard them coming back. We stopped.
'I think they have crossed back to our side,' I said.
All at once the voices of my dogs were drowned out by a loud roar.
'What in the world was that?' Grandpa said.
'I don't know,' the judge said. 'Reckon it was wind or thunder?'
About that time we heard it again.
The judge started laughing. 'I know now what it is,' he said. 'Those hounds have run that coon right back by our camp. The noise we heard was the other hunters whooping to them.' ? Everyone laughed.
A few minutes later I heard my dogs bawling treed. On reaching the tree, Papa ran his hand back under his coat. He pulled out Grandpa's gun.
'That's a funny-looking gun,' the judge said. 'It's a 410-gauge pistol, isn't it?'
'It's the very thing for this kind of work,' Papa said. 'You couldn't kill a coon with it if you tried, especially if you're using bird shot. All it will do is sting his hide a little.'
At the crack of the gun, the coon gave a loud squall and jumped. My dogs lost no time in killing him.
We skinned the coon, and soon were on our way again.
The next time my dogs treed, they were across the river from us. Finding a riffle, we pulled off our shoes and started across.
Grandpa very gingerly started picking his way. His tender old feet moved from one smooth rock to another. Everything was fine until we reached midstream, where the current was much swifter. He stepped on a loose round
