Part 8

"I can't even take no pleasure on account Pa can't make me fetch the corn in and husk it," Harky continued.

"I know," said Mellie, and he shrugged helplessly. "Many's the time I been tempted to leave mine out, but with fourteen wimmen folk, a body's got less chanst than you stand with your Pa."

"Could be you're right," Harky said reflectively. "I guess there's times when a man like you just can't help himself, and that's why you sent Melinda on the coon hunt."

"I could of helped myself," Mellie corrected. "I could of told Melinda to stay home an' she'd of stayed. But I didn't an' she didn't."

"Why'd you send her?" Harky asked.

"Pure hellishness," said Mellie. "I was mule-kicked an' couldn't go coon huntin' so I figgered I'd ruin it for everybody else."

"You sure enough did," Harky told him. "Pa's got a busted leg, Raw and Butt are staying near enough the woods so they can duck into 'em, and us coon hunters are just going to sink right where we are without we do something."

"What ya aim to do, Harky?"

"I got to take Melinda out and I'll bring her back. We have to run Old Joe up his big sycamore and I got to show Melinda that there ain't any den there for him to hide in."

"It's a right big order," Mellie said.

"But the only chance any of us got," Harky pointed out. "That Miss Cathby, she come into the hills and tried to teach that Old Joe ain't nothing but a big old coon. The rest, she says, is a lot of foolishness, too. If we don't put a finish to that sort of thing once and for all, even us men will be sitting around gathering our lore out of books 'stead of coon hunts."

Mellie shuddered at a prospect so horrible. There was a brief silence, and Harky asked, "Can Melinda fetch Glory tonight?"

Mellie said seriously, "Maybe you ain't been moonstruck in one way, but you sure have been in another. You ever try tellin' a woman what to do?"

"No," Harky conceded, "but I'd like to."

"Me too," Mellie said sadly, "but I know better. Melinda kin go if she wants to, an' I kind of think she will on account she likes coon huntin'. But--"

"But what?" Harky asked.

"But nothin'," Mellie said.

About to fill Harky's understanding ear with his recent mental turmoil, and how that was responsible for his decision to keep Glory tied, Mellie wisely said nothing. Somehow or other he'd got just what he wanted anyhow, and Glory would be running with Duckfoot. Only fools meddled with affairs that were already perfect.

"Good enough," said Harky. "I'll wait 'til Melinda comes."

In due course, another day at Miss Cathby's school behind them, Melinda and Mary danced into the yard. Mary, who not only thought Harky a roughneck but said so loudly, frequently, and publicly, stuck her tongue out at him and ran into the house. Melinda, met and accompanied by an ecstatic Glory, came to where her father and Harky waited.

"You must have your corn in, Harold," she said sweetly.

"How come you ask that?" Harky demanded.

"If you didn't, you'd never be wasting daylight hours just talking."

"Corn ain't in and it ain't gonna be," Harky stated. "It ain't none of your mix if 'tis or not. What I come to ask is, will you bring Glory and come hunting tonight?"

"Can I, Pa?" Melinda breathed.

"If you've a mind to," Mellie said.

"Oh, Pa!"

She kissed him, assured Harky that she would be there with Glory at nightfall, and ran into the house. Mellie turned glowing eyes on Harky.

"You do git yourself a wife come two-three years, don't cuss your girl children. Didja see her kiss me?"

"Fagh!" said Harky.

* * * * *

Duckfoot, sitting on the Mundee porch, was hopefully sniffing the pork chops Harky was frying inside. Knowing that in the fullness of time he would be gnawing the bones, Duckfoot licked his pendulous jowls in happy anticipation and blew through his nose.

If he thought of himself at all, which he seldom did, it was never to wonder what he was or why he had been created. He was a hound, he had been created to hunt coons, and that's all Duckfoot had to know.

He could not possibly understand that he was a canine genius, and he wouldn't have cared if he had. The blood of Precious Sue mingled with that of Rafe Bradley's huge hound in Duckfoot, and he had inherited the best of both plus something more. He was born with a sense of smell and an ability to stick to a trail that is rare in even the best of experienced hounds.

The extra something consisted of a talent to out-think and outguess the quarry he was running. He'd been a mere pup the night Old Joe came raiding, but he'd experienced little difficulty in tracking Old Joe to his magic sycamore and he'd learned since.

The second time they ran Old Joe, Duckfoot had paced the renowned Thunder and arrived at the sycamore with his far more experienced hunting companion. He'd known perfectly well that Old Joe was in the den, for he could smell him there.

With a coon up, and for as long as the coon remained up, Duckfoot was satisfied to run true to form and bay the tree. Sooner or later his master would hear him tonguing and arrive to take charge. But Duckfoot had no intention of letting any coon, treed or not, get the upper hand and he called on his inborn hunting sense to make sure they never did.

Even Thunder considered his whole duty discharged if he either caught his coon on the ground or treed him and bayed the tree. Duckfoot went beyond that to a complete grasp of any given situation. He had known even as he supported Thunder's voice with his own that Old Joe might try to escape and that the one logical escape route was farther up the sycamore and into the tunnel.

The instant Old Joe left his den, Duckfoot raced for the ledge. Only the cramped tunnel prevented his overtaking Old Joe, and there'd been a long, hard chase after the big coon emerged into the swamp. Old Joe had finally escaped by entering a beaver pond, diving, evicting the rightful tenants from their domed house, and waiting it out.

It was a maneuver that Duckfoot had yet to learn; all he was sure of was that beaver appeared but the coon disappeared. Duckfoot, however, had learned exactly what to do should Old Joe again enter his den in the sycamore and be forced out of it. Rather than go to the tunnel's entrance, he'd go to its mouth and wait for his quarry to come out.

Thus Old Joe entered a wrong phase of his own special moon. If he treed in the sycamore and stayed there, his den would surely be discovered. If he left, Duckfoot would catch him at the swamp.

Two seconds before his supper was ready, Duckfoot winded Old Joe.

The old raider was down in the corn, making ready to rip a shock apart and help himself to the ears, when Duckfoot rushed. With a coon scented, he forgot even the prospect of pork chop bones.

The trail led to Willow Brook. Ranging upstream, Duckfoot found where the big coon had emerged on the far bank and tried to lose his scent in a slough. Duckfoot solved that one. Running like a greyhound when he was on scent and working methodically when he was not, he went on.

Presently, far behind, he heard Glory begin to tongue. Duckfoot set himself to working out another twist in Old Joe's trail.

Beyond any doubt, it would lead to the magic sycamore.

AUTUMN NIGHT

Old Joe scrambled up his magic sycamore and tumbled into his den. Five and a half minutes later Duckfoot arrived to waken the night with his roaring. Old Joe crouched nervously in the leaf-filled den, knowing that at last he had been careless. There were various reasons for his lapse in good judgment, of which the night itself was most important. It was mild autumn, just such a night as sometimes lingered through mid-December and sometimes changed in a few hours to cold winter that brought snow and left Willow Brook ice-locked for another season.

When he started out Old Joe had an uneasy feeling that this was to be, and that tonight would be his last to prowl the Creeping Hills until the February thaw. Uncertainty as to just how far he might venture from a safe den contributed to his carelessness, and he raided Mun Mundee's because his was the only corn left standing in the shock.

So doing he had scarcely a thought for Duckfoot. He chittered anxiously as he lay in the den and listened to the big hound roar.

The magic sycamore was a witch tree no longer; its spell had been broken the last time Old Joe treed in it and Mun tried to climb. The big coon did not know that Mun had fallen and broken a leg in falling; he'd have felt more cheerful if he had been aware of an occurrence so delightful. He was certain that he could now be chased out of this den and equally sure that Duckfoot knew his avenue of escape.

But even though Old Joe felt his mistake, he did not feel that it was necessarily a fatal one.

He decided to remain where he was and await developments. If the hunters flushed him from his den, he'd try to escape through his tunnel. Should Duckfoot be waiting there, Old Joe's only choice would be to try fighting off the hound until he was in the tunnel. Then he could run away.

Anything else that might arise, he'd deal with when the time came.

Glory arrived to add her shrill voice to Duckfoot's bass roars, and then Harky and Melinda came. Old Joe climbed the mouth of his den and poised there; if it was necessary to run up the sycamore and drop into his tunnel, every split second would be precious.

He saw the glow of the lantern. He heard the measured blows of an axe followed by the sound of a smaller tree toppling. The big coon waited until it was trimmed and propped against the sycamore, then he could wait no longer.

He left his den fast, scampered up the sycamore, and climbed out on the limb that overhung the tunnel's entrance. Old Joe continued to move fast. Though he was ready to fight if Duckfoot were waiting for him--and the big coon fully expected that he was--the coons that lived longest were those that ran away when they could avoid fights. It would be distinctly to his advantage if he reached the tunnel ahead of Duckfoot.

Meeting no hound when he dropped into the tunnel, Old Joe sighed thankfully and scooted onwards. Again he chose the branch that led into the swamp, for there were various courses open now. If Duckfoot was waiting for him when he emerged into the swamp, he could always go back and through the tunnel's other branch.

Duckfoot was not waiting. A little relieved because there was no pursuit and a little worried for the same reason, Old Joe cut a winding trail into the swamp and circled back toward Willow Brook.

He plunged in, and climbed out when he came to another swamp. It was the one he'd sought in February, when he voluntarily left his magic sycamore and stopped to steal a chicken from Mun Mundee on the way. Old Joe went unerringly to the same huge hollow oak.

There was still no hound on his trail and now he thought there'd be none. The finger of providence had crooked at the right moment, and Old Joe would run another autumn.

As he entered the hollow oak, he turned his sensitive nose away from the freezing wind that swept down. His premonition had been correct; winter would soon rule the Creeping Hills.

High in the great oak, Old Joe's sleeping mate awakened to growl. She surged forward and nipped his nose. Old Joe backed hastily away and chittered pleadingly. The next time he advanced, she let him come.

This winter they'd share the same den tree.

* * * * *

Harky Mundee, who knew that a hound should not be heavily fed just before a hunt, still thought it unwise and unfair if they were allowed to run on a completely empty stomach. He chose a pork chop bone and some scraps of meat for Duckfoot's supper and took them out on the porch. Nobody had to tell him what had happened.

Duckfoot, who was always fed as soon as Mun and Harky finished eating, appreciated his suppers. Nothing except the scent of a coon could force him to be absent when his meal was ready, and the only place he might have scented a coon was down in the shocked corn.

Harky took Duckfoot's supper back into the house. Mun looked up inquiringly.

"He's off on a coon," Harky explained. "One must of come raiding in our corn and he winded it."

"He must of," Mun agreed. "Could it be by any chanst Old Joe, Harky?" Mun pleaded.

Harky said sadly, "I can't tell, Pa."

"Ain't you got a feelin'?" Mun persisted.

"I ain't had any kind of feeling I can count on since the night Melinda horned in on our coon hunt."

Mun sighed unhappily. "Goshamighty. Wish I'd of turn't her back that night."

"Wish you had," Harky agreed. "We wouldn't be in this fix now."

"If it's jest a common coon, Duckfoot'll soon have it up," Mun said. "You can git him an' still have the night to prowl for Old Joe."

Harky said, "I'll go out for a listen."

Harky went out on the porch and strained to hear in the deepening night. His hopes rose. Duckfoot, a silent trailer, would come silently on any ordinary coon that might be raiding the shocked corn and he'd almost surely tree it within hearing of the house. He would not get Old Joe up so easily. Harky rejoined Mun.

"I can't hear anything."

Mun said, "It could be Old Joe, then."

"It could be," Harky agreed. "Gol ding it! Are women late for everything? Even coon hunts?"

"Most times," said Mun, "'cept when they're early."

Harky laid out Mun's coon-hunting axe, filled the lantern, stuck the flashlight in his pocket, and put the .22 in easy reach. He stifled an urge to go out on the porch for another listen. This night the whole future of coon hunting in the Creeping Hills was at stake, but such confidence as Harky had possessed was fast waning. Taking a girl on a coon hunt had brought about this whole mess. Where was his assurance that taking the same girl on a second hunt would not result in an even more hopeless tangle?

What had seemed sheer inspiration, and a positive way to retrieve shattered legend by proving to Melinda that she was wrong and the coon hunters right, no longer seemed such a good idea. When Melinda did not come, Harky began to hope she wouldn't. Just as there seemed reason to think this hope might be realized, Melinda arrived.

She was dressed in the same costume she'd worn for the previous hunt, except that she wore two shirts instead of just one. Both together, however, did nothing to conceal the fact that no masculine coon hunter was bundled beneath them; Harky thought sourly that even if Melinda wore her father's bearskin coat she'd still look like a girl.

"Where you been?" he demanded.

"Why I came at nightfall, Harold," she answered. "I'm not late."

"Y'are too!"

Said Melinda, "You're so unreasonable, Harold. Isn't he, Mr. Mundee?"

"I figger--Yeah," said Mun.

Harky favored his traitorous father with a bitter glance. He put on his coat, and with the flashlight secure in a pocket he took the .22 and the coon-hunting axe in one hand and the lantern in the other.

"Duckfoot's gone," he said accusingly. "A coon come raiding our corn and he run off on it."

"It isn't my fault," Melinda pointed out. "Let's go find him."

"Where's Glory?"

"Outside, of course. Harold, if we take Glory down to your shocked corn, she'll pick up the same scent Duckfoot's already on. That way we'll find him easily, don't you think?"

Harky expressed what he thought in a ferocious scowl, his feelings in no way improved because Melinda had suggested the very thing he intended to do anyhow.

"C'mon," he said.

"Let me carry something."

"I got it, soon's I light the lantern."

Glory rose to meet them when they went out on the porch. Harky paused just long enough to listen, and went on. Now he was fairly certain that Duckfoot was again on Old Joe, for an ordinary coon would have been up, within hearing, before this. Without a backward glance, Harky moved toward the shocked corn.

Glory trotted away and began to tongue as she found scent. She ran directly to Willow Brook, was silent as she cast for the trail, and resumed tonguing when she found it. Harky determined her direction.

"They're on Old Joe again," Melinda pronounced. "We'll save time by going directly to his big sycamore."

Disdaining to answer, for he had been on the point of dazzling Melinda with this very suggestion, Harky started to run. He no longer deluded himself that he was the rushing wind, or even a racing deer, for the last time he'd entertained such notions Melinda had accused him of running slowly. But he knew a direct route to Old Joe's witch tree and a blackberry thicket on the way.

He crashed through it, holding the .22 and the axe across his chest and a little in front to divert the whipping canes, and he grunted with satisfaction when he heard Melinda gasp. Harky steered a course to Willow Brook.

There was a log there, a fallen pine that spanned a shallow pool, and it made an adequate bridge except during flood time. Harky held the lantern high, jumped on the log, and at once began a wild effort to keep his footing.

The night had turned colder. Running, he hadn't noticed the lower temperature or thought the log would be ice coated. His luck held. Harky danced to the far bank, jumped off the log, and continued running.

Duckfoot was tonguing at Old Joe's magic sycamore. Presently Glory joined him. Harky wondered. Duckfoot, who had been roaring constantly and furiously, suddenly began to yap like a puppy, and Glory trilled her tree bark. It seemed that even hounds were bewitched when girls horned in on coon hunts, but they had Old Joe up once again.

Reaching the sycamore, Harky discovered the two hounds alternately barking up the tree and cavorting around each other, with far more emphasis on the latter. A sudden suspicion entered Harky's mind. It was a good thing Duckfoot had run ahead of Glory or neither would have reached Old Joe's witch tree.

Harky felled a smaller tree. The lesser branches he sliced off at the trunk, the larger ones he stubbed to serve as hand- and foot-holds. With some effort, he leaned his ladder tree against the sycamore and turned to Melinda. The time for explaining was here.

"Can you shinny up behind me?" he demanded.

"Y--, yes, Harold."

There was something in her voice that had not been there before, a quaver that did not belong. Harky held the lantern high and turned toward her. Melinda's hat was missing, her dark hair plastered wetly against her head. Her clothes were soaking wet, her lips were blue with cold and her teeth chattered. Scratches left by the blackberry canes streaked her young cheeks.

"What in tunket happened to you?" Harky demanded.

"I fell in when we crossed the log," Melinda apologized. "I'm sorry."

"You can't climb when you're shiverin' that way," Harky said crossly. "You might fall and I don't want to carry you out of here. I'll warm you."

He unbuttoned her wet jacket, slipped it off her trembling shoulders, and at the same time opened his own coat. He drew her very near and buttoned his coat around the pair of them. A sudden electric shock coursed through him and all at once he was very pleasantly warm.

Harky put both arms around her and looked down at her upturned face. A stray star beam lighted it gently. Presently Melinda said,

"I'm warm now, Harold."

"Not warm enough," said Harky, who was astounded to discover that there was something more pleasant than looking for coons' dens. "I'll warm you some more. And call me Harky, huh?"

"Aren't we going to climb to Old Joe's den?" she asked shyly.

"Best not tonight," said Harky, who wouldn't have considered abandoning what he was doing for a dozen Old Joes. "We have to get you warm. Will you come coon hunting with me again, Melinda?"

"I'm afraid not, Harky," she said in a troubled voice.

"Why?"

"I simply cannot go anywhere too often with any boy who lets his father's corn stand in the shock when it should be brought in and husked."

"I'll bring it in," Harky promised recklessly. "I won't do a lick of hunting until it's all in and husked! How about a kiss, Melinda?"

"Oh, Harky!"

"Please!"

"M-mmm!"

It occurred to Harky, but only very vaguely, that Miss Cathby's foothold in the Creeping Hills was too solid ever to dislodge. But let what may happen. In years to come, Old Joe would still prowl on Willow Brook, hounds of Precious Sue's lineage would trail him, and Mundees would follow the hounds. Nothing could stop any part of it.

Harky had a feeling.

End of Project Gutenberg's The Duck-footed Hound, by James Arthur Kjelgaard