b had been obliged to drag Tiger away, and was bathing his cuts
out of the camp water-bucket in a shady corner. The dog, recognizing
that he was a patient, submitted without a growl or budge, until his
master, who had been keeping a keen eye on that pine-tree, suddenly
loosed him, and started him off afresh with a loud "Whoop-ee!" and a--

"Ketch him, Tiger! ketch him!"

The coon had "lighted down."

Away went the wild creature into the woods. Away after him, went dog,
guide, student, and boys, plunging, tumbling, rushing along
helter-skelter, with a yell on every lip.

"There he is! See him? That gray ball rolling over and over!" shouted
Cyrus. "I'll tell you what, now; he's going to resort to his clever
dodge of 'barking a tree.' There never was a general yet who could beat
a coon for strategy in making a retreat."

The forest surrounding the eminence on which Uncle Eb's camp was
situated consisted mostly of pines, with here and there the brilliant
autumn foliage of a maple or birch showing amid the evergreens. The
trees down the sides of the hill were not densely crowded, but grew in
irregular clumps instead of an unbroken mass. This, of course, afforded
a better opportunity for the pursuers to catch glimpses of the fugitive
animal.

On finding that it was again chased, the raccoon at first took shelter
in a dense thicket of scrub oak, which formed in places a tangled
undergrowth. Tiger quickly followed up its trail, and it was driven
thence.

Then Cyrus and the boys caught sight of it spinning over and over like a
ball, towards a maple-tree with widely projecting limbs and thick
foliage; for it knew well that in speed it was no match for the dog, and
therefore resorted to a neat little stratagem. The next minute, being
hotly pressed, it scrambled up the friendly trunk.

"He's treed again, yonkers! Come on!" shouted the guide, indifferent to
the creature's probable gender.

Tiger sat on his haunches at the foot of the maple, setting up a slow,
steady bark.

"Keep where you are, fellows! Watch the other side of the tree!"
whispered Cyrus, his face twitching with excitement.

In his character of naturalist he had managed to find out more about
the coon's various dodges than even the old guide had done.

In breathless wonder the Farrars presently beheld that ingenious raccoon
steal along to the end of the most projecting limb on a different side
of the tree from the one it had climbed, so that a screen