The Duck-footed Hound

by Jim Kjelgaard

  THE FALL OF MUN

  Old Joe left his daytime den, a burrow beneath a humpbacked boulder,half an hour after nightfall. He paused for a moment in the exit he'dchosen--one of three leading from the den--to twitch his whiskers andwriggle his nose. As usual, he wanted to determine what was in the windbefore going down it. There was nothing, or at least nothing that calledfor more than ordinary caution. Old Joe chittered contentedly tohimself.

  Except for the one bad night, when everything went wrong and he'dfinally been chased up his big sycamore by Duckfoot, he had enjoyed asuccessful season indeed. Corn had been plentiful, crawfish and musselsabundant, poultry careless, and enemies few. Some of those that hadthreatened would have been considerably better off if they hadn't.

  Notable among them was Pine Heglin's fighting dog. Smarting from thatunexpected encounter, when he'd returned to steal one of Pine's guineahens and been so desperately pressed, Old Joe had chosen his time andgone back to Pine's house one night. The dog rushed. Old Joe scootedaway. After a pathetically short chase, the dog bayed him.

  The dog, however, lacked a full appreciation of the properties of bees,and Old Joe had let himself be cornered on one of Pine's beehives. Thedog closed, the hive tipped over, and while Old Joe scurried happilyonward, the dog received a short but intensive education in the folly oftipping beehives. Bees did not bother Old Joe. Even in summer his furwas long enough to protect him, and whenever he felt like it, which waswhenever he wanted some honey, he raided beehives.

  Now, with a blanket of fat beneath his glossy fur, he was all ready forthe wintry blasts that would send him to bed in his big sycamore.Between now and that uncertain period when bitter winds blew, there wasconsiderable living to be done.

  On this particular night the first order of living involved something toeat, and Old Joe was in a mood for beechnuts. They were so tiny thatMelinda Garson might have held fifty in the palm of her hand and stilllacked a handful. But they were delicious, and along with acorns theyspread a bountiful autumn table because they existed by the billion.When frost opened the pods and wind rattled the branches of beech trees,the sound of beechnuts pattering into dry leaves was not unlike thesound of a violent rain.

  Having chosen his menu for the night, Old Joe had only to decide whichof many beech groves offered the easiest pickings with the greatestadvantage to himself. He finally selected the one bordering Willow Brookand just opposite Mun Mundee's farm.

  There were various reasons for his choice. First, the grove was in asheltered area, which meant that its pods ripened later than those thatwere exposed to first frosts and heavy winds. Therefore it would not beso thoroughly picked over, and would still be dropping nuts inabundance. Second, this grove always produced a lush crop.

  But Old Joe's most compelling reason for his choice was that the grovewas infested with squirrels, who had been frantically gathering thebeechnuts ever since they began to drop, and storing them in hollowlogs, stumps, crevices, and any other place available. It was no part ofOld Joe's plan to scrape in the leaves and gather his dinner nut by nutwhen a little investigation was certain to uncover a cache that mightcontain from half a pint to a couple of quarts of beechnuts, alreadygathered by some industrious squirrel.

  His campaign mapped, Old Joe proceeded to execute it.

  The autumn night posed its usual charms, but hunger took precedence overesthetic inclinations. Old Joe did not linger to watch starlightglinting on a pond, investigate fox fire in a swamp, or even to retrievea nine-inch trout, wounded in combat with some bigger fish, that wasfeebly wriggling in the shallows. The trout was a delicacy, but so werebeechnuts. Let lesser coons settle for less than they wanted.

  Coming to a long pool, Old Joe plunged in and swam its length.Thereafter he kept to Willow Brook. He'd seen no evidence of hunters andhad no reason to suppose that any were abroad tonight. Though keeping tothe water was an amateur's trick--one any good coon hound could decipherwithout difficulty--leaving this break in his scent was one of Old Joe'snumerous forms of insurance. If a hound should get on him, Old Joe wouldat least have time to plan some really intricate strategy.

  Dripping wet, but not even slightly chilled, and with every sense andnerve brought wonderfully alive by his journey through ice water, OldJoe climbed the bank into the beech grove. He paused to reconnoiter.

  The grove, composed entirely of massive beech trees, bordered WillowBrook for about a quarter of a mile and gave way to spindly aspens oneither side. The best beechnut hunting lay in the most sheltered areanear Willow Brook, but there were other considerations.

  There had still been no evidence of hunters. Old Joe, however, could notafford to ignore the possibility that some might venture forth. He knewperfectly well that the instant he left Willow Brook he had startedlaying a hot trail that any mediocre hound could follow. While mediocrehounds were no cause for concern, they were as scarce in the CreepingHills as apples on a beech tree.

  Old Joe must plan accordingly, and his immediate plans centered about alazy slough that lay a short distance back in the beeches and had itssource in a lazy runlet that trickled down an upheaval of massive rocks.He made his way toward that slough.

  The grove already had an ample quota of beechnut harvesters of high andlow degree. Old Joe circled a snuffling black bear that squatted on itsrump, raked dead leaves with both front paws and gusty abandon, and bentits head to lick up beechnuts along with shredded leaves, dirt, andanything else that happened to be in the way. Farther on was a buck withmassive antlers, then a whole herd of deer. A family of skunks had cometo share the bounty, and a little coon that hadn't yet learned theproper technique of harvesting beechnuts made up in enthusiasm what helacked in skill.

  Old Joe bothered none. The bear and the deer were too big, the skunkstoo pungent, and he couldn't be bothered with callow little coons.Anyhow, there was plenty for all. Old Joe came to the slough and sat upto turn his pointed nose to each of the four winds. Detecting nothingthat might interrupt his dinner, he fell to hunting.

  Towering high over the slough, touching branches across it as thoughthey were shaking hands, the beech twigs rattled dryly as the wind shookthem and beechnuts pattered in the leaves or made tiny splashes in theslough. Old Joe, with no disdain for the many nuts he might havegathered but a hearty contempt for the work involved in gathering them,went directly to a moss-grown stump.

  He sniffed it. Then he nibbled it. Finally, half sitting and halfcrouching, he felt all around it with both front paws. The moss was softand the stump rotting, but nowhere was there a crack or crevice in whicha provident squirrel, anticipating the winter to come, might haveconcealed any beechnuts.

  In no way disheartened, Old Joe went from the stump to a gray-backedboulder and explored that. Again he failed. On his third try, fortunesmiled.

  At the very edge of the slough, possibly because its deep roots wereimbedded in constantly-wet earth, a great beech had been partiallytoppled by a high wind that screamed through the grove. One massive rootlay on top of the ground and snaked along it for three feet beforeprobing downward again.

  Beneath this root Old Joe found the hidden treasure trove of what musthave been the most industrious squirrel in the Creeping Hills. At leasta gallon of beechnuts were packed in so tightly that it was necessary topry the first ones loose. Old Joe settled himself to partaking of thesquirrel's hoard.

  Opportunity, which knocked often but rarely in such lavish measure, hadbetter be welcomed instantly and swiftly or there was some danger thatthe squirrel might yet partake of some of the nuts. But though Old Joewas industrious, it just wasn't his night.

  He'd eaten about a fifth of the squirrel's cache when the bear he'dpreviously circled raced to the slough, splashed across it, and with agreat rattling of stones and rustling of leaves ran up the hill anddisappeared in the night.

  Old Joe came instantly to attention. The bear, a big one, wasfrightened. Big bears did not easily take fright, therefore somethingwas now in the beech grove that had not been present when Old Joear
rived.

  A moment later, Duckfoot rushed him. Keener scented than any of theother three hounds, Duckfoot had been the first to discover that a coonwas indeed in the beech grove and he acted accordingly.

  Old Joe rolled down the bank into the slough and started swimming. Onsuch dismal occasions his mind was automatically made up, so that therewas no need to linger and determine a proper course of action. He swamfast, but at the same time he exercised discretion. A terrified youngcoon would have splashed and rippled the water, and thus marked his pathof flight for any hound that was not blind. With everything except hiseyes and the very tip of his nose submerged, Old Joe swam silently.

  It had been a case of mutual recognition and Old Joe never deludedhimself. With Duckfoot again on his trail, the only safe tree was hisbig sycamore. Emerging at the head of the slough, Old Joe ran up thetrickle that fed it, scrambled down the far side of the upended rocks,raced through a swamp, and took the shortest possible route back toWillow Brook. He'd just reached and jumped into the brook when anylingering plans he might have had for foiling Duckfoot were put firmlybehind him.

  Back where the hunters were gathered, Glory and Queenie began to sing.Though he'd never been run by Glory, Queenie was the slower and noisierhalf of a formidable team, and Thunder would be along presently. Therewas no time to waste. Swimming the pools and running the riffles, andknowing that neither these nor any other tactics would baffle Thunderand Duckfoot for very long, Old Joe sacrificed strategy for haste.Panting like a winded dog, he sprang into the slough at the base of hissycamore, swam it, and climbed.

  He tumbled into his den, sighed gratefully, and waited for whatever camenext.

  It was Duckfoot and Thunder. Running neck and neck, the inexperiencedpuppy and the tested veteran reached the sycamore at exactly the samesecond and wakened the night with their voices.

  Old Joe stirred uneasily. Though this was not the first time he hadbeen trailed to his magic sycamore, never before had he been so hotlypursued. He was on the point of leaving his den, climbing farther up thesycamore and escaping through his tunnel, but Old Joe restrainedhimself. He'd always been safe here and he was too smart to panic.Besides, if the worst came to the worst, he could still use the tunnel.

  Thunder and Duckfoot, blessed with voices that would have awakened RipVan Winkle, were presently joined by Queenie and Glory. Old Joescratched his left ear with his right hind paw, a sure sign ofnervousness. On various occasions one hound had trailed him to thesycamore, a few times there'd been two, but never before had there beenfour hounds at the sycamore's base.

  Again Old Joe was tempted to resort to his tunnel. Again he refrainedand waited for the hunters.

  Harky and Melinda came. Old Joe wriggled his black nose. Harky, usuallythe first to arrive at any tree when a coon was up, he knew well. Hisacquaintance with Melinda was only casual. He heard the pair talking.

  "When he wants to get out," Harky avowed seriously, "some say he climbsout on a limb and drops back into the slough. On t'other hand, some sayhe grows wings and takes off like a bird."

  "How silly!" Melinda exclaimed.

  "Yeah?" Harky asked truculently. "Watta you know about it?"

  Melinda declared scornfully, "Enough not to believe such nonsense! Hehas a den somewhere in that sycamore and he's in it right now! The onlyreason nobody ever found it is because everyone's been too lazy toclimb!"

  "And how you gonna climb?" Harky demanded.

  "Just cut one of these smaller trees, brace it against the crotch of thesycamore, and shinny up it," Melinda asserted.

  Harky said nothing because this purely revolutionary scheme left himspeechless.

  Old Joe's uneasiness mounted. Though he understood no part of theconversation, he had no doubt that a new force had invaded coon hunts.The men who'd always come to his magic sycamore had been happy just toget there, proud of hounds able to track Old Joe so far, and amenable tothe idea that neither hounds nor humans could further cope with a coonthat was part witch.

  Old Joe didn't know what she was, but Melinda was definitely not a man.The rest of the hunters arrived, but before they could begin theirritual that had to do with the invincibility of Old Joe, Melinda threwher bombshell.

  "I was telling Harold," she said brightly, "that Old Joe has a densomewhere in this big sycamore. Why don't we fell a smaller tree, braceit against the sycamore, and shinny up to find out?"

  "By gum!" Mun said.

  As soon as the three men recovered from this flagrant violation ofeverything right and proper, Old Joe heard the sound of an axe. A treewas toppled, trimmed, and leaned against the sycamore.

  "Let me go up, Pa," Harky said.

  Mun asserted, "If anybody's goin' to have fust look at Old Joe's den,it'll be me."

  Mun and Old Joe started to climb.

  "Thar he scampers!" yelled Raw Stanfield.

  Old Joe continued to scamper, paying no attention whatever to the factthat, while excitement reigned, Mun fell out of the sycamore. Old Joeclimbed out on the limb and tumbled into his tunnel.

  Duckfoot, who'd noted the obvious escape route but was just a splitsecond too late, tumbled in behind him. Both the tunnel and Old Joe,however, were low-built. Duckfoot, considerably farther from the ground,had to crawl where Old Joe ran.

  The big coon ran out of the tunnel and into the swamp with a safe enoughlead. But the next morning's sun was two hours high before he managed toshake Duckfoot from his trail.