But Phoebe had been born a thoroughbred and it was head up and run as she
saw in a second, so she smiled up at him and said in a perfectly friendly
tone: "I really don't think we'd better wait for Caroline and Andrew. Do let's
hurry, for they've treed, and I think those dogs will go mad in a
moment!" And together they disappeared in the woodland.
Around a tall tree that stood on the slope of the hill they found a scene
that was uproar rampant. Five maddened dogs gazed aloft into the gnarled
branches of the persimmon king and danced and jumped to the accompaniment
of one another's insane yelps. A half-dozen negro boys were in the same
attitude and state of mind, and the tension was immense.
Polly gasped and giggled and the suffrage lady almost became entangled
with the waltzing dogs in her endeavor to sight the quarry.
"Dar he am!" exclaimed the blackest satyr, and he pointed to one of the
lower limbs from which there hung by the tail the most pathetic little
bunch of bristles imaginable. "Le'me shake him down, Mister David, I
foun' him!"
"All right, shin up, but mind the limbs," answered David. "And you, Jake,
get the dogs in hand! We want to take home possums, not full dogs!"
And like an agile ape the darky swung himself up and out on the low limb.
"Here he come!" he shouted, and ducked to give a jerk that shook the
whole limb.
The dogs danced and Polly squealed, while the rotund lady managed to step
on young Back Bay's toes and almost forgot to "beg pardon," but Mr.
Possum hung on by his long rat-tail with the greatest serenity.
"Buck up thar, nigger, shake dat whole tree; dis here ain't no
cake-walk," one of his confrères yelled, and the sally was caught with a
loud guffaw.
Thus urged the darky braced himself and succeeded in putting the whole
tree into a commotion, at the height of which there was a crash and a
scramble from the top limb and in a second a ball of gray fur descended
on his woolly head, knocked him off his perch and crashed with him to
the ground. Then there ensued a raging battle in which were involved five
dogs, a long darky and a ring-tailed streak of coon lightning, which
whirled and bit and scratched itself free and plunged into the darkness
before the astonished hunters could get more than a glimpse of the mêlée.
"Coon, coon!" yelled the negroes, and scattered into the woods at the
heels of the discountenanced dogs. Mr. Possum, saved by the stiff fight
put up by his ring-tailed woods-brother, had taken this opportunity of
unhanging himself and departing into parts unknown, perhaps a still more
wily citizen after his threatened extinction.