Hunting with the Bow and Arrow

Excerpt: ...for the telltale yelp. There it is, a whine and faint, stifled guttural sounds, but so indistinct and so obscured by the prattle of the stream and the murmuring tree tops that I fail to locate it. So I flounder on through vines and underbrush, wondering where my dogs have gone. I blow the horn and Dixie answers with a pathetic howl, away off to the right. I run and blow the horn again; again that puppy whine. Teddy doesn't answer and I wonder how Dixie could have been lost, though after all, he is only a recent graduate from the kennel and unseasoned in this world of canine misery and wisdom. Unexpectedly, I come upon him, looking very disconsolate and somewhat mauled. There is no doubt about it, he has rushed in where angels fear to tread. He has received a recent lesson in coon hunting. So I console him with a little petting and ask him where is Teddy. Just then I hear a subterranean gurgle and scuffle and rushing off to a nearby clump of trees, I find that away down under the ground in a hollow stump, there is a death struggle going on¿Teddy and the coon are having it out. From the sounds I know that Ted has him by the throat and is waiting for the end. But he seems very weak himself. As I shout down the hole to encourage him, the coon, with one final effort, wrests himself free from the dog and comes scuttling out of the hole. With undignified haste I back away from the outlet and fumble a blunt arrow on the string, and I am just in time, for here comes one of the maddest and one of the sickest coons I ever saw. With a hasty shot back of the ear, I bowl him over and put him out of his misery. Turning him over with my foot to make sure he is finished, I note how desperate the fight must have been. His neck and brisket are a mass of mangled flesh and skin. Then reaching deep down in the hole I grab poor exhausted Teddy by the scruff of his neck, lift him out, and let him regain his breath in the fresh air. He certainly is a weary champion. The...