Part 1 (1/2)

The Duck-footed Hound.

by James Arthur Kjelgaard.

OLD JOE

At twenty minutes past nine on a Friday night, just after the dark of moon, an owl in the topmost branches of the huge hollow sycamore saw Old Joe come out of his den.

The ancient sycamore's trunk, rooted in gravel beside a brooding slough filled with treacherous sand bars, was five feet in diameter at the base. With only a slight taper, it rose for twenty-five feet to the first crotch. Peering down through leafless twigs and branches, the owl saw the entrance to Old Joe's den as a gaping dark hole squarely in the center of the crotch.

The owl was not aware of the precise second when the hole became filled.

It was an unnerving thing, for the owl had long ago learned that it is the part of wisdom to know what comes and to recognize it when it appears, and because he was startled he fluttered his wings.

He recovered almost instantly, but remained tense and alert. A noted raider himself, the owl was the rankest of amateurs compared with the old boar c.o.o.n whose masked face filled the den's entrance and whose black nose quivered as it tested the night scents.

Old Joe, the biggest, craftiest, fightingest c.o.o.n in the Creeping Hills, had slept in the hollow sycamore since the frigid blasts of mid-December had draped the hills with snow and locked the ponds and creeks in ice.

But it was as impossible for him to remain asleep during this January thaw as it was for the sycamore not to stir its roots and make ready to feed new sap to its budding leaves.

He came all the way out and sat in the crotch. A little more than thirty-six inches long from the end of his tapering nose to the tip of his ringed tail, he stood thirteen inches high at the shoulder and weighed a pound for every inch of length. His fur, shading from light gray to deep black, was l.u.s.trous and silky.

The owl saw beneath these external appearances and knew Old Joe for what he was: part burglar, part devil, and part imp.

The owl flew away. He knew his superior when he met him.

Old Joe, who'd seen the owl in the upper branches before that night-faring pirate knew he was coming out, did not even bother to glance up. Owls, the terror of small birds and beasts, merited only contempt from one who'd been born with a knowledge of the pirate's craft and had refined that knowledge to an art. Old Joe would happily rob the owl's nest and eat his mate's eggs when and if he could find them, and if he had nothing more important to do. This night there was much of importance that cried for his attention.

Like all raiders with enemies that plot their downfall, he'd attended to his first duty before he ever showed himself. With only his nose protruding from the den, he'd read the stories the wind carried and found nothing he must hide from, or match wits with, in any part of it.

The wind had intensified his excitement and increased the urge that had awakened him and sent him forth.

Last night the wind had purred out of the north, bringing intense cold that made trees crack like cannon shots, but tonight the wind was directly out of the south. The snow blanket sagged, and damp little rivulets, from melting snow that had gathered on the upper branches, crept down the sycamore's trunk. Winter was not broken. But it was breaking, and there would never be a better reason for waking up and faring forth.

Old Joe attended to his second duty. While winter had its way in the Creeping Hills, he had slept snug and warm in the hollow trunk of the old sycamore. His fur was more disheveled than any proper c.o.o.n should ever permit, and meticulous as any cat, Old Joe set to grooming himself.

The sycamore was anything but a casually chosen den. The men who lived in the Creeping Hills, small farmers for the most part, did so because they preferred the backwoods to anywhere else. For recreation they turned to hunting, and Old Joe had run ahead of too many c.o.o.n hounds not to understand the whys and wherefores of such.

With a hound on his trail, any c.o.o.n that did not know exactly what he was doing would shortly end up as a pelt tacked to the side of a barn and roast c.o.o.n in the oven. Hounds could not climb trees, but the hunters who accompanied the hounds carried lights, guns, and axes. A c.o.o.n that sought safety in a tree that had no hollow would be ”s.h.i.+ned”

and either shot out or shaken out to be finished by the hounds. Most trees that were hollow were not proof against axes.

The sycamore was perfect. The slough at the bottom, with its s.h.i.+fting sand bars, could be navigated in perfect safety by anything that knew what it was doing. Old Joe did. Most hounds did not. Many that recklessly flung themselves into the slough, when they were hot on Old Joe's trail, had come within a breath of entering that Heaven which awaits all good c.o.o.n hounds.

Even if a hound made its way to the base of the sycamore, and some had, Old Joe was still safe. Hunters who would enthusiastically fell smaller trees recoiled before this giant. The most skilled axeman would need hours to chop it down. Climbing the ma.s.sive trunk, unless one were equipped with climbing tools, was impossible.

If anyone tried to climb or chop, and so far no one had, Old Joe had an escape. The west fork above the crotch probed another thirty feet into the air before its branches became too small to support a heavy c.o.o.n.

One solid limb leaned over a high and rocky ledge in which was the entrance to an underground tunnel. This tunnel had two exits, one leading to a tangled ma.s.s of brush and the other to a swamp. Old Joe could, as he had proved many times, drop directly from the overhanging limb into the tunnel's entrance.

So far, though most c.o.o.n hunters of the Creeping Hills knew that Old Joe sometimes climbed the sycamore when he was hard-pressed, none even suspected that he stayed there. From ground level the trunk did not look hollow, and since no one had ever seen fit to climb the tree, none had ever seen the den entrance in the crotch. It was commonly supposed that once Old Joe was in the sycamore he climbed out on one of the branches overhanging the slough and dropped in.

Not all c.o.o.n hunters believed that. Mellie Garson and a few others whose hounds had been good enough to trail Old Joe to the sycamore swore that once he reached the topmost branches the old c.o.o.n simply sprouted wings and flew away.

The last hair finally, and perfectly, in place, Old Joe came out of the tree. This he accomplished by utilizing a natural stairway that benign providence seemed to have provided just for him.