Part 8 (1/2)
The weight was nearly even, with the dog having perhaps a five-pound advantage. In addition, before he came into the possession of Sad Hawkins, he'd made the rounds of behind-the-barn dog-fights and he had never lost one. He could win over most c.o.o.ns.
The dog was a slugger. But Old Joe was a scientific boxer who knew better than to stand toe-to-toe and trade punches. He yielded to the dog's rushes even while he inflicted as much punishment of his own as possible. However, the battle might have been in doubt had it not been for one unforseen circ.u.mstance.
Hard-pressed by a determined and fearless enemy, Old Joe reached deep into his bag of tricks. He knew the terrain, and some fifteen feet away was a steep little knoll. It was elemental battle tactics that whatever might be in possession of any height had an advantage over whatever might attack it. At the first breathing spell, Old Joe scurried to the knoll, climbed it, and waited.
He was more than mildly astonished when the dog did not rush immediately. But the dog hadn't had a keen sense of smell to begin with.
The numerous fights in which he'd engaged wherein his hold on a vanquished enemy was broken with a liberal application of ammonia, had ruined the little he did have. The dog was now unable to smell a dish of limburger cheese on the upwind side if it was more than three feet away, and he could not renew the battle simply because he couldn't find his enemy.
Never one to question good fortune, Old Joe turned and ran as soon as he could safely do so. First he put distance between himself and Pine Heglin's remaining guinea hens, that were standing on the roost screeching at the tops of their voices. Next he made a resolution to leave Pine's remaining guinea hens alone, at least for as long as this dog was guarding them.
Hard on the heels of that came anger. One needn't apologize for running away from one's angry mate. To be vanquished by a dog, and not even a c.o.o.n hound, was an entirely different matter. Old Joe needed revenge, and just as this necessity mounted to its apex, he happened to be pa.s.sing the Mundee farm.
Ordinarily he'd never have done such a thing. He knew nothing about Duckfoot, and a cornfield, with the nearest safe tree a long run away, was a poor place to start testing any unknown hound. Old Joe was too angry to rationalize, and too hungry to go farther. He turned aside, ripped a shock of corn apart, and was in the act of selecting a choice ear when Duckfoot came running.
In other circ.u.mstances, Old Joe would have stopped to think. Duckfoot, who would have the physical proportions of his father, had almost attained them. But he was still very much the puppy and he could have been defeated in battle.
Old Joe had had enough fighting for one night. He reached Willow Brook three jumps ahead of Duckfoot, jumped in, ran the riffles and swam the pools for a quarter of a mile, emerged in a little runlet, ran up it, and climbed an oak whose upper branches were laced with wild grapevines.
The vines offered a safe aerial pa.s.sage to any of three adjoining trees.
Finding him now was a test for any good hound.
A half hour later, Old Joe was aroused by Duckfoot's thunderous tree bark. The big c.o.o.n crossed the grapevine to a black cherry, climbed down it, jumped to the top of an immense boulder, ran a hundred yards to a swamp, crossed it, and came to rest in a ledge of rocks. This time Duckfoot needed only nineteen minutes.
Old Joe sighed and went on. The night was nearly spent, he needed safety, and the only safe place was his big sycamore. After the most disgusting night of his life, he reached and climbed it. He hoped that if he managed to get this far, Duckfoot would drown in the slough. But in an hour and sixteen minutes Duckfoot was announcing to the world at large that Old Joe had gone up in his favorite sycamore.
Old Joe sighed again. Then he curled up, but even as he dozed off, he was aware of one thing.
Duckfoot was a hound to reckon with.
[Ill.u.s.tration]
[Ill.u.s.tration]
MISS CATHBY
His books strapped together with a discarded bridle rein, and dangling over his shoulder, Harky Mundee placed one reluctant foot after the other as he strode down the dirt road.
The events that culminated in this dreadful situation--returning to Miss Cathby's school at the Crossroads--had for the past three days been building up like a thunderstorm, and on the whole, it would have been easier to halt the storm. Every autumn, just after the harvest, Mun acquired firm ideas concerning the value of higher education for Harky.
But never before had Mun resorted to such foul tricks or taken such unfair advantage.
Coming to where Tumbling Run foamed beneath a wooden bridge and hurled itself toward Willow Brook, Harky halted and rested both elbows on the bridge railing. He looked glumly into the icy water, along which c.o.o.ns of high and low degree prowled every night, and he wished mightily that he were a c.o.o.n.
Though even c.o.o.ns had their troubles, Harky had never known of a single one that had been forced to hoe corn, milk cows, feed pigs, pitch hay, dig potatoes, or do any of the other unspeakable tasks that were forever falling to the lot of human beings. But even farm ch.o.r.es were not entirely unbearable. In a final agony of desperation, his cause already lost, Harky had even pointed out to Mun that the fence needed mending and hadn't he better cut the posts?
”Blast it!” Mun roared. ”Stop this minute tryin' to make a fool of me, Harky! You know's well as I do that the cows ain't goin' to be out to pasture more'n 'nother three weeks! You need some book lore!”
Harky rubbed the heel of his right shoe against the s.h.i.+n of his left leg and wished again that he were a c.o.o.n, even a treed c.o.o.n. Being hound-cornered was surely preferable to becoming the hapless victim of Miss Ophelia Cathby.