this time in the heavy timber.

"We hastened forward, guided by the barking. To the extreme of my
astonishment, and I fancy to the very extreme of Abe's terror, we again
found ourselves at the foot of the buttonwood.

"Abe's wool stood on end. Superstition was the butt-end of his
religion; and he not only protested, but I am satisfied that he
believed, that all the four 'coons were one and the same individual, and
that individual `de debil.'

"Great 'coon-hunter as he was, he would now have gone home, if I had let
him. But I had no thoughts of giving up the matter in that easy way. I
was roused by the repeated disappointment. A new resolve had entered my
mind. I was determined to get the 'coons out of the buttonwood, cost
what it might. The tree must come down, if it should take us till
morning to fell it.

"With this determination I caught hold of Abe's axe, and struck the
first blow. To my surprise and delight the tree sounded hollow. I
repeated the stroke. The sharp axe went crashing inwards. The tree was
hollow to the ground; on the side where I had commenced chopping, it was
but a shell.

"A few more blows, and I had made a hole large enough to put a head
through. Felling such a tree would be no great job after all, and I saw
that it would hardly occupy an hour. The tree must come down.

"Abe seeing me so resolute, had somewhat recovered his courage and his
senses, and now laid hold of the axe. Abe was a `first hand' at
`chopping,' and the hole soon gaped wider.

"`If de hole run clar up, massa,' said he, resting for a moment, `we can
smoke out de varmint--wid de punk and de grass here we can smoke out de
debil himself. S'pose we try 'im, massa?'

"`Good!' cried I, catching at Abe's suggestion; and in a few minutes we
had made a fire in the hole, and covered it with leaves, grass, and
weeds.

"The smoke soon did its work. We saw it ooze out above at the entrance
of the 'coon hole--at first in a slight filmy stream, and then in thick
volumes. We heard a scraping and rattling within the hollow trunk, and
a moment after a dark object sprang out upon the lliana, and ran a short
way downward. Another followed, and another, and another, until a
string of no less than six raccoons squatted along the parasite
threatening to run downward!

"The scene that followed was indescribable. I had seized my gun, and
both barrels were emptied in a `squirrel's jump.' Two of the 'coons
came to the groun