leaguered raccoon made a sortie.
Recognizing the weak point in the assailing forces, she darted
straight upon the hesitating setter, and snapped at his leg.

This was quite too much for his jarred nerves, and with a howl, as if
he already felt those white teeth crunching to the bone, the setter
turned and fled. The black and white mongrel, highly disgusted, but
realizing the hopelessness of the situation, turned and fled after him
in silence. Then the triumphant raccoons touched noses in brief
congratulation, and presently moved off to their hunting as if nothing
had happened. The wild kindred, as a rule, maintain a poise which the
most extravagant adventures this side of death seldom deeply disturb.

II.

Up to this time, through the hungry weeks of late winter and the first
thaws, the raccoons in the old sycamore had resisted the temptation of
the farmer's hen-roosts. They knew that the wilderness hunting, though
the most difficult, was safe, while any serious depredations at the
farm would be sure to bring retaliation from that most crafty and
dangerous creature, man. Now, however, after the fight with the dogs,
a mixture of audacity with the desire for revenge got the better of
them; and that same night, very late, when the moon was casting long,
sharp shadows from the very rim of the horizon, they hurried through
the belt of forest, which separated their sycamore from the cleared
fields, and stole into the rear of the barn-yard.

The farm was an outpost, so to speak, of the settlements, on the
debatable ground between the forces of the forest and the forces of
civilization, and therefore much exposed to attack. As the raccoons
crept along behind the wood-shed they smelt traces of a sickly pungent
odour, and knew that other marauders had been on the ground not very
long before. This made them bolder in their enterprise, for they knew
that such depredations as they might commit would be laid to the
account of the skunks, and therefore not likely to draw down vengeance
upon the den in the sycamore. They killed a sitting hen upon her nest,
feasted luxuriously upon her eggs and as much of herself as they could
hold, and went away highly elated. For three successive nights they
repeated their raid upon the fowl-house, each night smelling the
pungent, choking scent more strongly, but never catching a glimpse of
the rival marauder. On the fourth night, as they crossed the hillocky
stump-lot behind the barns, the scen