ilroad to the Canoper, and also they
could cross the railroad bridge over the river and save quite a
distance.

Jimmy helped the Thread Man into a borrowed overcoat and mittens, and
loaded him with a twelve-pound gun, and they started. Jimmy carried a
torch, and as torch bearer he was a rank failure, for he had a careless
way of turning it and flashing it into people's faces that compelled
them to jump to save themselves. Where the track lay clear and straight
ahead the torch seemed to light it like day; but in dark places it was
suddenly lowered or wavering somewhere else. It was through this
carelessness of Jimmy's that at the first cattle-guard north of the
village the torch flickered backward, ostensibly to locate Dannie, and
the Thread Man went crashing down between the iron bars, and across the
gun. Instantly Jimmy sprawled on top of him, and the next two men
followed suit. The torch plowed into the snow and went out, and the
yells of Jimmy alarmed the adjoining village.

He was hurt the worst of all, and the busiest getting in marching order
again. "Howly smoke!" he panted. "I was havin' the time of me life, and
plum forgot that cow-kitcher. Thought it was a quarter of a mile away
yet. And liked to killed meself with me carelessness. But that's always
the way in true sport. You got to take the knocks with the fun." No one
asked the Thread Man if he was hurt, and he did not like to seem
unmanly by mentioning a skinned shin, when Jimmy Malone seemed to have
bursted most of his inside; so he shouldered his gun and limped along,
now slightly in the rear of Jimmy. The river bridge was a serious
matter with its icy coat, and danger of specials, and the torches
suddenly flashed out from all sides; and the Thread Man gave thanks for
Dannie Macnoun, who reached him a steady hand across the ties. The walk
was three miles, and the railroad lay at from twenty to thirty feet
elevation along the river and through the bottom land. The Boston man
would have been thankful for the light, but as the last man stepped
from the ties of the bridge all the torches went out save one. Jimmy
explained they simply had to save them so that they could see where the
coon fell when they began to shake the coon tree.

Just beside the water tank, and where the embankment was twenty feet
sheer, Jimmy was cautioning the Boston man to look out, when the hunter
next behind him gave a wild yell and plunged into his back. Jimmy's
grab for him seemed