There were
slight sounds of rustling and gnawing in several places, but they all
ceased, one after another, as Frank came near. He listened, but there
was nothing to be heard. Then he went to the other side of the piece to
cut off their retreat from the woods. He came cautiously up between the
corn rows to the midst of the piece, but no 'coon was there.

"Pity they will eat their suppers in the dark," muttered Frank, to
relieve his vexation at the disappointment.

He returned slowly to the house, and went up to his room, where he sat
down and read awhile. After an hour or more he became too sleepy to
read; so he laid aside his book, put out the light, and popped into bed.
Just as he was falling asleep he heard several cries over in the woods.
They were half whistle, half scream--a sort of squeal. He sprang up in
bed to listen. The cries ceased, and for several minutes all was
silence. Then there arose a succession of screams, much nearer, and in a
different voice. It was interrupted and broken. It seemed something
between the squeal of a pig and the cry of a child.

Frank said to his father the next morning that "it sounded as if it was
a young one, and the mother was cuffing it and driving it back. At any
rate, the last of the cries sounded as if the little 'coon had turned,
and was going away."

"Very likely," said his father; "the little 'coon was probably hungry
for the rest of his supper, and was going back to the corn sooner than
the old 'coon thought was prudent."

Frank heard no more of the 'coons, and soon went to sleep, but in the
morning he found that more corn had been spoiled than in the first
night. The 'coons had only run off to come back again, and begin their
depredations in a new place. He therefore came to the conclusion that he
must watch all night, and every night, if at all.

The hired man told how some boys where he worked once caught a 'coon by
setting a trap at the hole in a board fence near the corn piece. There
was a wall beside the woods not far from Frank's corn, and there were a
plenty of holes in it, but which particular hole the 'coons came through
nobody could tell.

[Illustration: "FOR A FEW SECONDS THERE WAS A LIVELY BATTLE."]

"I'll find out," said Frank. He went to a sand-bank with the
wheelbarrow, and shovelled in a load of sand. This he spread at the
bottom of every large hole, and on the rocks at every low place in the
wall. In the morning he walked along there, and the f