s to come with our rifles
for he had the animal "treed," and ready to be brought down at "a
moment's warning." We went over to where he was, and sure enough, away
up in the top of a tall birch, sat his coonship, looking quietly down
upon the dogs that were baying at the foot of the tree.

"Gentlemen," said Spalding, "we will not all fire at this animal as we
did at Smith's bear. One bullet is enough for him, and if he gets down
among us, I think six men will be a match for one 'coon,' so we need
not be inhuman through a sense of danger. Whose shot shall he be?"

"I move that Spalding have the first shot," said Smith; and the motion
was carried.

"Do I understand you, gentlemen," Spalding inquired, adjusting
himself, as if preparing to bring down the game, "that I am to have
this first shot, and that no one is to fire until I have taken a fair
shot at him?"

We all answered, "Yes."

"Are you perfectly agreed in this, and do you all pledge yourselves to
abide the compact?" Spalding inquired again, bringing his rifle to a
present, and looking up at the game.

"All agreed," we answered, with one voice.

"Very well, gentlemen," said Spalding, shouldering his rifle, "there's
one life saved anyhow. That animal up there has been in great peril,
but he's safe now. I don't intend to fire at him sooner than ten
o'clock to-morrow, and if I understand our arrangements, we leave
here in the morning at six."

"Sold, by Moses!" exclaimed Martin, as he broke out into a roar that
you might have heard a mile; "I thought the Judge meant something, by
the time he wasted in talkin' and gettin' ready to shoot."

"Spalding," inquired Smith, "do you expect us to keep this compact?"

"Of course I do," he replied; "did any of us peach when you opened so
rich in the matter of your bear? Did any one break his compact with
you on that subject? Absolve us from our agreement about the bear, and
you may take my shot at that animal up in the tree."

"I wasn't born yesterday," Smith replied, "and I can't afford to
exchange the glory of killing the bear in my own way, and baring three
responsible endorsers, for the honor of shooting a coon. Gentlemen,"
he continued, "I move that that coon be permitted to take his own time
to descend from his perch up in the tree-top there;" and the motion
was carried unanimously.

CHAPTER XXVII.

WOULD I WERE A BOY AGAIN.

"We have played the boy again, yesterday and to-day, pretty well,"
remark