So with the ax with which Casey chopped ice for his
refrigerator, the Boston man banged against the hickory, and swore
to himself because he could not make the chips fly as Jimmy did.
"Iverybody clear out!" cried Jimmy. "Number one is coming down. Get
the coffee sack ready. Baste cooney over the head and shove him in
before the dogs tear the skin. We want a dandy big pelt out of this!"
There was a crack, and the tree fell with a crash. All the Boston
man could see was that from a tumbled pile of branches, dogs, and
men, some one at last stepped back, gripping a sack, and cried:
"Got it all right, and it's a buster."
"Now for the other forty-nine!" shouted Jimmy, straining into his coat.
"Come on, boys, we must secure a coon for every one," cried the
Thread Man, heartily as any member of the party might have said it.
But the rest of the boys suddenly grew tired. They did not want any
coons, and after some persuasion the party agreed to go back to
Casey's to warm up. The Thread Man got into his scorched, besooted,
oil-smeared coat, and the overcoat which had been loaned him, and
shouldered the gun. Jimmy hesitated. But Dannie came up to the Boston
man and said: "There's a place in my shoulder that gun juist fits,
and it's lonesome without it. Pass it over." Only the sorely bruised
and strained Thread Man knew how glad he was to let it go.
It was Dannie, too, who whispered to the Thread Man to keep close
behind him; and when the party trudged back to Casey's it was so
surprising how much better he knew the way going back than Jimmy had
known it coming out, that the Thread Man did remark about it.
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