"Why," Harky hoped he appeared innocent, "is it in there, Pa?"

"Git it out!"

Harky drew his first easy breath since Old Brindle's escape. If Mun had forgotten why he'd confiscated Harky's shotgun, he'd forgotten about school. The ordeal was over, at least for this year, and Harky was free to concentrate on important matters. For the immediate future, the only matter of importance consisted of wishing it was night so they could go c.o.o.n hunting.

Evening finally arrived, and, with Queenie and Thunder at their respective heels, Raw Stanfield and b.u.t.t Johnson arrived with it. The older hounds sneered in their own fashion at Duckfoot, who enthusiastically sneered right back, and curled up on the porch.

None of the men, as yet, knew that Mellie was sending his daughter to subst.i.tute for him. When Queenie, Thunder, and Duckfoot set up a desultory baying, all thought that Mellie would join them shortly. To do so he would follow prescribed etiquette of the Creeping Hills, which involved opening the door and walking in.

When Mellie did not enter, but someone knocked, the four hunters first looked astounded. Then they looked at each other. It was Harky who decided that one way to find out who was knocking would be to go open the door. His astounded bellow made Queenie cringe and sent Thunder slinking from the porch.

"What in tunket do you want?"

"h.e.l.lo, Harold," Melinda trilled.

She was dressed in the boy's trousers she always wore except when she went to school, a boy's shirt which immediately gave the lie to the theory that girls can't wear boys' clothing and look like girls, and a denim jacket. Her feet were encased in an old pair of shoes, and a boy's hat was pushed back on her saucy black curls. Without a second glance for Harky, she walked past him into the kitchen.

"Pa's been mule-kicked and can't come," she announced. "I brought Glory."

"Right kind of ya," said Mun. "We'll take good care of her an' see that she gits back."

[Ill.u.s.tration]

"Oh, I'll take her back myself," Melinda said. "Pa will expect it."

"Nice of ya to offer," said Mun. "But Harky an' me, we sort of batch it here. The house ain't rightly fixed fer a girl to stay in an' we may be gone all night."

"Don't you worry about that, Mr. Mundee," Melinda rea.s.sured him. "I'm going hunting with you."

Harky gagged. Melinda turned to face him.

"You sound as though you've been eating green apples, Harold," she said sweetly. "Have you?"

"Why'n'choo go home?"

"Harky!" Mun roared, but not very loudly, "mind your tongue!"

"Thank you, Mr. Mundee," Melinda said, with the barest hint of a sob in her young voice. "You do want me along, don't you?"

"Well uh--" Mun stammered and appealed to Raw Stanfield. "We do want her along, don't we?"

"Well uh--" Raw aped Mun and looked at b.u.t.t Johnson.

b.u.t.t stuttered, "Why--why--why--" and fixed his gaze on Harky.

"There!" Melinda said triumphantly. "The other three want me! Now what do you say?"

"Hope ya fall in the mud!"

"Harold!" Melinda wrinkled her distinctly fetching nose. "How terrible!"

"Hope ya fall in the mud, an' I'll stomp on your head if ya do!" Harky said.

"Harky!" This time Mun voiced a full-throated roar. "Mind your tongue!"

"Le's get c.o.o.n huntin'," Raw Stanfield choked. "Le's do anything long's we git out of here!"

[Ill.u.s.tration]

[Ill.u.s.tration]

OLD JOE UP

Raw Stanfield with the lantern, b.u.t.t Johnson with a torch for shining treed c.o.o.ns and a .22 rifle for plinking them out of the trees, Mun with his c.o.o.n-hunting axe, Melinda with serene self-a.s.surance, and Harky with a miserable feeling that it couldn't be very long now before the whole world went to pot, they set off through the night.

Misery was Harky's only feeling. If he had another, he told himself sourly, he wouldn't dare put stock in it. When girls horned in on c.o.o.n hunts anything could happen and it probably would.

Harky comforted himself with thoughts of what can happen on c.o.o.n hunts.

He had a soul-satisfying vision of a cold, wet, mud-spattered, and hungry Melinda wandering through the night pleading for Harky to come to her succor. Harky heard, but he let her wander until the last possible second. Then, just as she was about to sink into mud from which she would never rise had it not been for valiant Harky, he lifted her to her feet, took her home, and scuffed scornful feet on Mellie Garson's threshold.

"There!" he heard himself saying. "Let that teach you that girls ought never horn in on c.o.o.n hunts!"

Harky breathed a doleful sigh. Delightful as this mental image was, in no way did it erase the fact that a girl had horned in on a c.o.o.n hunt.

Harky sought solace by tearing his thoughts away from Melinda and fastening them on something pleasant. He considered the four hounds.

Queenie was a slow and methodical worker who'd never been known to lose a trail she started. Of course they did not get every c.o.o.n Queenie started; some went to earth in rock-bound burrows and some escaped by devious means. Queenie, who tongued on a trail, was one of the few hounds who'd followed Old Joe to his magic sycamore.

Glory, as yet untried, might and might not adopt her mother's hunting style. Duckfoot--neither Harky nor anyone else had any reason to believe that he'd already tracked Old Joe to his sycamore--was another unknown quant.i.ty insofar as his own special way of hunting was concerned. But Harky had no doubt that, after adequate training, Duckfoot would shine, and Glory would do well enough.

Thunder, next to Precious Sue the best c.o.o.n hound ever to run the Creeping Hills, couldn't be doubted. Big, long-legged, and powerful, Thunder was another hound who'd distinguished himself by tracking Old Joe to the big sycamore. A silent trailer but a tree barker who did credit to his name, Thunder was so fast that he often caught c.o.o.ns on the ground. With six years of hunting experience behind him, he was probably the best of the four hounds on this current hunt.

They were, Harky thought, a pack fit to run in any company. With Thunder to run ahead and jump the c.o.o.n, Queenie to work out the trail at her own pace and at regular intervals to announce the direction Thunder had gone, and quality pups like Duckfoot and Glory, any c.o.o.n they struck tonight, with the probable exception of Old Joe, would find his stretched pelt on the barn door tomorrow. Maybe even Old Joe would have a hard time with this pack.

Thinking of c.o.o.ns, Harky was pleasantly diverted for a few minutes more.

Creatures of the season, c.o.o.ns availed themselves of the most of the best of whatever was handy. When they emerged from their dens at winter's end, they liked to fill empty stomachs with buds and tender gra.s.s and flower shoots. As the season advanced, c.o.o.ns conformed. They never spurned vegetation if it was to their liking, but as soon as the spring freshet subsided, they did a great deal of fishing and frog, crawfish, and mussel hunting. When gardens started to bear, the c.o.o.ns varied their diet with green vegetables. As they ripened, both wild and domestic fruits received the attention of properly brought up c.o.o.ns.

They were always ready to raid poultry.

At this time of year, with frogs already gone into hibernation, fish inclined to linger in deep pools where even Old Joe couldn't catch them, the crawfish and mussel crop well picked over, and vegetation withered, c.o.o.ns concentrated on fields of shocked corn, such fruit as might cling to branches, and beech and oak groves, where they foraged for fallen beechnuts and acorns.

It was to a beech grove that Raw Stanfield led them.