As the well-bred terrier--game enough to face any foe, though it might prove a sorry day for him if he should tackle that young raccoon--reared on his hind legs, and clawed the bark of the trunk in his excitement, the rash Junior climbed swiftly out of the hollow and fled up among the branches of the tall chestnut tree, seeking to hide himself among the long thick leaves amid a stormy "Quock!" and "Caw! Caw! Caw!" from the crows. "Oh! there--there he goes! See his stout body and funny little legs!" "And his long gray hair and the black patch over his eyes--makes him look as if he wore spectacles!" "And his bushy tail! Huh! there's some class to that tail--all ringed with buff and black." Such cries broke from three wildly excited throats. Leon spent no breath in admiration. Like lightning, he had snatched up a stone and sent it flying up the tree after the fugitive with such good aim that it struck one of the short, climbing legs. Another whimpering cry--sharp and shrill as that of a wounded child--rang down among the thick leaves. "What did you do that for? You've broken one of his legs, I think!" exclaimed the scout. "So much the better! If he should light down from the tree, he can't run so fast! I want that dandy tail of his--and his skin!" Starrie Chase was now beside himself with the greedy feeling, that possessed him whenever he saw a wild animal, that its own skin did not belong to it, but to him. "Say, fellows!" he cried wildly, "if you'll stay right here by the tree and prevent his coming down, I--I'll run all the way back to that farm-clearing--I guess I can find my way--and bring back Toiney's gun, and shoot him. Say--will you?" No such promise was forthcoming. "Well, I know what I'll do!" Leon tore off his jacket. "I'll tie the sleeves of my coat round the trunk of the tree; that will prevent his coming down, so I've heard my father say. Bother! they won't meet. I'll have to use your coat too, Nix!" He snatched up the scout's Norfolk jacket, thrown down beside the basket at the foot of the tree, and was knotting it to his own, when there was a wild shriek from Colin:-- "Look! Look! He's jumped over into the other tree. Oh! he's come down; he's on the ground now--there beyond the ash tree--rolling over like a ball! Oh, he's going--going like a slate sliding downhill!" While Leon had been so cleverly knotting the coats round the tree-trunk, and his terrier barking up it, the young coon had outwitted them and dropped like an acrobat to the ground, having gained the odds of a dozen yards in his race for safety. Off went the terrier after him, now! Off went the four boys, hot on the trail too, madly rushing down the hill clear to the edge of the alder-swamp toward which it sloped--yes! and into its quagmire borders too, while the crows, raving like a foghorn, supplied music for the chase.