attitude and state of mind, and the tension was immense.

Polly gasped and giggled and the suffrage lady almost became entangled
with the waltzing dogs in her endeavor to sight the quarry.

"Dar he am!" exclaimed the blackest satyr, and he pointed to one of the
lower limbs from which there hung by the tail the most pathetic little
bunch of bristles imaginable. "Le'me shake him down, Mister David, I
foun' him!"

"All right, shin up, but mind the limbs," answered David. "And you, Jake,
get the dogs in hand! We want to take home possums, not full dogs!"

And like an agile ape the darky swung himself up and out on the low limb.
"Here he come!" he shouted, and ducked to give a jerk that shook the
whole limb.

The dogs danced and Polly squealed, while the rotund lady managed to step
on young Back Bay's toes and almost forgot to "beg pardon," but Mr.
Possum hung on by his long rat-tail with the greatest serenity.

"Buck up thar, nigger, shake dat whole tree; dis here ain't no
cake-walk," one of his confrères yelled, and the sally was caught with a
loud guffaw.

Thus urged the darky braced himself and succeeded in putting the whole
tree into a commotion, at the height of which there was a crash and a
scramble from the top limb and in a second a ball of gray fur descended
on his woolly head, knocked him off his perch and crashed with him to
the ground. Then there ensued a raging battle in which were involved five