steady bark.

"Keep where you are, fellows! Watch the other side of the tree!"
whispered Cyrus, his face twitching with excitement.

In his character of naturalist he had managed to find out more about
the coon's various dodges than even the old guide had done.

In breathless wonder the Farrars presently beheld that ingenious raccoon
steal along to the end of the most projecting limb on a different side
of the tree from the one it had climbed, so that a screen of boughs and
the trunk were between it and its adversary.

Then it noiselessly dropped from the tip of the branch to the ground,
alighting, like a skilled acrobat, on its shoulders, doubled its pointed
black nose under its stomach, and again rolled over and over for a
considerable distance, when it got on its short legs and scurried away,
while Tiger still bayed at the foot of the maple-tree, thinking the
vanished prey was above.

"That's what I called the coon's dodge of 'barking a tree,'" said Cyrus.
"Don't you see, when hard pressed, he runs up the trunk, leaving his
scent on the bark; then he creeps to the other side under cover of the
foliage, and drops quietly to the ground. So he breaks the scent and
cheats the dog."

"Good gracious!" exclaimed Neal with an expressive whistle.

"Perhaps it's because of his long gray hairs that he has so much
wisdom," Dol suggested.