was breathlessly listening. "The big animal killed the little one under
a dead limb; and I traced its tracks through some mud, where it tugged
the rabbit to the brink of the nearest brook to be dipped and devoured.

"After the meal, Mr. Coon halted on an old bit of stump as gray as
himself, close to where I lay under cover, trying to get a peep at his
operations, but, unluckily, in my excitement I touched a bush, and broke
a twig not as big as my little finger. I tell you he just jumped off
that stump as if it scorched him, and disappeared."

"What about that tame coon you owned, Cy?" Dol asked. "You haven't got
him now."

"Bless your heart, I should think not!" Here the student indulged in a
chuckle of mirth. "That coon was the fun and bane of my life. No fear
of my being dull while I had him! I had him as a present, when he was
only a cub, from a man out here who is my special chum among woodsmen,
Herb Heal, the guide in whose company we're going to explore for moose,
and the soundest fellow in wind, limb, and temper that ever I had the
luck to meet. I guess you English boys will say the same when you know
him.

"Well! when my friend Herb bestowed upon me that baby raccoon, I called
the little innocent 'Zip,' and kept him in-doors, letting him roam at
will. But after he grew to manhood, I was obliged to banish him to our
yard and chain him up; and there his piteous, sky-piercing calls, which
seemed to come from the roof of a house near him, first showed me what a
ventriloquist the animal can be."

"Why on earth did you banish him?" asked Neal.