Archie could not refrain from giving a shout of joy, for he was confident that the chase would soon be over; and he hurried, impatiently, up and down the bank to find some place to cross, and finally discovered a small tree lying in the water, whose top reached almost to the opposite bank.  The ’coon had undoubtedly crossed on this bridge; and Archie sprang upon it.  It shook considerably, but he kept on, and had almost reached the opposite side, when the tree broke, and he disappeared in the cold water.  He rose immediately, and, shaking the water from his face, struck out for the shore, puffing and blowing like a porpoise.  A few lusty strokes brought him to the bank, and, as he picked up a handful of stones, he said to himself,

“I guess I’m all right now.  If I could only have found some stones when I treed that ’coon in the woods, he would not have been up there now, and I should not have got this wet hide.  But we’ll soon settle accounts now.”

As we have said, the ’coon had taken refuge in a high stump.  The branches had all fallen off, with the exception of one short one, about two feet from the top; and the ’coon, after trying in vain to squeeze ’himself into a small hole, about half-way up the stump, settled down on this limb, and appeared to be awaiting his fate.

Archie took a favorable position, and, selecting a stone, hurled it with all his force at the ’coon.  It whizzed harmlessly by, close to his head; but the next brought him to the ground, dead.

“There!” exclaimed the young hunter, as he shouldered his prize, and walked up the creek to find a crossing-place, “I’ve worked pretty hard for ’coons, first and last, but this beats all the hunts I ever engaged in.”

He at length reached a place where the water was about knee-deep, waded across the creek, and started through the woods to find his companions.  When he arrived at the place where they had felled the tree, he saw Harry sitting on a log, with Frank’s gun in his hand, but nothing was to be seen of the other boys.

As soon as the latter discovered Archie, he burst into a loud laugh.

“No doubt you think it a good joke,” said Archie, as he came up, “but I don’t.  It isn’t a funny thing to tramp through the woods, on a cold day like this, with your clothes wringing wet.  But I’ve got the ’coon.”

“You must have had a tough time catching him,” said Harry.  “But let us go down to the camp.”

As they walked along, Archie related his adventures; and, when he told about being “dumped in the creek,” Harry laughed louder than ever.

A few moments’ walk brought them to what Harry had called the “camp.”  It was in a little grove of evergreens, on the banks of a clear, dancing trout-brook.  A place about forty feet square had been cleared of the trees and bushes and in it stood a small, neatly-built, log-cabin, which Frank and some of his companions had erected the winter previous.