“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 dogs, a long darky and a ring-tailed streak of coon lightning, which whirled and bit and scratched itself free and plunged into the darkness before the astonished hunters could get more than a glimpse of the mêlée.

“Coon, coon!” yelled the negroes, and scattered into the woods at the heels of the discountenanced dogs.  Mr. Possum, saved by the stiff fight put up by his ring-tailed woods-brother, had taken this opportunity of unhanging himself and departing into parts unknown, perhaps a still more wily citizen after his threatened extinction.

In a few minutes from up the hill came another tumult, and Jake raised a long shout of “two possums,” which served to hasten the scramble of the rest of the party through the underbrush to a breathless pace.

Another gray ball hung to another limb and this time the derisive Jake succeeded in the shake-down and the bagging amid the most breathless excitement.  It was a sight to see the sophisticated little animal lie like dead and be picked up and handled in a state of seeming lifeless rigidity—­a display of self-control that seemed to argue a superiority of instinct over reason.

After this opening event the hunt swept on with a rapidly mounting count and a heavier and heavier bag.

And, too, it was just as well that no one in particular, save the defrauded Hobson, who was obliged to conceal his chagrin, was especially mindful of the whereabouts of Caroline and the poet.  In fact, it would have been difficult for them to have located themselves in answer to a wireless inquiry.