Chapter 7 Summary

Billy must have a fresh coonskin with which to train his hounds. For three weeks he tries to trap a coon and simply cannot. In exasperation he returns to Grandpa's store to discuss his problem. Grandpa retrieves a brace and bit from his tool shed and explains to Billy how to make a coon trap by drilling a hole in a log. Drive in four horseshoe nails at an angle, he explains, and bait the bottom of the hole with a shiny piece of tin. The coon will reach for the tin out of curiosity, and the nails will hold his clenched paw in the hole, trapping the coon. Billy thinks this is ingenious until he realizes that the coon need only open his paw and drop the shiny disc to escape. When he explains this to his grandfather, the man laughs until...