XIII THE COMING OF THE STORM XIV HOW JERRY WAS TREED XV IN A BEAR'S HOLLOW XVI HEAPING COALS OF FIRE ON HIS HEAD XVII

"How many things I remember," Verty said, thoughtfully, and smiling; "there, where Milo, the good dog, was buried, and a shot fired over himthere, where we treed the squirreland over yonder, by the run, which I used to think flowed by from fairy landI remember so many things!" "YesI do too," replied the girl, thoughtfully, bending her head.

I reckon they're treed this time, sartin; an' good enough for 'em.

As soon as Jerry saw them, he burst into a loud laugh, exclaiming, "Jest as I 'spected, they're treed, for sartin.

After descending from the tree, I found Jerry in anything but an amiable mood, at "the idee of an old hunter like he was, bein' treed by a lot of hogs;" and, as usual, he declared that "them cussid boys" was to blame, "for boys hadn't no bizness on the plains, no how.

He rode a deep-treed Mexican saddle, with housings of leather, grotesquely stamped: upon the pommel hung, neatly coiled, a lasso of beautifully braided rawhide.

Chased 'em 'bout a mild and treed 'em at Square Russoll's, way up Canal, eout in the country.

And a little later, we would hear Coldy bark and she would go out and Coldy would have something treed.

The last time I went coon hunting, we treed something.

He treed one, and kept up a furious barking at the base of its refuge.

I was sent to drive home the cows from pasture, but left the task to the dog, who chased them over the wall into the corn-field where they devastated the crop, and ruined the milk by devouring green apples, while I, skylarking in a neighbor's pasture, was treed by an angry bull, who kept me in the branches until I caught a violent cold and became for weeks a family burden.

I believed it a cowardly business, and that was why, if I chased bears with dogs, I wanted to chase the kind that could not be treed.

[Illustration: A BLACK BEAR TREED] To return, however, to the fact that to ride after hounds on a wild chase is a dangerous and wonderfully exhilarating experience, I will relate a couple of instances, and I will leave it to my readers to judge whether or not it is a cowardly sport.

They had treed the bear.

All the time while I fooled around trying to photograph the treed bear, R.C. sat there on his horse, looking upward.

They've treed another lion by this time.

Hi!" From the cedars rang the thrilling, blending chorus of bays that told of a treed lion.

Haught finally rode to the edge of a ridge and espied Bill under a pine in which the hounds had treed a bear.

"I treed you an' in a minnit I'm agoin' to assassinate you.

Why, I've treed more bears than you ever saw!

We have said that it was a moonlight night, but, so far as a view of the chase was concerned, the light of the moon would benefit them but little; and the boys carried the lanterns, not to be able to follow the 'coon when started, but to discover him when "treed," and to assist them in picking their way through the woods.

The chase was a short one, for the dogs soon broke out in a regular, continuous barking, which announced that the 'coon was treed.

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.

Frank, who always acted as cook on these expeditions, and knew how to get up a dinner that would tempt an epicure, was kneeling before the fire, engaged in skinning some squirrels which Brave had treed for him.

Brave immediately ran to join them, and Harry exclaimed, "I'd like to know what those dogs are doing there?" "Why, they've got the fox treed," said Frank.