"No more do I," agreed his companion, who was large and jovial and
open-handed, more like a lucky sea-captain than a farmer. After pounding
a slender walnut-tree with a heavy stone, he had succeeded in getting
down a pocketful of late-hanging nuts which had escaped the squirrels,
and was now snapping them back, one by one, to a venturesome chipmunk
among some little frost-bitten beeches. Isaac Brown had a wonderfully
pleasant way of getting on with all sorts of animals, even men. After a
while they rose and went their way, these two companions, stopping here
and there to look at a possible woodchuck's hole, or to strike a few
hopeful blows at a hollow tree with the light axe which Isaac had
carried to blaze new marks on some of the line-trees on the farther edge
of their possessions. Sometimes they stopped to admire the size of an
old hemlock, or to talk about thinning out the young pines. At last they
were not very far from the entrance to the great tract of woodland. The
yellow sunshine came slanting in much brighter against the tall trunks,
spotting them with golden light high among the still branches.
Presently they came to a great ledge, frost-split and cracked into
mysterious crevices.
"Here's where we used to get all the coons," said John York. "I haven't
seen a coon this great while, spite o' your courage knocking on the
trees up back here. You know that night we got the four fat ones? We
started 'em somewheres near here, so the dog could get after 'em when
they come out at night to go foragin'.
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