Downstream from the Mundee farm, approximately three miles away as the water flows, Willow Brook formed two channels. The main stream, a series of conventional pools and ripples, went sedately about the business of every creek and pursued its way to a river that in turn emptied into the sea. The secondary channel, as though weary of doing the same thing in the same way all the time, stole off to go exploring by itself.

In high water this channel dutifully accepted its share of the spring freshet. But even then it never became too big for its banks; there was plenty of room for surplus water in a swamp through which it dawdled.

In low water, the entrance to the channel was a bare seepage that struggled painfully around rocks and was so unimpressive that few human residents of the Creeping Hills ever bothered to go farther. Only Mun and Harky Mundee and Mellie Garson knew that some of the best fishing in Willow Brook was down this channel.

Old Joe knew it, and on this September night he was heading toward one of his favorite pools.

Though the days remained pleasantly warm, the heat of summer was past and the nights were cool without being cold. A light frost draped shriveled grasses, and a first-quarter moon that shone palely upon them made it appear as though someone had been very careless with a large quantity of silver flakes. It was exactly the sort of night Old Joe favored above all others.

He was very well satisfied with himself and his accomplishments as he pursued a leisurely way from a cave in a ledge of rocks where he'd lain up all day. In the summer now ending he'd added new luster to his already shining name and enjoyed himself thoroughly while doing it. Living, seldom a vexing matter for a hunter of his talents, had been ridiculously simple.

Weatherwise, with exactly the right balance of rain and sun, and no prolonged spells of excessive heat, conditions could not have been more ideal. Besides plenty of wild fruit in the woods, gardens bore a bumper crop and Old Joe helped himself whenever he felt like it, which was at least every other night. In addition, Pine Heglin had decided that it would be a wonderful idea if he raised some guinea fowl, and Old Joe had indeed found it wonderful.

In the first place, Pine Heglin had ideas, which is laudable enough if they are good ideas. Most of Pine's were not, but he never convinced himself of that. Pine had an idea that a mongrel was far more effective on coons than any hound can ever be, and his current pride and joy was a big dog of many breeds that Pine considered a canine genius. Actually, the dog hadn't sense enough to get up if he were sitting on a sand burr.

In the second place, most of the thirty guinea fowl that Pine acquired ran true to type and headed for the woods the instant they were released. Though they set up a hideous squawking whenever Old Joe raided their roost, the noise never disconcerted him in the smallest degree. Pine's dog, who couldn't have found a skunk in a packing box, was even less bothersome, and Pine was too stubborn to call in some neighbor who had a good hound.

Old Joe, who'd run ahead of all but two of the coon hounds along Willow Brook, and who feared none of them, happily raided every garden except Mun Mundee's and Mellie Garson's. He kept away from them because there was a new hound—Duckfoot at Mun's and Morning Glory at Mellie's—roaming each farm. Old Joe wasn't especially afraid of them either. But he had not had an opportunity to find out what they could do, and he hadn't lived to his present size and age by taking foolish chances.

He hadn't the least doubt that in the course of time both Duckfoot and Morning Glory would be on his trail. Old Joe intended to pick the time and place. Future actions in regard to both hounds would be based upon what he found out then.

In spite of the rich living the farms provided whenever he saw fit to take it, Old Joe was far too much the gourmet to spurn the delicacies of the woods and waters. The only reason he did not raid farms every night was that sometimes he felt like eating fresh-water mussels, sometimes he craved fish, sometimes he preferred frogs, and sometimes he yearned for crawfish. Tonight he was in a mood for crawfish.

Coming in sight of Willow Brook's adventurous channel, the big coon halted and stood perfectly still. His was the rapt air of a poetic soul so overcome by the wonders of the night that he must savor them, and perhaps that did account in part for Old Joe's attitude. More important, he'd long ago learned never to cross his bridges until he'd found what was on them, and Old Joe wanted to determine what else might be prowling the channel before he became too interested in hunting crawfish. Finding nothing to warrant concern, he moved nearer the water's edge.

He knew every inch of this channel. The trickle that fed it in low water remained a trickle for a bit more than a hundred yards. Then there were three deep pools separated by gentle ripples. The channel snaked through the forest, pursued a devious route, dozed through a swamp, and rejoined Willow Brook proper three-quarters of a mile from where the pair separated.

The pools and ripples were the proper places to catch fish, the swamp yielded frogs and mussels, and the pool beside which Old Joe halted was the best in the entire channel for crawfish. Old Joe advanced to the edge of the pool, but he did not at once start fishing.

The ambitious first-quarter moon slanted a beam downward in such a fashion that it glanced in a dazzling manner from something directly in front of Old Joe's nose. Spellbound, he stared for a full two minutes.

He yearned to reach out and grasp whatever this might be, and it was half a mussel shell that had been shucked here by a muskrat and fallen white side up. But though he might safely have retrieved this treasure, Old Joe sighed, circled two yards around it, and waded into the pool. Trappers who know all about a coon's inclination to put a paw on anything shiny often bait their traps with nothing else.

Once in the pool, Old Joe went about his fishing with a businesslike precision born of vast experience. Crawfish, whose only means of offense are the pincerlike claws attached to their front end, back away from danger, and this bit of natural history was basic to Old Joe's hunting lore. He slid one front paw beneath each side of a small stone and was ready. There were crawfish under every stone in this pool. Whichever paw Old Joe wriggled, a crawfish would be sure to back into the other.

Before he had a chance to stir either paw, he withdrew both and sat up sputtering. Another coon was coming. As though it were not outrageous enough for a coon or anything else to trespass on a pool that Old Joe had marked for his private fishing, the stranger paid not the slightest attention to his warning growl.

Obviously the intruder needed a lesson in manners and Old Joe would be delighted to teach it. When the strange coon came near enough, he discovered the reason for its lack of courtesy. It was a mere baby, a little spring-born male, and it hadn't learned manners. But it would. Old Joe launched his charge.

The trespasser stopped, squalled in terror, and with Old Joe in hot pursuit, turned to race full speed back in the direction from which he had come. Seventy-five yards from where he started, Old Joe rounded a tussock and stopped so suddenly that his chin almost scraped a furrow in the sand.

Just in front of him, her bristled fur making her appear twice her usual size, was the same mate whose den tree he'd sought out when he left the great sycamore in February. Old Joe was instantly transformed from an avenger bent on punishment to a husband bent on appeasement. Experience had taught him how to cope with every situation except that which must arise when he chased his own son, whom he did not recognize, and came face to face with his mate, whom he definitely did.

Old Joe had time for one amiable chitter. Then, in the same motion, she was upon and all over him. Her teeth slashed places that Old Joe hadn't previously known were vulnerable while her four paws, that seemed suddenly to have become forty, raked. For a moment he cowered. Then, since she was obviously in no mood to listen even if he had known how to explain that it was all a mistake, he turned in inglorious flight.

She chased him a hundred yards and turned back. Old Joe kept running. He reached the other channel, swam Willow Brook, climbed the opposite bank, and finally slowed to a fast walk. He hadn't seen his mate since they'd left her den tree to go their separate ways, and he hadn't had a single thought for either his wife or his two sons and three daughters.

He had one now, a very profound one. They could have the pool where crawfish abounded and, for that matter, both channels of Willow Brook at least for this night. Having met his match, Old Joe hadn't the least desire to meet her again.

He put another half mile between them before he considered himself reasonably safe. With the feeling that he was finally secure, came a realization that his dignity had been sadly ruffled. He was also hungry, but broken pride could be mended and hunger satisfied with one of Pine Heglin's few remaining guinea hens.

No longer threatened, Old Joe became his usual arrogant self. Despite Pine's exalted opinion of his big dog, Old Joe knew the creature for the idiot it was. The guinea hens, though wild, were stupid enough to seek the same roost every night, and they roosted in a grove of small pines. Old Joe, who'd taken his last guinea hen six nights ago, went straight to the grove.

He had no way of knowing that sometimes the gods smile on those who refuse to court favor.

Five days ago, just after Old Joe's last visit, Pine Heglin's cherished mongrel had gone strolling past a limpid pond on Pine's farm. He'd looked into the water, seen his own reflection, decided that he was being challenged by a big and rather ugly dog, and promptly jumped in to give battle. The reflection disappeared as soon as he was in the water, but reflections were too complex for one of his mental capacity. All he knew was that he had seen another dog. He was sure that it must be lurking in the pond, and though he never got many ideas, he stuck by those he did get. Presently, still looking determinedly for the other dog, he sank and did not come up.

Though Pine could have borrowed any hound that any of his neighbors owned, he remained loyal to his conviction that mongrels are superior. He dickered with Sad Hawkins, an itinerant peddler who'd sell or swap anything at any time, and in exchange for six chickens and a shoat Pine got another mongrel.

It was a smaller dog than his former prize, but so tightly packed and heavily muscled that it weighed nearly as much. With a generous portion of pit bull among his assorted ancestors, the dog feared nothing. He differed from Pine's former mongrel insofar as he had some sense.

Knowing as well as Old Joe where his guinea hens roosted, and aware of the fact that they were being raided, Pine left this dog in the grove with them. Thus came Old Joe's second shock of the night.

The dog, who wouldn't waste time barking or growling if he could fight, achieved complete surprise and attacked before Old Joe even knew he was about. Since he couldn't run, he had to fight.

The weight was nearly even, with the dog having perhaps a five-pound advantage. In addition, before he came into the possession of Sad Hawkins, he'd made the rounds of behind-the-barn dog-fights and he had never lost one. He could win over most coons.

The dog was a slugger. But Old Joe was a scientific boxer who knew better than to stand toe-to-toe and trade punches. He yielded to the dog's rushes even while he inflicted as much punishment of his own as possible. However, the battle might have been in doubt had it not been for one unforseen circumstance.

Hard-pressed by a determined and fearless enemy, Old Joe reached deep into his bag of tricks. He knew the terrain, and some fifteen feet away was a steep little knoll. It was elemental battle tactics that whatever might be in possession of any height had an advantage over whatever might attack it. At the first breathing spell, Old Joe scurried to the knoll, climbed it, and waited.

He was more than mildly astonished when the dog did not rush immediately. But the dog hadn't had a keen sense of smell to begin with. The numerous fights in which he'd engaged wherein his hold on a vanquished enemy was broken with a liberal application of ammonia, had ruined the little he did have. The dog was now unable to smell a dish of limburger cheese on the upwind side if it was more than three feet away, and he could not renew the battle simply because he couldn't find his enemy.

Never one to question good fortune, Old Joe turned and ran as soon as he could safely do so. First he put distance between himself and Pine Heglin's remaining guinea hens, that were standing on the roost screeching at the tops of their voices. Next he made a resolution to leave Pine's remaining guinea hens alone, at least for as long as this dog was guarding them.

Hard on the heels of that came anger. One needn't apologize for running away from one's angry mate. To be vanquished by a dog, and not even a coon hound, was an entirely different matter. Old Joe needed revenge, and just as this necessity mounted to its apex, he happened to be passing the Mundee farm.

Ordinarily he'd never have done such a thing. He knew nothing about Duckfoot, and a cornfield, with the nearest safe tree a long run away, was a poor place to start testing any unknown hound. Old Joe was too angry to rationalize, and too hungry to go farther. He turned aside, ripped a shock of corn apart, and was in the act of selecting a choice ear when Duckfoot came running.

In other circumstances, Old Joe would have stopped to think. Duckfoot, who would have the physical proportions of his father, had almost attained them. But he was still very much the puppy and he could have been defeated in battle.

Old Joe had had enough fighting for one night. He reached Willow Brook three jumps ahead of Duckfoot, jumped in, ran the riffles and swam the pools for a quarter of a mile, emerged in a little runlet, ran up it, and climbed an oak whose upper branches were laced with wild grapevines. The vines offered a safe aerial passage to any of three adjoining trees. Finding him now was a test for any good hound.

A half hour later, Old Joe was aroused by Duckfoot's thunderous tree bark. The big coon crossed the grapevine to a black cherry, climbed down it, jumped to the top of an immense boulder, ran a hundred yards to a swamp, crossed it, and came to rest in a ledge of rocks. This time Duckfoot needed only nineteen minutes.

Old Joe sighed and went on. The night was nearly spent, he needed safety, and the only safe place was his big sycamore. After the most disgusting night of his life, he reached and climbed it. He hoped that if he managed to get this far, Duckfoot would drown in the slough. But in an hour and sixteen minutes Duckfoot was announcing to the world at large that Old Joe had gone up in his favorite sycamore.

Old Joe sighed again. Then he curled up, but even as he dozed off, he was aware of one thing.

Duckfoot was a hound to reckon with.