The daily morning journal and courier., 1895-05-10

patient, hard-headed, and desperate
 fighters in an emergency, and that the l American coon had all these character
 istics, and that Petes pet, being an ed- ucated beast, in him they were intensi-
 fled. Well, anyhow, they named the
 coon Londonderry, and he became a fa-
 nous character He made friends vita
 Ferguson's hounds, and they got right
 ehummy with him, but let a strange
 dog come on the place and there was | trouble. Londonderry would size him
 up. and if he was a little fellow or a
 city dog not up to the tricks of coon | fighting, there would be a fight on open ground. If, however, the visitor ap- | peared to be experienced, Londonderry would make tracks for the duck pond.
 The dog would follow, and Londonder- " would entice him into the water, then grab him by the neck with his front paws, and rip his lights out with
 his hind feet, The dog would be too
 busy trying to keep his head above wa
 ter to make any sort of a fight, and it
 was mighty seldom, tell you, that
 Londonderry ever failed to drown his
 victim.
 Pete, being a native of the bottoms,
 knew that wild coons are great fisher men. One of them will lie on log that iuts into a lake and pretend to be asleep, with the tip of his tail just
 touching the water. Long in May and June, when bass are striking, q coon's tail just touching the water is d mighty tempting bait. A bass sees it and thinks it's new kind of caterpillar and makes a snap at 1t. As the fish strikes the supposed caterpillar the coon gives a fiirt of his tail and throws MT. Bass out on the bank, and before he can get back the coon has him. Pete knew this, and his brother-in-law had told him how the Chinese educate storks to catch fish for them; SO Pete said Lon- donderry could give anybodys stork cards and spades-a slangy youngster Is Pete-and beat him catching fish. And he was right. Londonderry caught on to what Pete wanted after few trials, and he became so expert that the family had fish every day, Fishing and fighting were not London derry's only accomplishments. howev- CT. He used to bring the cows home at milking time"
 Come, now! Amt you drawing it little strong?" said the Philistine.
 Young man." said the denizen of the bottom, sternly, you know very little of the eccentricities of cows, and still less of the intelligence of the American coon. A COW hates a coon worse than her brother hates a red rag, and she will chase one of the ring-tailed rascals as quick as a grinnell will strike at a silk minnow. Pete knew this, and so did Londonderry; so when Pete wanted to get the cows home without driving them he used to take Londonderry on his pony and ride out in the pasture. As soon as the cows saw the coon they would start after him, and all Pete would have to do would be to gallop home, with the cows following. After q while Londonderry got on to the scheme, and he used to go after the cows by himself, Sometimes, though, they would get too much of a start, and he would have to climb a tree: then would have to go to his res cue, for the cows wouldn't budge as long as they thought they had a, chance of getting at him.
 Fishing finally became impossible for Londonderry, and the last few years he hasn't done anything except eat and sleep, play with the children, and occa- kill a. chicken, just for the ex- citement of the thing The way he got l knocked out as @ fisherman was this: | You know we have some powerful big l turtles down fin our country, and they never turn loose when once they catch hold, leastways not till it | thunders. One day Londonderry was i lying on his favorite log, with his tail l the water, waiting for a bass | to grab 1t. Pretty soon something did | grab it, but 1t wasn't a fish. It was a | turtle, and he must have weighed two | hundred pounds. Londonderry gave a Jerk, but he didn't budge the logger head, who started to the bottom. Lon 1onderry elung to the log with all his,l claws, and 'yaah! yaahed' for help. 1 Nothing on earth could help himSI
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