other side of the barn in the edge of the trees. He was barking.
“That’s him, Pop,” I says, and started to run down that way.
And then Uncle Sagamore and Pop both bounced off the porch. Pop caught my arm. “Wait a minute, Billy,” he says. “Hold it.”
“Why?” I asked. “That’s Sig Freed, all right. I know his bark.”
“Sure,” Uncle Sagamore says. “That’s him sure enough. But you ain’t been around dawgs as long as I have. That there’s a skunk bark sure as you’re born.”
“Just what I was thinkin’,” Pop says. He was still holding me by the arm. “When I heard it, I says to myself, that there dawg’s treed a skunk.”
“Well, maybe so,” I told him. “But we can’t just leave him down there to let the skunk stink him up.”
“You better let Sagamore take care of it,” Pop says. “He knows how. You just sit right here and wait.”
“But, Pop—”
“Never you mind. You just do like I tell you. I don’t want you all stunk up with polecat. You’d have to go off and live in the barn.”
Uncle Sagamore started walking down towards the barn real fast. Pop and me sat down on the porch. We could hear Sig Freed still barking, and it didn’t sound like he was too far the other side of the barn.
Nothing happened for a few minutes. Then Sig Freed’s bark changed a little, and in a minute he let out a yip and stopped barking altogether.
Uncle Sagamore yelled something.
Pop walked out by the well and called back, “What? What you say?”
“Call the dawg,” Uncle Sagamore yelled. “Git him up there and keep him.”
“Here, Sig Freed!” I called. “Sig Freed! Sig Freed!”
In a minute he came running up. He jumped up in my arms and started licking my face. “He didn’t get no skunk on him, Pop,” I says. “See, he smells just like he always did.”
“Well, that just goes to show you,” Pop says. “Sagamore knows how to handle one. Better hold on to that dawg, though. Don’t let him go back down there.”
We sat down on the porch again and I held Sig Freed by his collar. He was real happy. It seemed like a long time went by, though, and Uncle Sagamore didn’t come back.
“You reckon he’s having trouble with the skunk?” I asked.
“Sagamore having trouble with one crummy little old skunk?” Pop says. “Not on your life. He’s a match for any skunk that ever come down the pike. He’ll be back in a minute.”
Some more time went by, and I started Worrying again about Miss Harrington. She’d be awful scared down there by herself. “Hadn’t we all ought to go down there and help look for her?” I asked Pop.
He shook his head. “Ain’t much we could do,” he says. “And I don’t want you gettin’ lost again.”
Just then Uncle Sagamore came around the corner of the house. He sat down on the step in the dark and bit off a chaw of tobacco. “Well sir, by golly,” he says. “It was just like we thought.”
“Well, you can generally tell, by the bark, if you know dawgs.” Pop says. “You didn’t have no trouble?”
“Hmmmm,” Uncle Sagamore says. “Not overly much. Skunks is a lot like mules and wimmin. You just got to reason with ‘em. You ain’t goin’ to git nowhere givin’ orders to a skunk, but if’n you take the time to explain the whole thing to him he’ll generally see it yore way.”
“You reckon it’s safe to turn the dawg loose now?” Pop asked.
“Oh, sure. He ain’t going to locate him now. Let him go.”
I turned Sig Freed loose. He ran around out in the dark in the front yard, but he didn’t go far.
Uncle Sagamore sailed out some tobacco juice. You couldn’t see it, but you could hear the ka-splott when it landed. “You know, Sam,” he says. “I’m sorta worried about that there girl.”
“Well,” Pop says, “I have been, too, but I just didn’t want to let on.”
“Oh,” Uncle Sagamore says, “she ain’t in no danger. They ain’t nothin’ down there that’d hurt her, mind you. But it’s just that she’ll get scared, all alone like that, and the muskeeters is goin’ to chaw on her somethin’ awful, being light dressed like she is. Sam, you reckon the shurf’s handlin’ this thing just the way he ort? With only twenty men?”
“Just what I was thinkin’, myself,” Pop says. “It seems to me like the shurf just ain’t got a real grasp of the