He treed the coons in the cliff

Estimated reading time: 2 minutes

Back in nineteen and thirteen me and my brother coon hunted lots [in the] Smokies. We had a dog named Track. He was a good one. We went to Flat Creek one evening, built up a camp fire, and stayed till two o’clock the next morning. We left and went in on Stillwell, and old Track, he struck. Right up Stillwell he went, and us right after him. About ten o’clock in the day it begin to snowing.

We followed old Track about a hour, and the snow was about twenty-two inches deep. We turned back to the camp. About two o’clock in the evening old Track come back, and we had a big campfire. Chunks had rolled down, and old Track come in and set down by the fire, and directly he retched down and got a chunk of fire in his mouth, and right out the door he went.

We was right out after him, went back in on Stillwell, and we was a-trackin’ him. He’d run off and left us. Right up Stillwell he went and us right after him, and about a mile above where we’d turned back, why, we found old Track at a big cliff. He took this chunk of fire, and he treed the coons in the cliff and stuck the fire under it and set the leaves afire, smoked the coons out, and had them, three big ones a-lyin’ there dead. I give them to my brother and told him to come back the nigh way, and I’d go up to Balsam Corner, see if I could locate some bear sign.

Frank Mehaffey
b. 1894
Maggie Valley, Haywood County, NC
CCC blacksmith, farmer, and Baptist preacher
1939 interview

source: www.cas.sc.edu/engl/dictionary/transcripts/mehaffey_frank.html

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