The first day of hunting season finally arrives and Billy is ecstatic. He spends the seemingly endless daylight hours preparing for the night’s hunt. His father understands his excitement and tells him that, during hunting season, he is excused from his daily chores. Billy graciously thanks him, noting that his nightly hunts will likely leave him exhausted during daylight hours. His father tells him that his mother is still apprehensive about allowing him to hunt alone at night. Therefore, he tells Billy that it is important to tell them where he will be each night. Billy agrees. When his father leaves, Billy proudly reflects that his father speaks to him as if he were a grown man rather than a young boy.

Once Billy has made preparations for the night, he has a talk with his puppies. He tells them that he is proud of their labors, and he explains that they will put all their training to use this night. He feels that Little Ann understands him even if Old Dan does not. That evening, after sharing dinner with his family, Billy gathers his hunting supplies and embarks on his first hunting adventure.

Billy leads his puppies to an area near the river to begin the hunt. Immediately, they begin searching for the scent of raccoons. Soon they detect the scent and, without delay, they are on the trail of their prey. Billy screams with excitement, yelling, “Whoo-e-e-e,” the characteristic yell of raccoon hunters. He proudly watches as his puppies pursue the raccoon and remain on the trail despite the raccoon’s attempts to elude them. Little Ann in particular trails the prey with precision. However, the raccoon finally shakes them off its trail, and Billy is prepared to move to another area to continue hunting.

Before Billy leaves the area, both Old Dan and Little Ann begin to howl at the base of a tree. Astonished, Billy follows them and discovers that Little Ann has found the raccoon nesting in the hollow of a great sycamore tree. Although Billy is thrilled that his puppies have treed a raccoon, to capture his prey he will have to either climb the tree or chop it down. But he is dismayed by the size of this tree, and neither task seems plausible. Billy’s eager puppies have trapped a raccoon in one of the biggest trees in the forest. In fact, he has long referred to this tree as “the big tree” because it towers above all of the other trees in the area. Billy estimates that the lowest limb on the tree is at least sixty feet off the ground. He also estimates that, although he has a sharp ax, it would take nearly “a month” to chop down the tree. Regrettably, he decides, he will have to leave the raccoon in the tree and hunt elsewhere. However, his puppies have other plans.

Despite his attempts to take the puppies away from the tree, Billy cannot convince them to leave the raccoon. The do not respond to his calls and they refuse to stop barking and yelping at the base of the tree. Remembering his promise to capture any raccoon that his puppies could trap in a tree, Billy decides to chop down the tree. He does not want to let his puppies down, so he takes his ax and begins chopping near the bottom of the enormous tree.

Billy’s work is strenuous, and he is making little progress. Still, he works through; his father finds him early the next morning, exhausted but determined to fell the giant tree. His father explains...