two good eyes a number of buzzards perched on 
the roof of a long, low building, and his curiosity 
was aroused. At once he began to circle, drop- 
ping slowly as he did so. Then seeing by the 
actions of some of the buzzards on the cobble- 
stone street that they were contesting over food, 
he half closed his wings and volplaned down to 
the roof of the building. 
One or two other red-headed turkey buzzards 
were there, but most of the thirty or forty vul- 
tures here assembled were what the colored 
people called “South Carolina Buzzards.” 
They were blacker than Bill, and the bare skin 
on their heads was black, not red like his. The 
building was a market and the vultures in the 
street were contending over scraps of meat and 
bones that the stall-keepers threw to them. 
Now and then a bold vulture would fly up on the 
edge of a stall that was open to the street and, 
unless frightened away, would grab a piece of 
meat and try to make off with it. 
Bill stayed around for a half hour or so, but 
there were too many people about to suit his 
fancy and as he saw no immediate prospects of 
118 
