204 BUFFALO LAND. 



killed twelve. Muggs and Sachem had combined 

 their forces and devoted their joint attention to one of 

 them sitting stupidly on a limb, where it received a 

 bombardment of five minutes' duration before coming 

 down. Our Briton explained that " the bird was un- 

 able to fly away, you see, because I 'it 'im at my first 

 shot." To this statement Sachem stoutly demurred 

 upon two grounds : First, that Muggs' gun had gone 

 off prematurely, the time in question, and barely 

 missed one of his English shoes ; and, second, that the 

 turkey showed but one bullet mark, and that wound 

 was necessarily fatal, as it had carried away most of 

 the head ! A compromise was finally effected, and 

 we were much edified by seeing the two coming into 

 camp with the bird between them, sharing mutually 

 its honors. 



Great numbers of turkeys seemed to inhabit the 

 creek, all along which we heard them, at dark, flying 

 up to their roosts. This induced a number of our 

 party to visit a large oak scarcely a hundred yards 

 from camp, which one of our men had marked as a 

 favorite resort. Proceeding with the utmost caution, 

 under the dim shadows of approaching night, we pres- 

 sently stood beneath the roost. Clearly defined be- 

 tween us and the sky were the limbs, and clustering 

 thickly over them, like apples left in fall upon a leaf- 

 less tree, we could descry large black balls, indicating 

 to our hunger-stimulated imaginations as many pro- 

 spective turkey roasts. For this special occasion our 

 only two shot guns had been brought forth from the 

 cases, the remainder of the party being furnished 

 with Spencer and Henry rifles. 



