io8 Hunting Trips of a Ranchman 



stream for five or six miles to a spot where some 

 mighty forest monarchs with huge, bare, spreading 

 limbs had caught the eye of one of our sporting 

 scouts in the afternoon. Leaving our horses half a 

 mile from the place, we walked silently along the 

 river bank through the jungle to the roosting trees, 

 where we scattered, and each man secreted himself 

 as best he could in the underbrush, or in a hollow 

 stump, or in the reeds of the river itself. The sun 

 was setting, and over the hills and from the low- 

 lands came the echoes of the familiar gobble, gobble, 

 gobble, as each strutting, foolishly proud cock head- 

 ed his admiring family for the roost, after their 

 day's feeding on the uplands. Soon, as I lay close 

 and hushed in my hiding-place, sounds like the 

 clinking of silver, followed by what seemed like a 

 breath of the wind rushing through the trees, struck 

 my ears. I hardly dared breathe, for the sounds 

 were made by the snapping of a gobbler's quills 

 and his rustling feathers; and immediately a mag- 

 nificent old bird, swelling and clucking, bullying his 

 wives and abusing his weaker children to the last, 

 trod majestically down to the water's edge, and, 

 after taking his evening drink, winged his way to 

 his favorite bough above, where he was joined, one 

 by one, by his family and relations and friends, who 

 came by tens and dozens from the surrounding 

 country. Soon in the rapidly darkening twilight the 

 superb old pecan trees looked as if they were bend- 

 ing under a heavy crop of the most odd-shaped and 

 lively kind of fruit. The air was filled with the 



