TUBKET HUNTING. 119 



her settle herself down among some low willows, until I 

 could discern nothing but her head. 



Shortly afterward a fox came by, and coming across 

 the trail of the turkey he turned short about, and throw- 

 ing up his sharp nose, scented the different spears of 

 grass the bird had touched, and then taking up her trail, 

 commenced following it slowly and cautiously toward 

 where she was sitting. "With noiseless foot and undulat- 

 ing body he wound along in the trail, when suddenly, to 

 my surprise, I saw the turkey hen leave her willow 

 clump, and returning on her own trail, walk directly 

 toward the fox. She picked hither and thither, in a non- 

 chalant manner, and when within some ten or fifteen 

 yards of her enemy, who had crouched in the sparse 

 grass when he first saw her coming, she diverged slowly 

 to the right, and the fox, as she turned aside, recom- 

 menced his crawlings, keeping his eye on the bird and 

 leaving the trail he had been previously following. In 

 this way they progressed some hundred yards in a direc- 

 tion contrary to her nest, when coming near a low tree, 

 with a soft chuckle, which seemed to say, as plain as 

 accent could make it, " what a fool you are," she flitted 

 up in the tree. 



The fox being then on open ground, at once knew 

 himself discovered, and raising from his crouching posi- 

 tion, after one or two longing looks, and a whimper of 

 disappomtment, trotted over the sandhills, and was lost 

 to sight. 



