Turkey with Thanksgiving 333 



This demands an open country, and is, I believe, only 

 attempted on the plains of the far South and South- 

 west. For this sport a man must be a good horse- 

 man and be well mounted, as the going is fast and 

 free and the ground covered frequently dangerous. 

 The turkeys are found feeding in the open ; the dogs 

 are slipped, and when the birds take wing, horse and 

 hounds follow the selected victim as fast as they can 

 lay foot to the ground. The turkey flies straight, 

 and though its first flight may be half a mile or 

 more, it has not time to recover from the unusual 

 exertion ere the fleet dogs again compel it to take 

 wing. It may rise two or three times, but its 

 strength is soon spent, and unless it can reach 

 heavy cover the dogs pull it down, the horseman 

 meanwhile following the chase in the best way that 

 he can. 



Yet another method, and a thoroughly sportsman- 

 like one, is tracking or "still-hunting." The best 

 time for this is immediately after a light fall of snow, 

 when all sign is fresh, and the contest becomes a 

 fair test of hunter's craft against cunning and endur- 

 ance. The still-hunter will earn his bird, no matter 

 whether he carry a rifle and kill his game at long 

 range, or a shot-gun and kill it flying, after he has 

 fairly tramped it to a standstill, forced it from sheer 

 weariness to squat and hide, and then flushed it from 

 cover by his close approach. Tracking turkeys in 

 the kind of ground they usually favor is emphati- 

 cally hard work, and the tracker will be led, perhaps, 

 for mile after mile through just the sort of cover 

 that tempts one to halt and "talk the bark off a 

 tree " now and then. I have many times followed 



