CAMPING WITH COMANCHES 257 



could find where the turkeys roosted and that 

 with my shotgun I could kill a barrel of them. 

 I did better than that, though now I would call 

 it worse. One night Tavetossa and I rode two 

 or three miles down the creek. He then led me 

 into a clump of trees and pointing upward 

 showed me a score or two of black bunches which 

 I knew to be turkeys. My shots were point 

 blank for I couldn't see the sight of my gun, a 

 pin-fire Westley Richards. I dropped the tur- 

 key on the lowest branch with the first shot and 

 thereafter fired as fast as I could stuff cartridges 

 into the gun. The birds were confused or stu- 

 pid, for they were slow to fly. They were so 

 crowded that at first I must have killed two or 

 three at a shot while many later shots failed to 

 get any. For a time it rained turkeys while the 

 barrels of my gun became blisteringly hot. 



When the carnage was over we gathered up 

 eleven wild turkeys. We packed them on our 

 ponies but when we were near the camp I had 

 them all hung upon my pony and myself and 

 rode up to the camp fire around which my friends 



