432 AMERICAN GAME BIRD SHOOTING 



but directly between me and the sun. Quicker than 

 thought my gun went up, a flame of fire leaped out, 

 and was answered by the thud of the turkey as it 

 fell. 



' 'Confound you !' said Riley good-naturedly, walking 

 over and picking up the turkey, a young hen. He took 

 the gobbler and made me take the hen, weighing only 

 about one-half of his load, and we set out for the wagon, 

 four or five miles away. 'I am glad you got them, if 

 I didn't get any/ said he. 'You got them both, and 

 that is just as good/ 



" 'No, it isn't/ I answered. 'You claim that you 

 killed one, and I'll stand by you.' 



" 'No, you won't. You killed them both, and you've 

 got to have the credit of it/ And he was as good as 

 his word." 



The story of an oddly secured Thanksgiving turkey, 

 killed in 1893, in the Alleghany Mountains, was inter- 

 estingly told in Forest and Stream, some years ago, by 

 Mr. Edw. Banks, now of Wilmington, Del. A party 

 of three, of whom Mr. Banks was one, had been shoot- 

 ing ruffed grouse near Bellwood, Pa., but without any 

 great success. There was a little snow on the ground 

 and many tracks of turkeys in the snow. Presently the 

 party went to a cold spring and sat down to eat lunch. 

 While doing so one of them remarked that he wished 

 he could get a Thanksgiving turkey. Mr. Banks says : 

 "Lunch was about over when we heard a gun go off, 

 with a regular old black-powder dr-ro-o-oom. It was 

 not more than three or four hundred yards away from 



