THE BROCKWAY BOYS. 99 



birds, meeting them in the morning and leaving them in 

 the evening, when they went home. A boy about Jim's 

 age, whose people owned the flock of white turkeys, knew 

 of this wild one, and had marked it for his meat later 

 on. Jim went with me and posted me behind a fallen 

 log, and I killed the turkey and started for the road to 

 find Jim, when a big boy appeared and claimed the bird. 

 Now the killing of that turkey had not a bit of sportsman- 

 ship in it and was nothing to be proud of, but it was a wild 

 turkey and mine. I refused to give up my game. 



"This is not one of your turkeys; yours are white." 



"I say it's mine, and I'm going to have it. That 

 sneakin' Jim Brockway sot you up to kill my turkey; he 

 dassn't kill it himself, but I'll have it." 



"You won't get it. Jim Brockway is down in the road 

 yonder, an' if you call him a sneak he'll lick you." 



"Jim Brockway can't lick one side o' me, nur you an' 

 him together. Gi' me that turkey," and he pushed me. 

 I set the gun back against a log and tossed the turkey 

 behind it. He was bigger and stronger than I, but les- 

 sons from Shel. Hitchcock, Albany's teacher of sparring, 

 gave me confidence, if he could be kept from a "catch-as- 

 catch-can" hold. He struck an awkward swinging blow 

 and got a stinger on the ear. He was astonished, but 

 made a rush, which was avoided, and took one on the 

 nose, which, as Professor Sheldon Hitchcock would have 

 said, "brought the claret." So far I was unharmed ex- 

 cept for my right hand, which has never been equal to the 

 biceps which drove it, and I had only learned to use the 

 left as a guard. He gathered himself and struck straight 

 this time, but I dodged and upper-cut him on the jaw, and, 

 in the language of the Professor, "he grassed." By this 

 time Jim appeared. He had seen it all, but affected sur- 

 prise. 



