4 i 6 AN AMERICAN HUNTER 



all the scattered birds at once went toward her. At other 

 times I would slip around to one side of a wood while 

 my companion walked through it, but either there were 

 no turkeys or they went out somewhere far away from me. 



On the last day I was out thirteen hours. Finally, 

 late in the afternoon, Jim Bishop marked a turkey into 

 a point of pines which stretched from a line of wooded 

 hills down into a narrow open valley on the other side 

 of which again rose wooded hills. I ran down to the 

 end of the point and stood behind a small oak, while 

 Bishop and Dick walked down through the trees to drive 

 the turkey toward me. This time everything went well; 

 the turkey came out of the cover not too far off and 

 sprang into the air, heading across the valley and offer- 

 ing me a side shot at forty yards as he sailed by. It was 

 just the distance for the close-shooting ten-bore duck 

 gun I carried; and at the report down came the turkey 

 in a heap, not so much as a leg or wing moving. It was 

 an easy shot. But we had hunted hard for three days; 

 and the turkey is the king of American game birds ; and, 

 besides, I knew he would be very good eating indeed 

 when we brought him home ; so I was as pleased as pos- 

 sible when Dick lifted the fine young gobbler, his bronze 

 plumage iridescent in the light of the westering sun. 



Formerly we could ride across country in any direc- 

 tion around Washington and almost as soon as we left 

 the beautiful, tree-shaded streets of the city we were 

 in the real country. But as Washington grows, it natu- 

 rally and to me most regrettably becomes less and 

 less like its former, glorified-village, self; and wire fenc- 



