32 AMERICAN GAME BIRD SHOOTING. 
‘A thundering big grizzly or a behemoth, I reckon,” 
was the answer. 
“Ts your gun loaded?” I inquired. 
ee No. 32 
“Ig yours?” 
“No.” 
«‘Then get: behind this tree and load, and if it pitches 
into us we must fight.” 
I obeyed his suggestion with a promptitude I was 
rarely guilty of, and both secreted ourselves behind a 
huge live-oak. As the footsteps were approaching rapid- 
ly, we began to load our guns with small shot in violent 
haste, but before we had finished the operation, a sturdy, 
ragged negro, who was laden with three turkeys, emerged, 
not ten feet away from us. When my companion saw 
him he indulged in a vigorous expletive, while I laughed 
heartily at our needless scare. The Fifteenth Amend- 
ment was evidently as frightened as ourselves, for, on 
seeing us, he stopped abruptly and stared at us for a few 
moments in stupefied amazement; but when we advanced 
towards him his distended eyeballs ceased rolling, and 
a broad grin overspread his features as he exclaimed: 
“‘Loh, gemmen, how you did skeer me,” and he 
chuckled deeply, as if it were the funniest of jokes. 
My companion, who was not of so amiable a disposi- 
tion as the colored voter, asked abruptly: 
«Where did you kill those turkeys? ” 
“Down dere in de bottoms,” was the answer. 
“‘ Did you kill them in a trap?” 
“Loh, no, massa; I shot ’em wid dis gun,” and he 
held up-an old weapon that looked as if it were more 
dangerous to the carrier than to the birds. 
“T tell you what it is, boss,” he continued; ‘‘I had 
the powerfullest time you eber seed in calling dese yere 
gobblehs widin range. Mighty hard to fool ’em, I tell 
you; why, dey knows more ’n some preachers, I fetched 
