WILD TURKEY AND DEEK SHOOTING. 231 



hard day's work, and nothing hut downright 

 perseverance enabled me to get any turkeys at 

 all on that occasion. When the going is good, 

 a flock of turkeys will beat a man by endurance. 

 They are great ramblers in the daytime, but 

 nearly always come back to the same roosting- 

 place at night. 



On another occasion I was out after turkeys 

 on the Sangamon on a thick, snowy day — just 

 the sort of day for a man to get lost in tim- 

 ber and a wild, broken country. I then lived 

 seven miles from Petersburg, and in following 

 the turkeys round bluffs and across barrens on 

 the edge of the timber I was several times in 

 sight of that place. Still the tracks went on 

 winding about until they led to a place where 

 there seemed to be some every way. There 

 were others besides myself hunting turkeys in 

 that timber, and we sometimes took the tracks 

 ahead of each other. It was then snowing 

 rather fast, and of course the tracks were all 

 fresh. The flock I was on tired in the after- 

 noon, and I killed two about four o'clock. I 

 then found I was lost. It was still snowing, 

 and night was coming on. The first thing to 

 be done was to keep on as fast as I could in 



