HUNTING TURKEY WITH A DOG 227 



the pointer might rush on and catch him. But 

 the first impulse of the turkey, on the near ap- 

 proach of an enemy, is to fly and not to depend 

 on its legs; though on seeing an enemy at some 

 distance, turkeys will run away and not fly at all. 

 In the open prairie it is quite another matter. 

 On seeing a turkey or flock of them on a wide 

 prairie, one can, by riding in a circuitous direc- 

 tion, as if passing in ignorance of them, get near 

 and start them into a trot, and keep them trot- 

 ting by keeping between them and the nearest 

 timber. In this way, although you ride slowly, 

 you will soon run them down. The first indica- 

 tion of exhaustion to be noted will be the drop- 

 ping of their wings, and when the hunter sees 

 that, he knows that they cannot rise to fly; he 

 then closes in and easily rides the birds down. 

 This is, or used to be, a favorite sport with the 

 cowboys of Texas, in which they sometimes em- 

 ployed a lariat, catching the birds as they would 

 a calf, or shooting them with a revolver. In case 

 neither the revolver nor lariat is handy, they take 

 a bullet, partly split with a knife, and then let 

 the tip of their cow whiplash into the cleft of 



