Jan. 6 , 1912.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
11 
Hunting Turkeys in the Sunken Lands 
By J. B. THOMPSON 
I dipped my finger in the deer's blood, made 
the hunter’s mark on his forehead, and con¬ 
gratulated him on his first deer. Just then a 
second leaped out of the thickets a hundred 
yards away and headed diagonally across our 
front. “There’s another,’’ said I. "Shall I 
shoot?’’ asked A. “No, I think he’s coming 
nearer,’’ I replied. Then the deer stopped, right 
behind some thick bushes and completely out of 
sight. “There’s another,’’ I called, and a third 
appeared about a hundred yards more to the 
right and 125 yards away. “Shall I shoot?’’ 
again asked A. “Yes,” I replied; “give it to 
him,” and A.’s .32 auto spoke five times in suc¬ 
cession, the deer all the time heading away untd, 
at the last shot, he was swallowed up in the 
dense and high pocoson 150 yards below us. 
Turning to our left we caught a fleeting glimpse 
of deer number two heading away in bushes too 
thick to allow of any successful shooting, so we 
held our fire on him. "Guess you didn't get 
G overnor S. wrote that he would be at 
C. in Southeast Missouri on a date we 
had agreed upon. My train was late and 
I thought that the possibility of missing the East¬ 
erner was likely, but when the train pulled in 
he grasped my hand as I descended the coach 
steps and assisted me with my burdensome lug¬ 
gage. Evidently an acquaintance of mine had 
pointed me out to him, for it was the first sight 
I had ever had of his jovial round .face. Before 
we had even dined together I felt an intimacy 
rapidly grow that necessarily uplifted the bar¬ 
riers which conventions place upon the newly- 
acquainted. 
He was a tall man, over six feet in height, 
think I’m too beefy to stand roughing it. Well, 
you just set the pace, and when I feel like quit¬ 
ting, I’ll inform you.” 
It is to his credit to say that so far I have 
failed to hear an expression from him indxating 
a desire to slacken the pace in the hardest kind 
of traveling. 
We arrived at our camping grounds the fol¬ 
lowing afternoon by an uncertain train route, a 
disreputable tramway, and at last, over a blind 
trail which seemed to lead to nowhere. The 
cook, a cit}^ black, complained: “Didn’t think 
I wuz going to have tuh do all dis toting and 
walking or I’d shore never come.” 
I settled the black’s complaints by giving him 
AN OPEN GUM SWA.MP. 
Photographs by II. H. Brimley. 
THE MAIN CAMP. 
yours,” I remarked. “I believe I hit him all the 
same,” replied A., and so we left it for the 
present. 
Meanwhile one of the dogs we had turned 
loose had struck the trail of the one at which 
we had not shot and carried it off to the north. 
The other dog came out to us, but not running 
any trail. We put him on to number three and 
he soon found the deer two or three hundred 
yards from where he had disappeared from our 
view. And it was awful work cutting a path 
through that devilish pocoson with our bush 
knives and getting the deer out to where num¬ 
ber one was lying. But we got them together 
all right, cleaned them, and then I went for help 
to get them to camp while A. stayed and gloated 
over his good fortune. 
The other two couple of dogs each ran a deer, 
making five in all up that morning, but none of 
the others were even seen by any of the hunters. 
And in three more drives that same week, with 
two or three deer going each day, not one came 
within shooting range of anybody, though several 
of them were seen. It was "tenderfoot’s luck” 
all right on that first day. 
round of face, and carried an amount of surplus 
flesh which I thought would be quite a handi¬ 
cap in the tangles of the swamps. However, he 
had the air and poise of one who would at¬ 
tempt anything, and better still, carry it out. 
Naturally it added to my increasing admiration 
of him. 
Late dinner over, I turned to him and asked: 
“What kind of game do you want to hunt? 
There’s plenty of deer, some black bear, and”—■ 
He interposed before I could finish: “Been 
against all that; it don’t interest me in the 
least. All I want is a turkey—a wild turkey. 
I have killed nearly all kinds of big game, but 
I have never killed, nor even seen alive, a wild 
turkey. I don’t mind if I only get one, but I 
want one very badly, even if it’s only a little 
fellow, just so it’s a wild turkey.” 
I could hardly repress an astonished laugh at 
this man who had traveled over 1,200 miles 
merely to come up with a turkey, so I was not 
long in telling him that he would get his turkey. 
I was somewhat startled when he appreciated 
my deprecatory glance at his figure, and in his 
soft agreeable voice said: “Now, I believe you 
a verbal picture of what the natives of the 
swamps would do to a talkative negro, and the 
illustration, though tingling with expletives and 
exaggeration, had its good effects. I had some 
fear of his deserting us after going through a 
mile of canebrakes, but after I had him two 
hours in the woods I knew from his ignorance of 
woodcraft that he could not have deserted us had 
he wished to. And it may be well to state that 
during the remainder of his stay in the big tim¬ 
ber, he never strayed over thirty yards from 
camp, uttered no words of disgust, only disturbed 
the far-reaching howl of the timber wolf at 
night by loud prayers to the Master, promising 
all kinds of future good conduct if He would 
only carry him safely “outen dis one mess.” 
Two hours before sunset the Governor and I 
left camp, first cautioning our black against wan¬ 
dering toward Little River, for I had some fear 
about what would happen to a negro if he 
strolled into a mill town without some white 
person to explain the reason of his being there. 
Our camp was pitched on a small knoll, four 
huge pecan trees guarding it, and a break of small 
ash trees promised an available supply of fuel. 
