Ol' Pap Soisson flashed thirty-two white teeth in assent.
Stone-bruised heels were forgotten. Rags were torn from Doby's toes. They did not hurt—much. He slipped on his moccasins, not because his bare feet minded the March rime of frost, but just because all hunters did wear moccasins.
He carried bow and arrows. Pioneer boys were clever with these, for they were easy to pack about. Early guns were heavy.
"Wild turkeys are hard to shoot," he remembered as he trotted along the edge of the wood. "If I can't get that gobbler, I'll bring home something to cook in the new oven. Ol' Pap Soisson deserves a square meal."
His father had pointed out the probable turkey-run. Doby had expected to discover tracks at once, but he had to keep on and on, still in sight of the cabin, until, when at last he did find fresh traces, he must have been all of four miles away. But what are four miles to a hunter? Mere detail!
He hid himself in the heart of a sycamore and waited for game to pass. Sitting astride a limb in a rough old tree is much easier than lugging stone for an oven, especially if it is one of those big outdoor affairs fastened to the chimney.
His father would build a vent to make the draught strong. Then a fire would have to burn for hours in the oven until the stones were scorching. The coals would then be raked out and the turkey—if Doby got it—would be shut in the hot empty oven to let the reflected, heat roast it.
"If I were to tell that bony bachelor about the apple turnovers and rabbit pie, the gingerbread and quail dumplings, the baked beans and mince tarts, the succotash and blackberry short-cake, the whole shoats and cinnamon buns, the halved squash pudding and caraway cookies that ma can bake in such an oven, the poor fellow would lick his chops and fall sick from in-di-ges-tion of the im-ag-i-na-tion!"
From some source Doby had learned that, in the Old World, every plant and animal which is good to eat had been discovered and used by men centuries before people had begun to write down any sort of history. In the New World of the Americas, the natives had long ago found out what was good to eat on their continent, and could show the immigrating white man delicious foods which he had never before tasted—the golden maize, the bison, and the turkey. Doby felt that a personal experience of some of these dainties would make Ol' Pap Soisson joyous. So he kept his eye out for the turkey.
He was hidden where he could not be seen by any man. He fancied that he could not be noticed by any wild creature and that he himself could see everything about him. Deluded hunter! If he had been clever enough to peer more closely into the weeds below him, what trouble he might have saved!