As the laggards were brought up to a slight rise in the road, the flock was seen a hundred yards ahead, gathered in a dark mass about a telegraph-pole! It could be nothing else, for through the whirling snow the big cross-arms stood out, dim but unmistakable.
It was this that the gobbler had spied and started for, this sawed and squared piece of timber, that had suggested a barnyard to him,—corn and roost,—as to the boys it meant a human presence in the forest and something like human companionship.
It was after four o’clock now, and the night was hard upon them. The wind was strengthening every minute; the snow was coming finer and swifter. The boys’ worst fears about the storm were beginning to be realized.
But the sight of the railroad track heartened them. The strong-armed poles, with their humming wires, reached out hands of hope to them; and getting among the turkeys, they began to hurry them off the track and down the steep embankment, which fortunately offered them here some slight protection from the wind. But as fast as they pushed the birds off, the one-minded things came back on the track. The whole flock, meanwhile, was scattering up and down the iron rails and settling calmly down upon them for the night.
They were going to roost upon the track! The railroad bank shelved down to the woods on each side, and along its whitened peak lay the two black rails like ridge-poles along the length of a long roof. In the thick half-light of the whirling snow, the turkeys seemed suddenly to find themselves at home: and as close together as they could crowd, with their breasts all to the storm, they arranged themselves in two long lines upon the steel rails.
And nothing could move them! As fast as one was tossed down the bank, up he came. Starting down the lines, the boys pushed and shoved to clear the track; but the lines re-formed behind them quickly, evenly, and almost without a sound. As well try to sweep back the waves of the sea! They worked together to collect a small band of the birds and drive them into the edge of the woods; but every time the band dwindled to a single turkey that dodged between their legs toward its place on the roost. The two boys could have kept two turkeys off the rails, but not five hundred.
“The game is up, George,” said Herbert, as the sickening thought of a passing train swept over him.
The words were hardly uttered when there came the tankle, tankle of the big cow-bell hanging from the collar of the horse, that was just now coming up to the crossing!
George caught his breath and started over to stop the horse, when, above the loud hum of the wires and the sound of the wind in the forest trees, they heard through the storm the muffled whistle of a locomotive.
“Quick! The horse, Herbert! Hitch him to a tree and come!” called George, as he dived into the wagon and pulled out their lantern. “Those birds could wreck the train!” he shouted, and hurried forward along the track with his lighted lantern in his hand.