"I guess I'll take a tramp down the river," he concluded, "and when I get out of their hearing I'll knock something over, and eat enough to last me a week."
He looked down upon the tranquil face of Waring.
"He appears to sleep very sound, and I guess it's hardly worth while to disturb him. He'll be there when I come back, and all the better for the extra rest he has received."
With this philosophical conclusion, Hezekiah wandered off in the woods. It was his intention to take a southerly direction, penetrating further into Kentucky, and such was his course at first. But, unconsciously to himself, he deviated to the right, parallel with the Ohio.
With no sensation, but that of hunger, with the resolve to attend to that immediately, and at all hazards, Hezekiah hurried forward without once noticing the course he was pursuing, or reflecting that it was more than probable he would be entirely lost in the trackless wilderness.
While still hurrying forward, his excited ear detected a faint gobble in the woods, as if a lost turkey were calling its companions; and proceeding stealthily onward, he suddenly came upon a gobbler, that was wandering about disconsolately, as if indeed lost. Before it could get out of his reach, Hezekiah discharged his piece, but only wounded it.
It started off on a rapid run, and, fearful that it would escape him if he paused to load his rifle, he dashed after it at the top of his speed, and now commenced a most interesting race.
All things considered, perhaps, in the condition of the gobbler, Hezekiah could outrun it, that is, where both were given the same chance; but the bird had a way of slipping through the undergrowth, jumping under the bushes, and trotting over fallen trees, as though they were not there, that gave him an immense advantage over his pursuer.
The latter tore headlong through the bushes, sometimes a rod or two in the rear, sometimes almost upon it, his hope constantly kept up to a most exciting point, by the hairbreadth escapes it made from him. More than once, he made a frenzied leap forward, and, as he fell on his face, caught perhaps the tail feather of the bird, while the bird itself glided through his grasp, leaving a most vivid impression of its tapering form upon his hands, which had slipped over it so neatly. Then, again, he would strike at it with his rifle, and perhaps pin another feather to the ground.
"Drat it," exclaimed Hezekiah, after one of those fruitless attempts. "It's enough to make me swear. I'll chase him as long as I can stand, but what I shall get him."