“You may go if you are uneasy, Tom,” answered Larry; “but it isn’t at all necessary I think. Cal knows how to take care of himself.”
“But how do you account for the two shots in such quick succession?”
“By the fact that Cal usually hunts with cartridges in both barrels of his gun just as other people do. He may have missed at the first fire. In that case he would take a second shot if he could get it.”
Tom was somewhat reassured by this suggestion, but he was not entirely free from anxiety until ten minutes later when he heard the crackling of dry branches under Cal’s big boots. A moment afterwards Cal himself appeared, with two huge gobblers slung over his neck.
“So you got one with each barrel,” quietly commented Larry, feeling of the birds to test their fatness.
“Yes, of course. That’s what I fired twice for. Did you imagine I’d shoot the second barrel just for fun? By the way, isn’t breakfast nearly ready? I’m pretty sharp set in this crisp morning air.”
“I must say, Cal,” said Dick, as the little company sat on the ground to eat their breakfast, “you’re the very coolest hand I ever saw. Why, if I had shot two big gobblers out of one flock of turkeys I’d be tiring the rest of you with minute descriptions—more or less inaccurate, perhaps—of just how I did it, and just how I felt while doing it, and just how the turkeys behaved, and all the rest of it.”
“What’s the use?” asked Cal between sips of coffee. “The facts are simple enough. We wanted some turkeys and I went out to get them. I knew where they were roosting and I got there before time for them to quit the roost. I shot one from the limb on which he had passed the night. The others flew, of course, and I shot one of them on the wing. That’s absolutely all there is to tell. I like to get my game when I go for it but I never could see the use of holding a coroner’s inquest over it.”
“What puzzles me,” said Tom, “is how on earth you knew just where those turkeys were roosting. Did you just guess it?”
“No, of course not. If I had, I shouldn’t have been so ready to promise you a gobbler as I was.”