"More likely fifteen or twenty flocks were scattered about through the woods, and now they have all joined in a common flight."
"Mebbe so, but whether one flock or twenty j'ined, this is suttinly Turkeyland. An' did you ever see sech fine turkeys. Look at that king gobbler, Henry, flyin' right over our heads! He must weigh fifty pounds ef he weighs an ounce, an' his wattles are a wonder to look at. An' I kin see him lookin' right down at me, ez he passes an' I kin hear him sayin': 'I ain't afeared o' you, Sol Hyde, even ef you hev got a gun in your hand. I kin fly low over your head, so low that I'll brush you with my wings, and with my red wattles, which are a wonder to see, an' you dassn't fire. I've got you where I want you, Sol Hyde. I ain't afeard o' anything but Injuns tonight.'"
Shif'less Sol's words were so lugubrious that Henry was compelled to laugh under his breath. It did look like an injustice of fate, when hunters so keen as they, were compelled to lie quiet, while wild turkeys in hundreds flew over their heads, and although the shiftless one may have exaggerated a little about the king gobbler, Henry saw that many of them were magnificent specimens of their kind. Yet to lie and stir not was the price of life, as they soon saw.
Indians came running through the great grove, discharging arrows at the turkeys, many of which flew low, and the air was filled with the twanging of bow strings. Not a rifle or musket was fired, the warriors seeming to rely wholly upon their ancient weapons for this night hunt. They appeared to be in high good humor, too, as the two crouching scouts heard them laughing and chattering as they picked up the fallen birds, and then sent arrows in search of more.
Shif'less Sol became more and more uneasy. Here was a grand hunt going well forward and he not a part of it. Instead he had to crouch among bushes and flatten himself against the soil like an earthworm, while the twanging of the bows made music, and the eager shouts stirred every vein.
The hunt swept off to the westward. The dusky figures of warriors and turkeys disappeared in the brush, and Henry and Shif'less Sol, ceasing to be earthworms, rose to their knees.
"They didn't see us," said the shiftless one, "but it was hard to stay hid."
"But here we are alive and safe. Now, I think, Sol, we'd better go on straight toward their camp, but keep a lookout at the same time for those fellows, when they come back."
They could not hear the twang of bowstrings now, but the shouts still came to them, though much softened by the distance. Presently they too died away, and with silence returning to the forest Henry and Shif'less Sol stood upright. They listened only a moment or two, and then advanced directly toward the camp. Crossing the brook they went around a cluster of thorn bushes, and came face to face with two men. Shif'less Sol, quick as a panther, swung his clubbed rifle like lightning and the foremost of the two, a Shawnee warrior, dropped like a log, and Henry, too close for action, seized the other by the throat in his powerful hands.
It was not a great and brawny throat into which those fingers of steel settled, and its owner began to gasp quickly. Then Henry noticed that he held in his grasp not an Indian, but a white man, or rather a boy, a fair English boy, a youthful and open face upon which the forest had not yet set its tan.