Seth said nothing when I looked at him for a response, leaving me to imply what I pleased as to his accomplishments. I had suddenly remembered that I had one aboard among some old shooting traps which had been thrown in together as a sort of refuse addition. Being perfectly confident that neither of the turkey hunters could use the “strange device,” it was with a malicious pleasure that I went below, and after a short search found it. An odd-looking affair it was, which I had once been able to use, but time had utterly obliterated the recollection of the way to manage it. At one end was a piece of bone about four inches long with a hole through it, and a larger mouthpiece of wood at the other. Blowing through it had no effect whatever, as I had previously found out, and the memory of the proper labial pucker had passed from my mind and my lips. I handed it calmly to the doctor without a word. He held it in his hand regarding it with puzzled uncertainty, evidently to make up his mind, which end was to go in his mouth, till noticing the knob on the smaller, he correctly concluded that that was the part to blow through, and applied it to his lips. Then he blew, at first mildly, producing no result other than a gentle hissing of air; he increased the force, the hissing was louder, but that was all, no sound which by the most vigorous imagination could be construed into the cluck of a gobbler issued. He next tried to pucker up his lips like the trumpeter breathing into his trumpet, but with worse effect if possible than before. Dismayed at his futile efforts, he gazed critically into the end as though some of the machinery must have been lost, but finding nothing to encourage such a supposition, gave up the attempt and held it out to Mr. Green, who had been watching the operation with interest. The latter gentleman was not to be caught, and waving it indifferently aside said with admirable assurance:
“We won’t need that, turkeys are too plenty, all we shall have to do will be to keep our eyes open to kill as many as we want.”
In that happy state of confidence they departed. We were anchored some little distance from the shore on account of the shallowness of the water, but I thought I heard several shots and wondered what they had found to fire at, as the probability of their killing a turkey was too slight to be worth considering. Early in the afternoon they returned with an air of curious self gratulation in their behavior, the manner of persons who had done an act on which they plumed themselves, but which would bear a good deal of concealment. This was noticeable even before they had reached the yacht, and prepared me in a measure for what followed—the production of a fine fat gobbler from the stem of the boat. Charley handed it up to me with an air of deprecation quite in contrast to the truculence with which Seth climbed on deck and exclaimed:
“There, what did I tell you, are you satisfied now? Where would the supplies come from to keep us alive, except for me. You would have had us down to hard tack and salt junk long ago, if it hadn’t been for the fish and birds I have had to kill. Have you anything to say against that?”
I was examining the turkey critically. I had heard of turkey pens, and suspected that this came from one of them, but did not see how to prove the fact. Its head had been shot nearly off.
“That is where the ball hit him, and I call it a pretty good shot at twenty rods,” continued Mr. Green, referring to the wounded spot.
“Was he as far off as that?” I inquired, as I handed him over to be picked. I was not familiar enough with a trapped turkey to detect the deceit if there was any, and Seth, seeing my inability, made the most of it.
“What is to be our reward for the hard work we have been doing? I tell you it is no easy thing to stalk a turkey, and if any other of the party had done as much, I wouldn’t grudge them the nicest sour orange punch that could be made.”
Turkeys are caught in parts of the country by a curious trap or pen, and I had heard that such a pen was used in Florida. It is built of logs on the four sides and over the top, a hole being left at one side just large enough to allow the bird to enter in a stooping posture. Corn is strewed on the ground leading to this hole, and scattered about so as to attract attention, and the way the trap works is this: the turkey finds the food and follows it, picking up grain after grain, keeping his head bent down, and in that posture enters the pen without trouble. There he remains without a suspicion of wrong till he has consumed all the corn. After the food so kindly supplied is gone, he begins to think of moving on, when to his surprise he discovers that man rarely does any factor without expecting a return, no less in this case than the toothsome body of the recipient. The turkey never stoops, even to save his life, he looks upward and not downward, he will not bow his royal head to escape by the road through which he entered. Becoming alarmed he springs up, dashing himself against the logs, he thrusts his head between the crevices and tries to fly through the roof by main force, but in vain, the pen is too strong, and the only method of escape which is open he will not condescend to take.
The owner of such a pen does not visit it regularly, and the turkeys are often shut up in it for days, frequently falling a prey to wild cats that find them before their lawful proprietor comes to claim them. My unholy suspicions were that the doctor, the Superintendent of the New York Fishery Commission, and the captain of the yacht Heartsease had accidentally found such a pen, and acted the part of the wild cat. For although I could see nothing suspicious about the bird, it was strange that persons who had stalked a wild turkey through a dense Southern forest hardly seemed to be tired, and wished to sit up half the night to smoke and talk. Still the bird proved to be delicious, and the entire party were grateful for him whether honestly obtained or not, so little does hunger weigh questions of morality.