Show W W W 11 4 W 1 WILD TURKEY SEEMINGLY Q 41 1 t ENJOYED bejino BF ING SHOT AT the wild turkey called by choctaws Choc tawa and cherokees in differing tongues the wit ot the woods Is supposed by old to have intelligence aa above that of it other birds in general it had has yet sometimes it nods 1 like homer and sometimes it displays dis playa the indifferent recklessness rack of a crosa cross between dartagnan and dear old hero bert cecil 0 40 S stribling lives near the lower part of the san antonio antor to river a few f ew miles above its into the gulf of mexico wild turkeys are plentiful in the region and he kills a good many of thero them in winter it la Is never more than f three miles from bis his house to a roost when he wants turkey meat he saddles his pony before daylight rides to within a quarter mile mlle of the roost dismounts walks stealthily to the burdened trees waits watts till be he can see a 21 round black form between him and the sky knocks one over and goes gnes homo home mr does not pretend to ba a sportsman in the after cense sense of the term in fact he raises cotton as a means of keeping in debt but he likes z turkey especially when it Is to sell self fla bored with nuts and wild pepper the river runa by hia home and Is 13 thirty yards wide directly across from bis his front burd grows a solitary soll tary 4 cypress that is probably feet high one forenoon while sitting on an hia his front gallery illery gs and enjoying a cob pipe be he had been blackening for five years stribling inq glanced boward the cypress and saw perched oil its top a wild gobbler abc burnished burnla hed feathers in tho the sun it stood calmly with erect enjoying the air and the placid river beneath stribling blink laid the pipe down carefully walked into his bedroom picked up hie his rifle of M 44 calibre and went back to the gallery ho ile knew that i he would be forced to go a half mile downstream downa tream to the nearest ford crois come back upstream go back downstream and come back upstream earn in order to retrieve but did not purpose to be he ile shoots well he ile leaned firmly against the end post of the gallery got the tip of the front sigh sight on the base of the birds black beard which hung from the gob gobblers lers breast held it there for a moment ambled as it occurred to him that the thing was too easy and pressed the trigger firmly and steadily was the usual sharp crac crace which sounded doubly loud in the stillness of morning but the turkey was unmoved it evinced no curiosity str stribling ibling tried P again a little more carefully and xyth less confidence same result he ile said 1 I may be betting old and wrinkled in my face but ill bet the farm and all it coste costs jno that I 1 can make you move samo same result that was all the cartridges be he had bad he ile walked to the bank of the river and yelled itt the bird it looked down at him and sailed away |