Presently my roving eye caught sight of a moving object.  It is movement that always attracts my eye in the woods.  I saw a plump, woolly beast walk out upon the edge of the opposite slope and stand in the shade.

“Copple, is that a sheep?” I whispered, pointing.  “Lion—­no, big lynx,” he replied.  I aimed and shot just a little too swiftly.  Judging by the puff of dust my bullet barely missed the big cat.  He leaped fully fifteen feet.  Copple fired, hitting right under his nose as he alighted.  That whirled him back.  He bounced like a rubber ball.  My second shot went over him, and Copple’s hit between his legs.  Then with another prodigious bound he disappeared in a thicket.  “By golly! we missed him,” declared Copple.  “But you must have shaved him that first time.  Biggest lynx I ever saw.”

We crossed the canyon and hunted for him, but without success.  Then we climbed an open grassy forest slope, up to a level ridge, and crossed that to see down into a beautiful valley, with stately isolated pines, and patches of aspens, and floor of luxuriant grass.  A ravine led down into this long park and the mouth of it held a thicket of small pines.  Just as we got half way out I saw bobbing black objects above the high grass.  I peered sharply.  These objects were turkey heads.  I got a shot before Copple saw them.  There was a bouncing, a whirring, a thumping—­and then turkeys appeared to be running every way.

Copple fired.  “Turkey number one!” he called out.  I missed a big gobbler on the run.  Copple shot again.  “Turkey number two!” he called out.  I could not see what he had done, but of course I knew he had done execution.  It roused my ire as well as a desperate ambition.  Turkeys were running up hill everywhere.  I aimed at this one, then at that.  Again I fired.  Another miss!  How that gobbler ran!  He might just as well have flown.  Every turkey contrived to get a tree or bush between him and me, just at the critical instant.  In despair I tried to hold on the last one, got a bead on it through my peep sight, moved it with him as we moved, and holding tight, I fired.  With a great flop and scattering of bronze feathers he went down.  I ran up the slope and secured him, a fine gobbler of about fifteen pounds weight.

Upon my return to Copple I found he had collected his two turkeys, both shot in the neck in the same place.  He said:  “If you hit them in the body you spoil them for cooking.  I used to hit all mine in the head.  Let me give you a hunch.  Always pick out a turkey running straight away from you or straight toward you.  Never crossways.  You can’t hit them running to the side.”