“We ought to get at least two of them,” whispered Snap.  “All ready?”

“Yes.”

“Then fire when I tell you.”

They came a little closer, and both boys took careful aim.  At the word the two shotguns rang out, and to the delight of the two young hunters down came three of the wild turkeys.  The rest flew away among the trees and were lost to sight immediately.

“That’s a haul!” cried Shep, and ran forward.

“Look out!” screamed Snap, an instant later.  “One of ’em is coming for you!”

His warning proved true, and before Snap could retreat the wounded wild turkey had flown directly into his face and was cracking the boy with its strong wings.

“Get away!  Oh, dear!” sang out poor Shep, and tried to beat the wounded creature off, but the wild turkey was full of fight and renewed the attack with vigor.

“I’ll fix him!  Down with your hands!” ejaculated Snap, and, rushing in, he hit the turkey with the stock of his gun.  The creature fell to the ground and before it could arise Snap had his foot on it; and then the little battle came to an end, and soon all three of the wild turkeys were dead.

“Well, that’s the first I knew a wild turkey would attack a fellow,” declared Snap, as he nursed a scratch on his left cheek.  “Phew, but he gave me some regular prize-fighter blows!”

“Wild creatures of all kinds will fight if cornered,” answered his chum.  “Be thankful that he didn’t try to pick out your eyes.”

“Yes, that is what I was looking out for,” answered Shep.

Having secured the game, they moved onward once more, up a small hill and then through the hollow beyond.  But though they kept on until noon nothing further worth shooting at presented itself.

Sitting down in the sun, the boys ate their lunch and took a drink from a tiny brook flowing into the lake.  Then they tramped onward once more for another mile.

“Humph!  This sort of hunting doesn’t amount to anything,” grumbled Snap.  “If we hadn’t run across those turkeys we should have been skunked.”

“Let us go a little further,” answered Shep.  “Here are two trails.  Supposing I take the one over the hill and you the one nearest to the lake.  If we don’t see anything we can come back here.”

So it was agreed, and a minute later they separated.  Shep took to rather a rough path and more than once felt that he would have to turn back and give up.

“But I am not going back till I hit something,” he told himself, and just then a distant shot reached his ears.  “Snap must have spotted something.  I must do as well.”

A hundred feet further on he came to an old and wide-spreading tree.  On the branches he discovered two squirrels of good size.  Without delay he blazed away, and when the smoke drifted away saw that both of the creatures were stone dead.  They had not dropped to the ground, but were caught in two crotches of the tree, at a spot well over his head.