“Slip along softer nor a cat, Paul,” said Jim.  “We don’t want to give old Mr. Gobbler any warnin’ that his time hez come.  Thar, hear him?  The tarnal fool!  He’s jest bound to show us where he is.”

The mellow call arose again, very clear and distinct in the silent air, and as they approached the edge of the hickory grove, Jim pointed upward.

“See him thar on the limb,” he said, “the big feller with the feathers all shinin’ an’ glistenin’?  That’s the gobbler, an’ the littler ones with the gray feathers are the hens.  I’m goin’ to take the gobbler.  He may be old, but he’s so fat he’s bound to be tender; an’ s’pose, Paul, you take that hen next to him.  When I say ‘Now,’ fire.”

The two raised their guns, took careful aim, and Jim said “Now.”  They fired together, aiming at the necks or heads.  The big gobbler fell like a stone from the bough and lay still.  The hen fell, too, but she fluttered about on the ground.  The rest flew away on whirring wings.  Paul ran forward and finished his bird with a stick, but Jim lifted the great gobbler and looked at him with admiring eyes.

“Did you ever see a finer turkey?” he said.  “He must weigh all uv forty pounds, an’ he’s as fat as he can be with the good food uv the wilderness.  An’ he’s a beauty, too!  Jest look at them glossy blue-black feathers.  No wonder so many hens wuz in love with him.  I could be pop’lar with the women folks, too, ef I wuz ez handsome ez Mr. Gobbler here.”

They picked and cleaned the turkeys, and then hung the dressed bodies from the boughs of a tree near the hut, where they would be frozen, and thus keep.

The hunters returned that afternoon with two deer, and were delighted with Jim and Paul’s zeal and success.

“Ef things go on this swimmin’ way,” said Shif’less Sol, “we’d be able to feed an army this winter, ef it wuz needed.”

It was very cold that evening, and they built the fire higher than usual.  Great mellow rays of heat fell over all the five, and lighted up the whole interior of the cabin with its rich store of skins and nuts and dressed meats, and other spoil of the wilderness.  The five, though no one of them ever for a moment forgot their great mission of saving Kentucky, had a feeling of content.  Affairs were going well.

“Paul,” said Shif’less Sol, “you’ve read books.  Tell us about some o’ them old fellers that lived a long time ago.  I like to hear about the big ones.”

“Well,” said Paul, “there was Alexander.  Did you ever hear of him, Sol?”

Shif’less Sol shook his head and sighed.

“I can’t truly call myself an eddicated man,” he replied, “though I have the instincks o’ one.  But I ain’t had the proper chance.  No, Paul, me an’ Alexander is strangers.”

“Then I’ll make you acquainted,” said Paul.  He settled himself more comfortably before the fire, and the others did likewise.

“Alexander lived a long, long time ago,” said Paul.  “He was a Greek—­that is, he was a Macedonian with Greek blood in him—­I suppose it comes to the same thing—­and he led the Greeks and Macedonians over into Asia, and whipped the Persians every time, though the Persians were always twenty to one.”