We were soon strung along the narrow dam across which the game was to be forced by the drivers, who had to make their way through an ugly bog among cypress "knees" and dense brier-patches. Jack Parker stood next to me, fidgeting about uneasily, because it was against rules to talk on stand. Jack's prominent feature was his nose, and he had an incorrigible trick of blowing it "out loud" whenever there was a particular reason for keeping perfectly quiet. The dogs had begun to open, and their loose, scattering trail-notes indicated turkeys. Looking directly before me, I saw seven noble gobblers stepping cautiously toward my stand. Their glossy breasts glittered with coppery lustre in the straggling sunbeams as, with drooping wings and expanded tails, they advanced, looking fearfully about and uttering their low alarm-notes, "Quit! quit! quit!" Three more steps will make a certain shot, and--out rang Jack's nasal clarion, loud and clear as the _morte_ at a fox-chase. I looked round in horror, and there stood my hunter complacently eying me and flourishing his white silk handkerchief, while his gun leaned against a tree ten paces distant: "Expect I'd better go back to my stand, eh? Are those dogs barking at a deer?" I jumped to my feet for a snap-shot at the old gobbler which flew over me, making a clear miss. Bang! bang! went two more guns; a woodcock whistled up from the bog and two swamp-rabbits dashed into the brier. The dogs came out, shaking the water from their coats, and the spattered drivers rode through the creek. There was not a feather to show, and of course everybody was "down" on Jack, but with an air of deep injury he put it off on me with the question, "Why didn't you tell me the turkeys were coming? How can a fellow help having a cold?"