“That’s what we done at the turkey shoot last year,” remarked Bill in an undertone, as we watched the perforated box being loaded on to Flaherty’s spring wagon. Varney tactfully refrained from assisting in the loading. “I hate to part with that bird,” he declared, “but business is business an’ there ’e goes!” Sophy continued to look upon him with a steely and viperous glare, but he did not appear to notice her. They each knew that the other thoroughly understood the situation, and there were no ethics that were debatable. Sophy knew that Flaherty was a man of straw, and that she had been skilfully robbed of the fruits of her chicanery. Varney regarded her discomfiture with the generous benevolence of a victor. Sophy believed that all moral logic, and every other kind of logic, entitled her to Hyder Ali. She considered that in addition to the loss of the bird, she had been swindled out of the seven dollars she had paid for her worthless chances. She justified her own dishonesty to herself by the conviction that she had worked hard enough for the club to have the turkey anyway, and as long as some ticket had to be left until the last, it might just as well be her’s as anybody’s. It was all a matter of chance anyway, and, as it turned out it would have been much better for everybody if Hyder Ali could have been kept in the neighborhood with her instead of being taken away. She considered that she had suffered a great injustice, and that a defenseless woman should be thus robbed and maltreated was to her the acme of outrage. Varney had his own rig with him and left for the county seat soon after Flaherty and his spring wagon had departed in an opposite direction. The precious pair was gone—with Hyder Ali, and two hundred and eighty dollars of tangible profits. A melodious gobble was faintly heard far away on the road while Flaherty was still in sight. It might have been a wail of sorrow and farewell. “I s’pose,” remarked Bill, “that Hyder Ali’s yellin’ fer help. He’s prob’ly ’fraid them two jay birds’ll send ’im back to them Brummins an’ that Bungspout Swammy fish net man in India, where ’e’ll git ’is crop chilled with them frozen frogs, but ’e needn’t worry. I didn’t buy no chances fer I didn’t think there’d be any show for a white man with Josh an’ Sophy up on them boxes, an’ they wasn’t. I thought they was goin’ to be sump’n doin’ when I seen Sophy eyein’ Josh. She looked like she wanted to squirt some lye at ’im. Sophy’s got a bad eye. She c’n sour a pan o’ milk that’s twenty feet off by jest lookin’ at it in a cert’n way. “Them kewpies ’ave finished the cookin’ this time an’ we’re done good an’ brown. I don’t think they’ll be ’round any more ’less Josh comes to sell us a striped elephant next year, an’ if ’e does I ’spose we’ll buy it. I don’t think we wanted that misquito fatted bird anyway. He didn’t look to me like ’e was healthy.” Sophy was ill for a couple of weeks and visited the store but rarely during the rest of the summer.