It was late when we started, and continued our journey in a northern direction. The prairies here grew narrower; the woods closer connected, and the country more uneven. Although we kept as far as we could from the mountains on our left, we crossed small streams, which either came down from the mountains and went to form the larger streams, with which they flowed through the hills to the Rio Grande, or which had their sources in the eastern plateaus, and pursued the same course. The country was picturesque; the small prairies, beset by clusters of bushes and clumps of trees of the most varying shapes, were covered with juicy fresh grass and a quite new flora; here and there huge blocks rose out of it, in whose crevices grew large yuccas and mimosas of different sorts, cactuses and aloes, which represented the southern world of plants; on the left the hills rose over each other in terraces, and indicated the course of the large river. We had ridden the whole morning and not fired a shot at game, although we had seen a good deal. Our fresh meat was quite finished, and I was just saying to Tiger that it would soon be time to shoot something as the dinner hour was at hand, when I saw turkeys running in a small scrubby patch ahead of us, and made Trusty a sign to follow them. In an instant he put them up, but as a dense forest rose just before us, they all but one entered its impenetrable foliage. The latter, an old cock, rose straight in the air, and settled on the top of a very tall cypress which grew on the skirt of the forest, and whose roots were washed by a small spring. It waved backwards and forwards on the thin branch, as if challenging the hunter who would dare to fire at it, while Trusty leapt up at it and barked loudly. Tiger looked at me laughingly, pointed upwards, and asked, "What do you think?" I gave him a nod to try his luck. He sprang from the piebald, took a long aim, fired, and the cock did not stir, but continued to oscillate and look down at Trusty. I felt an itch to try my skill. I sprang from my horse, raised my rifle, and with the detonation the haughty bird opened its wings for the last time, fell like a ball and smote the ground heavily. Tiger laughed, and said that he would have brought it down too, if it had not swung so on the bough. It is a curious fact that the Indians armed with rifles, and even the Americans, never think of firing when the object is moving at all quickly, although they have so many opportunities of practising it. The chief motive may lie in the very long and heavy guns they carry, which cannot be moved so rapidly and lightly as our rifles.