"What's the fun?" asked the boys, who were generally ready for any sport into which Seth would lead them. He answered them enigmatically. "'_Evil, be thou my good!_'--that's what Milton's bad angel said. '_Fowl, be thou my fare!_'--that's what I say." From which significant response, followed by an apt imitation of a turkey-gobbler, the boys understood that he had some device for obtaining poultry for dinner. It was a holiday, and I have said, and they had already got permission to go beyond the lines. There were some twenty of them in all, Frank included. Tucket led them to a thicket about two miles from camp, where they halted. "You see that house yonder? That's where old Buckley lives--the meanest man in Maryland." "I know him," said Frank. "He's a rebel; he threatened to set his dog on us one day. He hates the Union uniform worse than he does the Old Scratch." "He has got lots of turkeys," said Ellis, "which he told the sergeant he'd see die in the pen before he'd sell one to a Yankee." "I know where the pen is," said John Winch; "he keeps 'em shut up, so our boys shan't steal 'em, and he and his dog and his nigger watch the pen." "Well, boys," said Seth, "now the thing is to get the turkeys. As rebel property, it's our duty to confiscate 'em, and use 'em for the support of the Union cause. Now I've an idee. I'll go over in the woods there, and wait, while one of you goes to the house and asks him if he has got any turkeys to sell. He'll say no, of course. Then ask him if you may have the one out in the woods there. He'll say there ain't none in the woods; but you must insist there is one, and say if 'tain't his you'll take it, and settle with the owner when he calls. That'll start him, and I'll see that he goes into the woods fur enough, so that the rest of you can rush up, grab every man his turkey, and skedaddle. Winch 'll show you the way; he says he knows the pen. 'Charge, Ellis, charge! On, Harris, on! Shall be the words of private John.' But who'll go first to the house?" asked Seth, coming down from the high key in which he usually got off his poetry. "Let Frank," said Harris; "for he knows the man." "He? He dasn't go!" sneered Jack. "He's afraid of the dog." This base imputation decided Frank to undertake the errand, which, after all, notwithstanding the danger attending it, was less repugnant to his feelings than more direct participation in the robbery.