John Winch heard it, just as the dog met the charging party. Who was killed? Frank or Seth? John did not know, but he was frightened. He had come for fun and poultry, not for fighting and bullets. Neither was he particularly ambitions to be bitten by that monstrous dog. He lost faith in his club, and dropped it. He lost confidence in the prowess of his companions, and deserted them. In short, Jack Winch, who had been one of the most eager to engage in the adventure, took ignominiously to his heels. He reached the thicket before venturing to look behind him. Then he saw that his comrades had frightened away the negro, beaten back the dog, and taken the turkey-pen by storm. He would now have been but too glad to join them; but it was too late. Having accomplished their undertaking, they were returning, each bringing, pendent by the legs, a flopping fowl. It is better to be a brave man than a coward, even in a bad cause. Fortune often favors brave men in the wrong in preference to aiding cowards in the right, for Fortune loves not a poltroon. John Winch felt at that moment that nobody henceforth would love or favor him, and he began to frame excuses for his shameful conduct. "Hello, Jack Winch," cried Ellis, coming up with a turkey in one hand and a chicken in the other, "you're a smart leader--to run away from a yelping dog like that!" "Coward! coward!" chimed in the others, with angry contempt. "I sprained my ankle. Didn't you know it?" said the miserable Jack, with a writhing countenance, limping. "Sprained your granny!" exclaimed Harris. "I never saw a sprained ankle go over the ground as fast as yours did, just as we came to the dog." "Then I heard the gun," said Jack, "and I was afraid either Seth or Frank was shot." "Woe to the man of turkeys if they are!" said Joe, twisting the neck of his fowl to quiet it. "We'll serve him as I am serving this hen." The boys hastened to a rendezvous they had appointed with the absent ones, followed by Jack at a very creditable pace, considering his excruciating lameness. As yet, neither Frank nor Seth had been shot. The charge of buck shot fired from the rebel fowling-piece had entered the bushes just as the blue uniform left them. But the secessionist cocked the other barrel of his piece immediately, with the intention of making up for the error of his first aim. "Shoot me," shouted Seth, "and you'll be swinging from that limb in five minutes!" The man hesitated, glancing quickly about for those who were expected to put Seth's threat into execution. "I've twenty fellows with me," added Seth, "and they'll string you up in no time, by darn!" The secessionist was not so much impressed by the rather slender oath with which Seth clinched his speech, as by the sharp and earnest tone in which the whole was uttered,--Seth walking savagely up to him as he spoke. All the while, the alarm raised by the negro, and the dog, and the women, was sounding in the man's ears.