"Well, Rob," said the old trapper, "the wild turkey is one of the indigenous birds of America. He once flourished from the most remote eastern boundary of the United States to every part of the far West. Now, through the wantonness of man, he is rapidly disappearing, as is nearly all of our large game. There are still plenty here in Kansas. The wild turkey makes his haunts in the timber, and being gregarious birds they keep together in large flocks, and roost in the same place for years, if not disturbed. All of our domestic turkeys have come from the wild stock, but the wild ones are still larger than the tame ones in many instances. I have shot them in nearly every place in the country where I have hunted. They are stupid in refusing to leave their roosts at night when shot at. They persistently fly back again to the same trees, when they could just as easily fly away out of danger. In such times they are almost as foolish as the sage hen, which in my opinion is the most stupid bird that flies. You can shoot at them until you hit them, if it takes a week; they won't move." Just as the sun sank behind the hills beyond the Oxhide bluffs, Joe, Rob, and Mr. Tucker left Errolstrath for the turkey roost on Mud Creek. The old trapper rode Joe's buffalo pony, while Joe mounted the little roan which had brought his sister so safely from the Indian village; Rob rode Ginger, which Kate had kindly loaned him for the occasion. They followed the trail up the creek for about a mile, then turned abruptly east over the hills toward Fort Sill military road, then over the open country for another mile, until they arrived at the head of Mud Creek. The moon had risen in a cloudless sky, and it shines nowhere so brilliantly as in our mid-continent region. Every tree and bush cast a shadow, and the trail over the prairie was lighted up with a golden sheen, so soft and mellow that you could have seen a pin where the grass had been shorn away. When they arrived at the edge of the woods in the centre of which was the resting-place of the birds, they tied their ponies to saplings, and then quietly walked on into the timber. As soon as they had come in the vicinity of the roost, they squatted on the ground behind the friendly shelter of a large elm, and waited for the coming of events. They did not have long to wait. Before they had been there a half an hour, two large flocks came stealthily walking down the deep ravines leading into the sheltered bottom where great trees stood in thick clumps, under whose shadow were the unmistakable signs of an immense roost. At the head of each flock, as it unsuspiciously advanced, strutted a magnificent male bird in all the pride of his leadership. Upon his bronze plumage the moon's rays glinted like a calcium light, as its soft beams sifted through the interstices of the bare limbs of the winter-garbed forest.