me, who, it seems, had been sleeping with
one ear awake for several nights in apprehension for the safety of his
turkeys, heard the sound also, and instantly divined its cause. I heard
the window open and a voice summon the dogs. A loud bellow was the
response, which caused Reynard to take himself off in a hurry. A moment
more, and the mother turkey would have shared the fate of the geese.
There she lay at the end of her tether, with extended wings, bitten and
rumpled. The young ones roosted in a row on the fence near by, and had
taken flight on the first alarm.

Turkeys, retaining many of their wild instincts, are less easily
captured by the fox than any other of our domestic fowls. On the
slightest show of danger they take to wing, and it is not unusual, in
the locality of which I speak, to find them in the morning perched in
the most unwonted places, as on the peak of the barn or hay-shed, or on
the tops of the apple-trees, their tails spread and their manners
showing much excitement. Perchance one turkey is minus her tail, the fox
having succeeded in getting only a mouthful of quills.

As the brood grows and their wings develop, they wander far from the
house in quest of grasshoppers. At such times they are all watchfulness
and suspicion. Crossing the fields one day, attended by a dog that much
resembled a fox, I came suddenly upon a brood about one third grown,
which were feeding in a pasture just beyond a wood. It so happened that
they caught sight of the dog without seeing me, when instantly, with the
celerity of wild game, they launched into the air, and, while the old
one perched upon a treetop, as if to keep an eye on the supposed enemy,
the young went sailing over the trees toward home.

The two hounds before referred to, accompanied by a cur-dog, whose
business it was to mind the farm, but who took as much delight in
running away from prosy duty as if he had been a schoolboy, would
frequently steal off and have a good hunt all by themselves, just for
the fun of the thing, I suppose. I more than half suspect that it was as
a kind of taunt or retaliation that Reynard came and took the geese
from under their very noses. One morning they went off and stayed till
the afternoon of the next day; they ran the fox all day and all night,
the hounds baying at every jump, the cur-dog silent and tenacious. When
the trio returned they came dragging themselves along, stiff, foot-sore,
gaunt, and hungry. For a day or two