of the contests.

This aisle had been cut through a forest of gray beech and brown oaks.
At the points where the targets were to be set the clearing widened so
that the sunlight, filtering through the leaves and flickering upon the
slender carpet of green, could fall full and clear.

Each Saturday the mountaineers were there--and William York and Alvin
were among the "regulars." Often there were fifty or more men, and they
came bringing their long rifles, horns of powder, pouches made of skin
in which were lead and bullet molds, cups of caps, cotton gun-wadding,
carrying turkeys, driving beeves and sheep, which were to be the prizes.
And when the prizes gave out, some of the men remained and shot for
money--"pony purses," they were called.

The turkey-shoots were over two ranges--some forty yards and one a
hundred and fifty yards. At the latter range the turkey was tied to a
stake driven in the center of the opening at the further end of the
glade. A cord, about two feet in length, was fastened to the stake and
to one leg of the gobbling, moving target. It was ten cents a shot,
tossed to the man who offered the prize.

Often the bird fell at the first trial, and a hit was any strike above
the turkey's knee. But the long-distance turkey-shoots were the opening
events, and the marksman had his gun to warm up, his eye to test and his
shooting nerve to be brought to calmness. So frequently it would happen
that the entrance money ran into a sum that gave a prize value to the
turkey, as prices ran for turkeys in those days. There was the element
of chance for the man offering the prize that was always alluring.

The second turkey-shoot was held at the forty-yard range. But the bird
was now tethered behind a log, so that only his head and red wattles
could appear. Here, too, the turkey was given freedom of motion and
granted self-determination as to how he should turn his head in wonder
at the assemblage of men before him; or, if he should elect, he could
disappear entirely behind the log if he found something that interested
him upon the ground nearby, and the marksman must wait for the untimed
appearance of the bobbing head. It took prompt action and a quick bead
to score a hit.

And it was years afterward, after Alvin York had become the most expert
rifle-shot that those mountains had ever held, that he sat in the brush
on the slope of a hill in the Forest of Argonne and watched for German
helmets and German heads to