difficult game to stalk. Dale shot two of them. The others
began to run like ostriches, thudding over the ground,
spreading their wings, and with that running start launched
their heavy bodies into whirring flight. They flew low, at
about the height of a man from the grass, and vanished in
the woods.

Dale threw the two turkeys over his shoulder and went on his
way. Soon he came to a break in the forest level, from which
he gazed down a league-long slope of pine and cedar, out
upon the bare, glistening desert, stretching away, endlessly
rolling out to the dim, dark horizon line.

The little hamlet of Pine lay on the last level of sparsely
timbered forest. A road, running parallel with a
dark-watered, swift-flowing stream, divided the cluster of
log cabins from which columns of blue smoke drifted lazily
aloft. Fields of corn and fields of oats, yellow in the
sunlight, surrounded the village; and green pastures, dotted
with horses and cattle, reached away to the denser woodland.
This site appeared to be a natural clearing, for there was
no evidence of cut timber. The scene was rather too wild to
be pastoral, but it was serene, tranquil, giving the
impression of a remote community, prosperous and happy,
drifting along the peaceful tenor of sequestered lives.

Dale halted before a neat little log cabin and a little
patch of garden bordered with sunflowers. His call was
answered by an old woman, gray and bent, but remarkably
spry, who appeared at the door.