ar, and
along the track beyond an occasional train tore down the road, which so
far excited their mutual sympathy that they rose and shouted as one man.

At the open door of the freight-car stood the unsuspecting turkey, and
looked meditatively out on the landscape and at the two figures on the
wash-tub.

One had bow-legs, a turn-up nose, and a huge straw hat. The other wore a
fur cap and a gentleman's swallow-tail coat, with the tails caught up
because they were too long.

The turkey hopped out of the car and gazed confidingly at his
protectors. In point of size he was altogether their superior.

"I think," said Jericho Bob, "we'd better ketch 'im; to-morrow's
Thanksgiving. Yum!"

And he looked with great joy at the innocent, the unsuspecting fowl.

"Butcher Tham 'th goin' ter kill 'im for uth," Julius Caesar hastened to
say, "an' I kin cook 'im."

"No, you ain't. I'm goin' to cook 'im," Jericho Bob cried, resentfully.
"He's mine."

"He ain'th; he'th mine."

"He was my egg," and Jericho Bob danced defiance at his friend.

The turkey looked on with some surprise, and he became alarmed when he
saw his foster-fathers clasped in an embrace more of anger than of love.

"I'll eat 'im all alone!" Jericho Bob cried.

"No, yer sha'n't!" the other shouted.

The turkey fled in a circle about the yard.

"Now, look yere," said Julius Caesar, who had conquered. "We're goin' to
be squar'. He wath your egg, but who brought 'im up? Me! Who'th got a
friend to kill 'im? Me! Who'th got a fire to cook 'im? Me! Now you git
up and we'll kitch 'im. Ef you thay another word about your egg I'll
jeth eat 'im up all mythelf."

Jericho Bob was conquered. With mutual understanding they approached the
turkey.

"Come yere; come yere," Julius Caesar said, coaxingly.

For a moment the bird gazed at both, uncertain what to do.

"Come yere," Julius Caesar repeated, and made a dive for him. The turkey
spread his tail. Oh, didn't he run!

"Now I've got yer!" the wicked Jericho Bob cried, and thought he had
captured the fowl; when with a shriek from Jericho Bob, as the turkey
knocked him over, the Thanksgiving dinner spread his wings, rose in the
air, and alighted on the roof of the freight-car.

The turkey looked down over the edge of the car at his enemies, and they
gazed up at him. Both parties surveyed the situation.

"We've got him," Julius Caesar cried at last, exultantly. "You git on the
roof, and ef you don't kitch 'im up