You fellows want to look about you a little.
Most of you don't see beyond the end of your noses. You watch out,
or Hiram Strong is going to beat every last one of you this year--and
that's a run-down farm he's got, at that."

CHAPTER XXVI. SISTER'S TURKEYS

But Lettie was not at the barbecue, and to tell the truth, Hiram Strong
was disappointed.

Despite the fact that she had seemed inclined to snub him, the young
farmer was vastly taken with the pretty girl. He had seen nobody about
Scoville as attractive as Lettie--nor anywhere else, for that matter!

He was too proud to call at the Bronson place, although Mr. Bronson
invited him whenever he saw Hiram. And at first, Lettie had asked him to
come, too.

But the Western girl did not like being thwarted in any matter--even the
smallest. And when Hiram would not come to take Pete Dickerson's place,
the very much indulged girl had showed the young farmer that she was
offended.

However, the afternoon at Langdon's Grove passed very pleasantly, and
Hiram and his party did not arrive at the farm again until dusk had
fallen.

"I'll go down and shut your turkeys up for the night, Sister," Hiram
said, after he had done the other chores for he knew the girl would be
afraid to go so far from the house by lantern-light.

And when he reached the turkey coop, 'way down in the field, Hiram was
very glad indeed that he had come instead of the girl.

For the coop was empty. There wasn't a turkey inside, or thereabout. It
had been dark an hour and more, then, and the poults should long since
have been hovered in the coop.

Had some marauding fox, or other "varmint", run the young turkeys off
their reservation? That seemed improbable at this time of year--and so
early in the evening. Foxes do not usually go hunting before midnight,
nor do other predatory animals.

Hiram had brought the barn lantern with him, and he took a look around
the neighborhood of the empty coop.

"My goodness!" he mused, "Sister will cry her eyes out if anything's
happened to those little turks. Now, what's this?"

The ground was cut up at a little distance from the coop. He examined
the tracks closely.

They were fresh--very fresh indeed. The wheel tracks of a light wagon
showed, and the prints of a horse's shod hoofs.

The wagon had been driven down from the main road, and had turned
sharply here by the coop. Hiram knew, too, that it had stood there for
some time, for the horse had moved u