's the first I knew a wild turkey would attack a fellow,"
declared Snap, as he nursed a scratch on his left cheek. "Phew,
but he gave me some regular prize-fighter blows!"

"Wild creatures of all kinds will fight if cornered," answered
his chum. "Be thankful that he didn't try to pick out your eyes."

"Yes, that is what I was looking out for," answered Shep.

Having secured the game, they moved onward once more, up a small
hill and then through the hollow beyond. But though they kept
on until noon nothing further worth shooting at presented itself.

Sitting down in the sun, the boys ate their lunch and took a drink
from a tiny brook flowing into the lake. Then they tramped onward
once more for another mile.

"Humph! This sort of hunting doesn't amount to anything," grumbled
Snap. "If we hadn't run across those turkeys we should have been
skunked."

"Let us go a little further," answered Shep. "Here are two trails.
Supposing I take the one over the hill and you the one nearest to
the lake. If we don't see anything we can come back here."

So it was agreed, and a minute later they separated. Shep took to
rather a rough path and more than once felt that he would have to
turn back and give up.

"But I am not going back till I hit something," he told himself,
and just then a distant shot reached his ears. "Snap must have
spotted something. I must do as well."

A hundred feet further on he came to an old and wide-spreading
tree. On the branches he discovered two squirrels of good size.
Without delay he blazed away, and when the smoke drifted away
saw that both of the creatures were stone dead. They had not
dropped to the ground, but were caught in two crotches of the tree,
at a spot well over his head.

"I'll have to climb up to get them," he murmured, and threw down his
gun and his game bag. A limb was handy and he swung himself up into
the tree and worked his way toward the trunk, where the squirrels lay.

The tree was old and partly split in half and the center of the
trunk was hollow. Just as he reached out to take hold of one of
the squirrels, his foot slipped and he began to slide down into the
hollow. He clutched at the smooth wood, but could not stay his
progress, and like a flash he disappeared from the sunlight into
almost utter darkness!

Unfortunately for the young hunter, the tree was hollow to its
very roots, and he went to the bottom, reaching it with a jolt
that made his teeth c