Buffaloes
they could not be.

"That they are not," said Lucien, after a deliberate look through his
fingers.

"What are they then?" inquired Francois.

"Listen!" replied Lucien; "do you hear that?"

All three had drawn bridle. A loud "_gobble_--_obble_--_obble_,"
proceeded from the animals, evidently uttered by some one of the three.

"As I live," exclaimed Francois, "that's the gobble of an old
turkey-cock!"

"Neither more nor less," replied Lucien, with a smile. "_They are
turkeys_!"

"Turkeys!" echoed Basil, "turkeys taken for buffaloes! What a grand
deception!"

And all three at first looked very blank at each other, and then
commenced laughing heartily at the mistake they had made.

"We must never tell of this," said Basil, "we should be laughed at, I
reckon."

"Not a bit of it," rejoined Lucien, "such mistakes are often made, even
by old travellers on the prairies. It is an atmospheric illusion very
common. I have heard of a worse case than ours--of a raven having been
taken for a buffalo!"

"When we meet the buffaloes then, I suppose we shall mistake them for
mammoths," remarked Francois; and the disappointed hunters now turned
their attention to the capturing of birds instead of buffaloes.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN.

A WILD-TURKEY HUNT.

"Come on!" cried Basil, putting the spur to his horse, and riding
forward. "Come on! It isn't so bad a case after all--a good fat turkey
for dinner, eh? Come on!"

"Stay, brother," said Lucien, "how are we to get near them? They are
out on the open ground--there is no cover."

"We don't want cover. We can `run' them as we were about to do had they
been buffaloes."

"Ha! ha! ha!" laughed Francois; "run a turkey! Why it will fly off at
once. What nonsense you talk, brother!"

"I tell you, no," replied Basil. "It is not nonsense--it can be done--I
have often heard so from the trappers,--now let us try it ourselves."

"Agreed, then," said Francois and Lucien at once; and all three rode
forward together.

When they had got near enough to distinguish the forms of the birds,
they saw they were two old "gobblers" and a hen. The gobblers were
strutting about with their tails spread like fans, and their wings
trailing along the grass. Every now and then they uttered their loud
"gobble--obble--obble," and by their attitude and actions it was
evidently an affair of rivalry likely to end in a battle. The female
stalked over the grass, in a quiet but c