The St. Johns herald., 1901-04-06


 tween us. It was little over that, be- cause that represented the exac' amount of our investment. It come about this way: We was q settin' in the bridal chamber of the best hotel in the place eatin' our dinner, which was roast turkey. 1 disreIaember the name of the hotel, an don't see that it cuts any grass with you men. any way. l said we was eatin' roast tur- key an there ain't nobody can tempt me to eat roast turkey no1Y. I want to tell you. l killed a man with a neck yoke ln Pierre last year for just offer in me some. Bat then it was whole lot different an that turk tasted rood. $ We didn't leave nothin' of 1t but the bones, an when we had got to that pint Joe stretched back an. le++;n' out all the slack there was in his belt, which wasn't too much, he says: Why can't we get turkey like that on the Pacific coast ?
 That gi'. me the idee When a man has idees it don't take stick of giant to blast them cut in chunks that kin be handled. I run my fork keerlessly through my ha'r, which wuz longer than what it is now, an says: Why not buy turkeys here, drive them out to the coast an recooperate our shat tered fnancesT
 "Joe fell in with my scheme an that evenin' we went out to the market an investigated. We was in luck, fer the market was glutted with turkeys an they was goin' bsggin' at 75 cents a head. I fggered that they would sell on the coast for dollar a pound easy an that they would average II pounds in weight, takin' them all through. So we jest put that whole S1O,6 ,6C0 in the birds an started out.
 "They was easy enough to drive; there ain't more tractable or docile bird on two legs than the turkar is If it had baen hens, now. l wouldn't never have undertook it, but turkeys is all right. jest put a bell on the biggest one in the outfit an started him right, an the rest went goblin along after him. It wuz as pretty sight to see them turkeys on the road as ever you seen in your fife. Twelve thousand five hundred Of them. an not a straggler in the bunckI
 "FedJa? We'll, what do you think? Wasn't there bugs on the read? reckon there was. It wGs grasshop- per year, I want to tel! you. and the way those turkeys fatted up was a =.r 4a g-f Why, there wasn't one Of them tu ks that wouldn't have tipped the scale at 25 in week, an the bal turk an the one that I strapped the blankets an the cookin' outfit onto-I w@u'dn want to tell you what they did weigh.
 No trouble about night herdin' As soon as it was surdown they would commenst loolIin around for place to roost, an then they would fly Up into the trees, an VIC cold rest easy until the next nornin'. We tcolS the old overland trail along the p.atte out to Fort Laramie. an not hitch in the arrangements. We ccu,d zee how ;he folks in California vas Ioin' to flock round Us with their dust when We got there. We could see curse Yes in >ar- riages, with plug hats an' Y k tail coats an bloodcd Etcck. Ij;h! Do ! you know what that wcul lave brought us? F's easy. }'ntt;a' t Gt the moderate est'E1Gte of C co3-r q pound, an ai'ov,;n' the average cf g pounds to tbe bird there we were with a clean profit of $24 T5 on every one of them. or ali0win' fo- ross ble losses by death CT n1isadv9nture, say $200, eco on tEe outfit. It was a gol durned shame that we had to slip up on the'deai."
 The old man began to smoke his pipe in stolid silence, and the stock tender winked at the stage agent. The silence continued for half an hour, and was then broken by the stock tender remarking that 1t was about time for him to feed them horses.
 "Yes," resumed the old man, placid ly. "We slipped up on it, an it was this way: You see, we had had lots of cottonwood trees all along the Platte. but when we started to cross the IlLttIuS 10 IIEE4 NS AC (-CSO that the turkeys got bothered at roosting time. They kep' twistin' their necl<s around loakin' fer some place to roost all night long an the next day some Of them had necls like a pretzel. When t'ey tried to feed an took g shot at a bug or grasshop- per they would miss him from six inches to a foot on one side or the other Joe allowed that they would learn to calculate the variation after awhile, but they got poorer an poor CT, so all there was to it we had to take them back to the Platte to get the crick strengthened out wh ch they did in a few days. But when Wc took them to the plains ago n we had the same old trouble an, to make long story short. v7e kep' dTivin' them back . an forth an back an 10 th until there wasn't any more to drive" !
 "What got away with them?" asked the stage agent.
 ''We ct 'em, you derned fool" re- piled the old man.-Chicago Daily