United States cavalry picketed within a few miles of us, and my father lost no time in notifying the officer in command of what had occurred. The soldiers, however, could find nothing of the enemy, and in the mean time we passed a couple of days in very anxious suspense. The movements of Indian warriors are erratic, and to white men unaccountable.

My parents began to regain confidence, believing that the Seminoles were gone from the neighborhood, as they doubtless were for the time. Father said they were probably scouts, and there was no telling how they might have scattered themselves, or at what point some of them might appear next. He hoped, however, that the presence of the soldiers had led them to abandon any design they might have entertained of attacking us.

On the third day after Jason's adventure we were feeling much relieved. The negro men were at work in the fields, and father had gone to a considerable distance from the house. Mother, Arthur, and myself, with the female servants, were within-doors.

Presently, not far off, we heard the gobble of a wild turkey, or what seemed such, although, as turkeys were not in the habit of approaching so near the house, we imagined Jason to be at his old silly pastime again, imitating the call which he could so well counterfeit.

The notes were continued with great regularity at intervals of a minute or two, and so natural were they that Arthur would have been all on fire to seize his rifle and hurry in quest of the game had he not remembered how often he had been led upon a fruitless chase by the vocal powers of the poor idiot.

"We all excel in something," said my mother, "and Jason was made to call turkeys. But I do wish he would be quiet; it makes me nervous to hear him."

"Jason," said a little negro girl who just then came in from the rear of the premises; "why, missus, Jason done gone asleep in de shade at de back ob de wash-house. I done seen him dis minute."

Arthur hastened out-doors, looked behind the wash-house, and having assured himself that the black boy had nothing to do with the gobbling, returned quickly for his rifle.

"It is a real turkey," he said, "and he's somewhere in the hollow."

The hollow was made by a depression of the ground about fifty rods from the house front, and running parallel with it. Upon its further side was a decayed stump, some four or five feet high, standing below the sloping bank, and with its top just visible from the house. Of this stump the portion next to the slope had so fallen away as to leave a large cavity capable of containing a man.

The gobble indicated the turkey's whereabouts pretty definitely.

"He's somewhere near that stump," said Arthur; "perhaps inside of it, sitting up on the rotten wood toward the top. I'm afraid he'll get high enough to see me. But I'll make a circuit, and creep around where the ground is lower."

He went out at the back door, so as to make sure of not being seen. The land on our right, a few rods from the house, was very low, the depression stretching off in crescent shape until it reached the gully, which crossed it at fair rifle-shot distance from the stump.

Arthur, young as he was, had already become an excellent marksman, having for two years possessed a rifle of his own, which father had bought him, and which was almost always in his hands. We had no doubt that, with anything like an ordinary chance, he would put a ball through the turkey's head, and return in triumph.

But somehow, after he went out, a sudden thought seemed to strike mother. Wasn't it strange that a turkey should come so far out of the woods, and keep up such a gobbling in the hollow? No, not strange, perhaps, nor very unusual; and she wondered at her own uneasiness. But her nerves had been shaken by poor Jason's incident.

The house had a half-story in front, with two small windows above the ground rooms, and mother's feelings impelled her to run up there for a better view. She wished to see where father was, and perhaps might discover something of the wild turkey.

I was close at her side. We saw father with his rifle away off across the fields, and the negroes at a distance from him engaged in their work. The stump, too, was visible nearly to its foot, and at intervals we caught sight of Arthur carefully working his way in a half-circuit toward the gully.

Father had evidently heard the turkey, and was warily approaching the spot where it seemed to be. His half-stooping posture showed that he feared the bird might get upon the stump and see him.

Suddenly mother started, and her face had a look of ghastly terror. Something which certainly was no turkey rose a little above the stump, between its shattered rim and the grass of the bank. I saw it too, and my blood ran cold.

It was something that greatly resembled the head of an Indian. We felt that the face must be peering through the grass toward my father, while we saw the black, gleaming hair behind.

Without doubt it was a Seminole warrior in ambush, watching father's approach.

Mother gave an agonized cry. "What shall I do?—oh! what shall I do?" she exclaimed.

Would not any signal or outcry she could make be misunderstood at such a distance, and only hasten the catastrophe, since father was still thirty rods beyond the Indian, and eighty from the house? Then where was Arthur, who had now disappeared? And should she by a sudden alarm cause him to show himself, might not the Seminole rise up and shoot him on the spot? She was dizzy with her sense of the dreadful situation.

But in a moment I called out to her, "There's Arthur, mother! there's Arthur!" for I saw him among the rank grass, lying flat upon the ground, within good rifle-shot of the stump, which he seemed to be watching intently.

Once again the Indian's head was shown slightly, and we got an instant's glimpse of Arthur's rifle. But the black hair disappeared, and the weapon was lowered.

Father was now so near the scene of danger that we had no alternative but to watch. Terrible as was her anxiety, mother now felt that Arthur had discovered what kind of game the old stump contained. She knew that the Indian could not fire at father without exposing his own head, and that the moment it appeared it would be covered by her brave boy's rifle.

How our hearts beat for the few moments that intervened! Another gobble came from the stump. Father was working his way stealthily toward it in anticipation of a prize, and Arthur lay still as death in the grass.

All at once we saw the sunlight glance upon a mass of long raven hair that rose slowly above the gnarled wood which had hidden it. Father was within six rods of the spot. It was a dreadful moment.

Our eyes turned to Arthur. The grass in front of the slight knoll where he lay was not high enough to interfere with his aim as his elbow rested on the ground. We could see him drop his young face against the breech of his gun. The barrel gleamed for a single instant, a puff of smoke streamed from the muzzle, and he leaped to his feet.

But there was a still more sudden leap from the old stump, for an Indian, with flying hair, and with his rifle still clutched in his hand, sprang up and fell dead against the slope which had concealed him from father's view.

The reunion which followed, when we all ran into each other's arms, joyful, yet thrilled with consternation, I will not dwell upon.

We found the dead enemy to be a tall young warrior, hideously painted, and having in his belt a hatchet and a knife.

He had no doubt entered the gully from the swamp, and seeing father at a distance, had attempted to decoy him within gunshot by imitating a wild turkey.

The occasion proved to be the only one on which the Seminole war was brought home to us, as the successes of the United States troops afterward kept the Indians at a distance from our neighborhood.