Page:The Geranium.pdf/157

73 of him. Finally he sat up. He was facing the tree he had run into. He rubbed his hands over his face and arms and the long scratches began to sting. He would have taken it in slung over his shoulder end they would have jumped up and yelled, "Good Lord look at Ruller! Ruller! Where did you get that wild turkey!" and his father would have said, "Man! That's a bird if I ever saw one!" He kicked a stone away from his foot. He'd never see the turkey now. He wondered why he had seen it in the first place if he wasn't going to be able to get it.

It was like somebody had played a dirty trick on him.

All that running for nothing. He set there looking sullenly at his white ankles sticking out of his trouser legs and into his shoes. "Nuts," he muttered. He turned over on his stomach and let his cheek rest right on the ground dirty or not. He had torn his shirt and scratched his arms and got a knot on his forehead--he could feel it rising just a little, it was going to be a big one all right--all for nothing. The ground was cool to his face, but the grit bruised it and he had to turn over. Oh hell, he thought.

"Oh hell," he said cautiously.

Then in a minute he said just, "hell."

Then he said it like Hane said it, pulling the