lounged about the settlement when unoccupied, with his hands behind his back, apparently in a reverie, and when called on to act, he seemed to fancy he must have lost time, and could only make up for it by plunging. This habit got him into many awkward scrapes, but his herculean power got him out of them. He was a French-Canadian, a particularly bad speaker of the English language.
But to return. The sort of rifle practice called “driving the nail,” by which this match was to be decided, was, and we believe still is, common among the hunters of the far west. It consisted in this: an ordinary large-headed nail was driven a short way into a plank or a tree, and the hunters, standing at a distance of fifty yards or so, fired at it until they succeeded in driving it home. On the present occasion the major resolved to test their shooting by making the distance seventy yards.
Some of the older men shook their heads.
“It’s too far,” said one; “ye might as well try to snuff the nose o’ a mosquito.”
“Jim Scraggs is the only man as’ll hit it,” said another.
The man referred to was a long, lank, lantern-jawed fellow, with a cross-grained expression of countenance. He used the long, heavy Kentucky rifle, which, from the ball being little larger than a pea, was called a pea-rifle. Jim was no favourite, and had been named Scraggs by his companions on account of his appearance.
In a few minutes the lots were drawn, and the shooting began. Each hunter wiped out the barrel of his piece with his ramrod as he stepped forward; then, placing a ball in the palm of his left hand, he drew the stopper of his powder-horn with his teeth, and poured out as much powder as sufficed to cover the bullet. This was the regular measure among them. In a few minutes the nail was encircled by bullet holes, scarcely two of which were more than an inch distant from the mark, and one—fired by Joe Blunt—entered the tree close beside it.
“Ah, Joe!” said the major, “I thought you would have carried off the prize.”
“So did not I, sir,” returned Blunt, with a shake of his head. “Had it a-bin a half-dollar at a hundred yards, I’d ha’ done better, but I never could hit the nail. It’s too small to see.”
“That’s cos ye’ve got no eyes,” remarked Jim Scraggs, with a sneer, as he stepped forward.
