resolved should go together; and as they were well worth having, he
announced that he would give them to the best shot in the valley. He
stipulated that the winner should escort him to the nearest settlement
eastward, after which he might return with the rifle on his shoulder.

Accordingly, a long level piece of ground on the river's bank, with
a perpendicular cliff at the end of it, was selected as the
shooting-ground, and, on the appointed day, at the appointed hour, the
competitors began to assemble.

"Well, lad, first as usual," exclaimed Joe Blunt, as he reached the
ground and found Dick Varley there before him.

"I've bin here more than an hour lookin' for a new kind o' flower that
Jack Morgan told me he'd seen. And I've found it too. Look here; did
you ever see one like it before?"

Blunt leaned his rifle against a tree, and carefully examined the
flower.

"Why, yes, I've seed a-many o' them up about the Rocky Mountains, but
never one here-away. It seems to have gone lost itself. The last
I seed, if I remimber rightly, wos near the head-waters o' the
Yellowstone River, it wos--jest where I shot a grizzly bar."

"Was that the bar that gave you the wipe on the cheek?" asked Varley,
forgetting the flower in his interest about the bear.

"It wos. I put six balls in that bar's carcass, and stuck my knife
into its heart ten times, afore it gave out; an' it nearly ripped the