seemed to insure a somersault; yet he always came down with a crash on
his feet. Plunging was Henri's forte. He generally 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
as often got him out of them. He was a French-Canadian, and a
particularly bad speaker of the English language.

We offer no apology for this elaborate introduction of Henri, for
he was as good-hearted a fellow as ever lived, and deserves special
notice.

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 that," said another.

The man referred to was a long, lank, lantern-jawed fellow, with a