Pathfinder-Bumppo before the ladies.

"'Be all ready to clench it, boys I' cried out Pathfinder,
stepping into his friend's tracks the instant they were vacant.
'Never mind a new nail; I can see that, though the paint is
gone, and what I can see I can hit at a hundred yards, though
it were only a mosquito's eye. Be ready to clench!'

"The rifle cracked, the bullet sped its way, and the head of the nail was
buried in the wood, covered by the piece of flattened lead."

There, you see, is a man who could hunt flies with a rifle, and command a
ducal salary in a Wild West show to-day if we had him back with us.

The recorded feat is certainly surprising just as it stands; but it is
not surprising enough for Cooper. Cooper adds a touch. He has made
Pathfinder do this miracle with another man's rifle; and not only that,
but Pathfinder did not have even the advantage of loading it himself. He
had everything against him, and yet he made that impossible shot; and not
only made it, but did it with absolute confidence, saying, "Be ready to
clench." Now a person like that would have undertaken that same feat
with a brickbat, and with Cooper to help he would have achieved it, too.

Pathfinder showed off handsomely that day before the ladies. His very
first feat was a thing which no Wild West show can touch. He was
standing with the group of marksmen, observing--a hundred yards from the
target, mind; one jasper raised his rifle and drove the centre of the
bull's-eye. Then the Quartermaster fired. The target exhibited no
result this time. There was a laugh. "It's a dead miss," said Major
Lundie. Pathfinder waited an impressive moment or two; then said, in