plenty of weight in the barr'l, and it carries but a small charge of
powder. You won't want to shoot at anything much beyond this range, but
sometimes you may have to try at four or five hundred yards when you are
in want of a dinner. In that case you can put in a charge and a half of
powder. Now, are you comfortable? You need not grip so hard with your
left hand, the gun only wants to rest between your thumb and fingers.
That is better. Now take a steady aim, and the moment you have got it
press the trigger. Well done! that is a good shot for a first. You hit
the dust an inch or two to the right of the stone. If it had been a
red-skin you would have hit him in the shoulder. You will do, lad, and
by the time we get to Fort Bridger I guess you will bring down a stag as
clean as nine out of ten hunters."

"Don't get into the way of waiting too long before you fire, Tom," Pete
Hoskings said. "Better to try to shoot too quick to begin with than to
be too long about it. When you have made up your mind that you are going
to shoot, get your bead on your mark and fire at once. You may want to
hit a red-skin's head as he looks out from behind a tree, and to do that
you must fire the instant you see him or he will be in again. One of the
best shots I ever saw never used to raise his gun to his shoulder at
all. He just dropped his piece into the hollow of his left hand, and
would fire as he touched it. He did not seem to take any aim at all, but
his bullet was sartin to hit the thing he wanted to, even if it were no
bigger than an orange. He could not tell himself how he did it. 'I seen
the thing and I fired, Pete,' he would say; 'the gun seems to point
right of its own accord, I have not anything to say to it.' You see,
shooting is a matter of eye. Some men may shoot all their lives, and
they will never be more than just respectable, while others shoot well
the first time that a gun is put in their hands. Want of nerve is what
spoils half men's shooting; that and taking too long an aim. Well, it is