TARGET PRACTICE
The two boys spent most of the following week rolling logs and they were
busy among them one hot afternoon when Mr. Oliver walked out of the bush
nearby. As they did not immediately see him, he stopped and stood
watching them in the shadow for a few minutes. Frank was feeling more
cheerful by this time, though his hands were still very sore and, as a
good many of the logs were burned on the outside, he was more or less
blackened all over. He was getting used to the work, and Jake, who had
arrived with the sloop in the meanwhile, relieved him and his companion
of the heaviest part of it. Turning around presently at a sound, Frank
saw Mr. Oliver smiling at him.
"If I were as grimy as you I think I'd go in for a swim," he said. "It's
hot enough, and there's a nice beach not far away. I dare say Harry will
go along with you while Jake and I put up these logs."
Harry lost no time in throwing down his handspike, and they set out
together down a narrow trail through the woods, which led them out by
and by upon a head above the cove in which the sloop lay moored.
Standing on the edge of the crag, Frank looked down upon the clear,
green water which lapped smooth as oil upon a belt of milk-white shingle
and broke into little wisps of foam beneath the gray rocks at the mouth
of the cove. Beyond this the sea flashed silver in the sunlight like a
great mirror, except where a faint, fitful breeze traced dark blue
streaks across it. Dim smudges of islands and headlands broke the
gleaming surface here and there, and high above it all was a cold white
gleam of eternal snow.
In a few minutes they had scrambled down a winding path, and Frank,
stripping off his clothes, waded into the water abreast of the sloop
which lay swinging gently about a dozen yards from the beach.
"Can you swim off to her?" shouted Harry.
Frank said that he thought he could, and set about it with a jerky
breast stroke, for he was not very proficient in the art. The water was
decidedly cold and he was glad when he reached the sloop. Clutching her
rail where it was lowest amidships he endeavored to pull himself out. To
his disgust he found that his feet would shoot forward under the bottom
of her, with the result that he sank back to the neck after each effort.
When he had made two or three attempts he heard a shout:
"Hold on! You'll never do it that way."
Harry shot toward him, his limbs gleaming curiously white through the
shining green water, though his face and neck showed a coffee-brown, as
did his lower arms, which he swung out above his head, rolling from side
to side at every stroke. He grasped Frank's shoulder and pushed him
toward the stern of the sloop.
"Now," he said when he clutched it, "there are just two ways of getting
out of the water into a boat. If she has a flat stern you make for there
and get your hands on the top of it spread a little apart. Then you
heave yourself up by a handspring--though that isn't very easy."
Frank smiled at these instructions, but said nothing. It was easy for
him, because he had learned the trick in a gymnasium. Suddenly jerking
down his elbows, which ever since he had grasped the stern were as high
as his head, he shot his body up until his hands were down at his hips.
Then, as his waist was level with the sloop's transom, he quietly
crawled on board. Harry, however, had to make two or three attempts
before he succeeded, and then he looked at his companion with
undisguised astonishment.
"I've never done it right away yet," he said admiringly. "Say, do you
know how to dive?"
"No," replied Frank; "that is, I've scarcely tried."
Harry led him forward where the boat's sheer was higher and he could
stand a couple of feet or so above the water.
"You only get half the fun out of swimming unless you can dive," he
said. "Let's see what kind of a show you make."
Frank stiffened himself and jumped. At least, that was what he meant to
do, but as it happened, he merely threw himself flat upon the water, and
the result was rather disconcerting. He felt as though all the breath
had been knocked out of him, and in addition to this all the front of
his body was smarting. He was about to swim toward the stern again when
Harry stopped him.
"Hold on!" he called. "You may as well learn the other way of getting
out, and if she's a sailing craft with a bowsprit it's much the easiest
one. Swim forward to the bow."
Frank did so and saw that a wire ran from the end of the bowsprit,
dipping a little below the water where it was attached to the boat. He
had no difficulty in getting his foot upon it, and after that it was a
simple matter to crawl on board. His chest and limbs were still smarting
and were very red when he joined Harry. The latter regarded him with a
look of amusement.
"You'll get hurt every time, if you dive like that," he said. "Look
here," and he stood up on the boat's deck. "You want to get your weight
on the fore part of your feet all ready to shove off before you go. Then
you must shoot as far forward as you can--falling on it won't do--and
hollow your back and stiffen yourself once you're under. That is, when
you want to skim along just below the surface. Watch me."
Leaning forward a little he sprang out from the boat, a lithe, tense
figure, with hands flung straight forward over his head. They struck the
water first, and he went in with an impetus which swept him along
scarcely a foot beneath the top. Then his speed slowly slackened and he
had stopped altogether about a length of the boat away when he raised
his head and swam back to her.
"You don't want to try that in less than four feet until you're sure you
can do it right," he said when he had climbed on board. "The other kind
of diving's different." Then, taking up a galvanized pin, he threw it
in. "See whether you can fetch it. There's about eight or nine feet of
water here. You can open your eyes as soon as your head's in, and you
won't have any trouble in coming up again. Jump, and throw your legs
straight up as you go."
Frank managed this time not to drop in a heap as he had done before. He
also opened his eyes under water for the first time and found it
perfectly easy to see. It was like looking through green glass. He could
make out the pin lying a long way down beneath him. It was, however,
impossible to reach it. The water seemed determined on forcing him back
to the top, and when he abandoned the struggle to get down he seemed to
reach the surface with a bound.
"How far did I go?" he gasped.
"About six feet. It's quite as far as I expected."
Harry plunged, and Frank, who had climbed out in the meanwhile, saw him
striking upward with his feet until he turned and came up with a rush,
holding the pin in one hand. Flinging it on board he headed for the
beach and was standing on the shingle rubbing himself with his hands
when Frank joined him.
"I guess you had two towels when you went swimming back East?" he
laughed.
Frank looked up inquiringly, acknowledging that he usually had taken
one.
"Well," said Harry, "we have them at the homestead, but there are
ranches in this country where you wouldn't get even one."
"No towels!" exclaimed Frank in some astonishment. "What do they use
instead?"
"Some of them cut a very little bit off of a cotton flour bag. Those
bags are valuable because they keep them to mend their shirts with. I've
a notion that the other fellows sit in the sun."
Frank laughed and scrambled into his clothes after rubbing himself with
his hands. He was commencing to realize that whether Harry was joking
with him or not it was unavoidable that they should have different ways
in different parts of so big a country. Indeed, now that he was some
four thousand miles from Boston, he felt that instead of its being
curious that the people were slightly different it was wonderful that
they were so much the same. If one measured four thousand miles across
Europe and Asia one would get Frenchmen at the one end and wild Cossacks
or nomad Tartars at the other, with perhaps a score of wholly different
nations, speaking different languages, between.
They had an excellent appetite for supper when they went back to the
ranch, and after the meal was over, Mr. Oliver took down a rifle from
the wall.
"You can bring yours along, Harry," he said, and then turned to Frank.
"In a general way, a rancher doesn't get much time for hunting, and he
seldom goes out for the fun of the thing, but an odd deer or grouse
comes in handy now and then. Anyway, before you can hunt at all you must
learn to shoot and you may as well begin."
"Dad's a pot-hunter," chuckled Harry. "At least, that's what the two
smart sports we had round here last fall said he was."
A gleam of amusement crept into his aunt's eyes, but Mr. Oliver's face
contracted into a slight frown.
"Harry knows my views, but you had better hear them, too," he said to
Frank. "I'm certainly what those fellows called a pot-hunter, though
they very foolishly seemed to think that one ought to be ashamed of it.
Most of the ranchers in this district take down the rifle only when they
want something to eat, and that's the best excuse there is for shooting.
Is it a desirable thing to destroy a dozen harmless beasts for the mere
pleasure of killing, and leave them in the bush for the wolves and
eagles?"
"Don't the game laws prevent that, sir?" Frank asked.
"They limit a man to so many head of this and that, and in a general way
he brings no more out with him, but it doesn't by any means follow that
he hasn't killed a bear or a deer that he doesn't mention in some lonely
ravine. The sport who hasn't a conscience is as big a pest in a game
country as the horn and hide hunter used to be, and we have to thank him
for practically exterminating several of the finest beasts in North
America."
"Wouldn't the clearing of virgin country and the way the farms and
ranches spring up account for it?"
"Only to some extent. It's my opinion that there are more deer and bears
about the smaller ranches than you could find anywhere else. All this is
no reason why you shouldn't learn to shoot; that is, to hit your game
just where you want to and kill it there and then."
He walked out with his rifle and the boys followed him across the
clearing. Here Harry fixed a piece of white paper about two feet square
with a black dab in the middle of it on the trunk of a big fir, after
which he came back to where the others were standing.
"How far do you make it?" his father asked.
"About a hundred yards."
Mr. Oliver now turned to Frank.
"As I think you told me you couldn't shoot, I'll give you a short
lecture on the principles of the thing. When they're after birds most
men use a scatter gun. It will spread an ounce of shot--several hundred
pellets--over a six-foot circle at a distance of about forty yards; but
the rifle is the great weapon of western America. Take this one and open
the breach--now look up the barrel."
"I can see little grooves twisting round it like a screw," said Frank.
"That's the rifling. It serves two purposes. The bullet--you use only
one--has to screw round and round to get out, and that gives the
explosion time to act upon it. It increases the muzzle velocity. Then it
gives the bullet a rotary motion, and anything spinning on its axis
travels very much straighter than it would do otherwise. It's the
twisting motion that keeps a top from falling over."
Frank could readily understand this, and he remembered what he had read
about the gyroscope.
"Now," continued Mr. Oliver, "we have to consider the pull of the earth
upon the bullet, which would bring it down, and to counteract this you
have to direct it rather upward. The slight curve it makes before it
reaches its mark is called the trajectory, and it naturally varies with
the distance. You arrange it by the sights. There are two of them, one
on the muzzle and one near the breach. The last one slides up and down
like this. The farther off the mark is the higher it must go. As you
have to get them both in line, it's evident that pushing the back one up
will raise the muzzle. You can understand that?"
Frank said that he could, and Mr. Oliver pushed the rearsight down and
snapped a lever.
"It's cocked, though it hasn't a shell in it. At a hundred yards or less
the sight goes down about the limit." He handed Frank the rifle. "Stand
straight, left foot a little to the left and forward--that will do. Now
bring the rifle to your shoulder--left hand under the barrel near the
rearsight, elbow well down, right hand round the small of the butt,
thumb on the top. Try to hold it steady."
Frank found it difficult. The rifle was heavy and the muzzle seemed to
want to drop, but Mr. Oliver stopped him when he let his left elbow fall
in toward his side.
"Bring it down and wait a moment before you throw it up again," he
advised.
Frank did so once or twice, and at length his instructor seemed
satisfied.
"Now we'll aim," he said. "Drop your left cheek on the stock--you'd
better shut your left eye. Try to see the target through the hollow of
the rearsight, with the front one right in the middle of it."
It seemed singularly difficult. The square of paper now looked
exceedingly small and the sights would wobble across it. After several
attempts, however, Frank got them comparatively steady.
"Put your forefinger on the trigger," Mr. Oliver directed. "Don't pull,
but squeeze it slowly and steadily, holding your breath in the
meanwhile."
This was worst of all, for Frank found that he pulled the sight off the
target when he tightened his forefinger. After he had made an attempt or
two, Mr. Oliver told him to put the rifle down.
"See what you can do, Harry," he said.
"Standing?"
"Yes," said Mr. Oliver, turning to Frank again. "Standing's hardest,
kneeling easier, and lying down easiest of all, but when you're hunting
in thick bush you generally have to stand."
Harry slipped a shell into his rifle, and pitched it to his shoulder. It
wobbled for a moment and then grew still. After that there was a
spitting of red sparks from the muzzle, which suddenly jerked, followed
by a sharp detonation. A second or two later there was a thud, and Harry
laughed as he stood gazing at the mark while a little blue smoke curled
out of the muzzle and the opened breach.
"It's well up on the left top corner," he said.
Frank was blankly astonished. He could certainly see the square of
paper, but it seemed impossible that anybody could tell whether there
was a mark on it. As a matter of fact, very few people who had not been
taught how to use their eyes could have done so.
Then Mr. Oliver took up his rifle, and Frank noticed that his whole body
and limbs seemed to fall into the best position for holding it steady
without any visible effort on the man's part. The blue barrel did not
seem to move at all until at length it jerked, and Harry grinned
exultantly at Frank when a thin streak of smoke drifted past them.
"That's the pot-hunter's way. He's about two inches off the center."
Mr. Oliver gave Frank the rifle, and this time he slipped in a shell.
"If you can't get the sights right bring it down," he directed. "Don't
dwell too long on your aim."
Frank held his breath and stiffened his muscles, but the foresight would
wobble and the target seemed to dance up and down in a most exasperating
manner. At length he pressed the trigger. He felt a sharp jar upon his
shoulder, but to his astonishment he heard no report. After what seemed
quite a long time there was a faint thud in the forest.
"You've got something, but I guess it's the wrong tree," laughed Harry.
After that Frank tried several shots, finally succeeding in hitting the
tree a couple of feet above the mark. Mr. Oliver, who had taken out his
pipe in the meanwhile, nodded at him encouragingly.
"You only need to practice steadily," he said. "For the rest, anything
that tends toward a healthy life will make you shoot well. Whisky and
tobacco most certainly won't."
Harry's eyes twinkled as he glanced at his father's pipe.
"One of them hasn't much effect on him. I don't know whether I told you
about the bag the two sports who were round here last fall nearly made.
I got the tale from Webster on the next ranch."
Frank said that he would like to hear it, and Harry laughed.
"Well," he began, "Webster was sitting on a log in the bush just outside
his slashing, looking around kind of sorrowful at the trees. It seemed
to him they looked so big and nice it would be a pity to spoil them.
When I've been chopping until my hands are sore I sometimes feel like
that."
"It doesn't lead to riches," interrupted his father dryly.
"By and by," Harry continued, "Webster heard a smashing in the
underbrush. It kept coming nearer, but it wasn't in the least like the
sound a bear makes or a jumping deer. You don't know they're around
unless they're badly scared. Anyway, Webster sat still wondering what it
could be, until he saw a man crawling on the ground. He was coming along
very cautiously, but you couldn't have heard him more than half a mile
away. By and by he disappeared behind a big tree, and as there hadn't
been a deer about for a week Webster wondered if the man was mad, until
there was a blaze of repeater firing in the bush. Then Fremont, his
logging ox, came out of it like a locomotive and headed for the range so
fast that Webster couldn't see how he went. He grabbed his logging
handspike, and found a sport abusing another for missing in the bush.
"'What in the name of wonder are you after?' he asked.
"'We've been trailing a deer two hours,' one of them declared. 'A mighty
big deer. Must have been an elk.'
"'An elk, sure. I saw it,' added the other.
"'There isn't a blamed elk in the country,' said Webster.
"'You'll see,' persisted the other. 'I tell you I pumped the cylinder
full into him.'
"'Quite sure of that?' Webster asked.
"The other man said that he was, and Webster waved his handspike.
"'Then it's going to cost you sixty dollars, and I'll take a deposit
now,' he said. 'It's my ox Fremont you've been after.'"
"Did they give it to him?" Frank broke in.
"Five dollars," Harry answered. "Webster looked big and savage, and they
compromised on that."
"But had they hit the ox?"
Harry chuckled. "Give a man who isn't a hunter a repeater and he'll
never hit anything--unless it's what he isn't shooting at."
"Anyway, it's better to stick to the single shot at first," Mr. Oliver
remarked. "Then you take time and care, and it's more likely that when
you shoot you kill. No humane person has any use for the man who leaves
badly wounded beasts wandering about the woods."
He rose, and shook out his pipe.
"We'll be getting back," he added. "There's only one way of making it
easy to rise at sun-up."
They walked toward the house together, and it seemed to Frank that there
was a good deal to be said for this rancher's views. He did not tell
tall stories and boast of what he had shot, but Frank had seen enough
to realize that it was most unlikely that he left any sorely wounded
animal to die in misery. It was not often that Mr. Oliver molested the
beautiful wild creatures of the woods, but when he fixed the sights on
one of them he killed it clean.