[Illustration: A Missouri hunter.]
This was our American, discontented to dwell longer by the sea. He had
two tools, the ax and the rifle. With the one he built, with the other
he fought and lived. Early America saw the invention of the small-bore
rifle because there was need for that invention. It required no such
long range in those forest days, and it gave the greatest possible
amount of results for its expenditure. Its charge was tiny, its
provender compact and easily carried by the man who must economize in
every ounce of transported goods; and yet its powers were wonderful.
Our early American could plant that little round pellet in just such
a spot as he liked of game-animal or of red-skinned enemy, and the
deadly effect of no projectile known to man has ever surpassed this
one, if each be weighed by the test of economic expenditure. This long,
small-bored tube was one of the early agents of American civilization.
The conditions of the daily life of the time demanded great skill in
the use of this typical arm, and the accuracy of the early riflemen
of the West has probably never been surpassed in popular average by
any people of the world. Driving a nail and snuffing a candle with a
rifle-bullet were common forms of the amusement which was derived from
the practice of arms.
[Illustration: In the Alleghany Mountains: The retreat to the
blockhouse.]