The fact was, he felt dissatisfied with himself, or rather with the rifle which his indulgent father had presented to him only a few weeks before.

“I don’t like the way the thing behaves,” he said, as he stopped to examine it; “father paid one hundred and twenty-five dollars for it, and it was warranted the best.  It’s pretty hard to hit a deer a quarter of a mile off, but I ought to have brought down that squirrel which was only a hundred feet distant.”

He turned the weapon over and over in his hand, looked down the barrel, tried the hammer and trigger, carefully examined the wind-gauge and vernier rear-sights, but could not see that anything was out of order.

“I’m afraid it was my fault,” he said, with a sigh, “but it will never do to let the boys know it.  I’ll insist that I struck the buck, though I’m afraid I didn’t.”

After going a little ways he noticed he was walking over a path which was not marked very distinctly; it was, in fact, the route which Mr. Fred Fowler, the industrious dweller in the log cabin, had worn for himself in going to and from his work.

“That’s lucky,” said the lad, “for it’s much easier traveling over a path like that than tramping among the trees, where you have to walk twice as far as there is any need of—­confound it!”

This impatient remark was caused by a protruding branch, which just then caught Herbert under the chin and almost lifted him off his feet.

The boy was sensible enough to understand that his failure to display any good marksmanship was due to his own want of practice rather than to any fault of his piece.

“That Nick Ribsam can beat me out of my boots; I never heard of such a thing as ‘barking’ a squirrel till he showed me how it is done, and he used a gun that is older than himself.  Well, Nick was always smarter than other boys; he is younger than I, and I have taken sparring lessons of the best teachers in the country, while he never heard of such a thing as science in using his fists; but he just sailed into me that day, and the first thing I knew he had me down, and was banging himself on me so hard that I have never got over the flattening out—­hallo!”

A gray squirrel, flirting its bushy tail, whisked across the path in front of him that moment, scampered up a hickory and perched itself near the top, where it offered the best chance for a shot that one could wish.

“Now I’ll see what I can do,” muttered Herbert, sighting at the saucy little fellow, who seemed to be ridiculing his purpose of reaching it with a bullet at such a height.

The young hunter aimed with great care, pressed the trigger, and, as the sharp report rang through the woods, the squirrel came tumbling to the ground, with its skull shattered.

Herbert Watrous was surprised and delighted, scarcely believing in his own success.  He picked up the slain rodent and saw that its destruction had been caused by the bullet he fired.