There might have been half a dozen aspirants for the honors of this trial; one or two, who had barely succeeded in touching the spot of paint in the previous strife, preferring to rest their reputations there, feeling certain that they could not succeed in the greater effort that was now exacted of them.  The first three adventurers failed, all coming very near the mark, but neither touching it.  The fourth person who presented himself was the Quartermaster, who, after going through his usual attitudes, so far succeeded as to carry away a small portion of the head of the nail, planting his bullet by the side of its point.  This was not considered an extraordinary shot, though it brought the adventurer within the category.

“You’ve saved your bacon, Quartermaster, as they say in the settlements of their creaturs,” cried Pathfinder, laughing; “but it would take a long time to build a house with a hammer no better than yours.  Jasper, here, will show you how a nail is to be started, or the lad has lost some of his steadiness of hand and sartainty of eye.  You would have done better yourself, Lieutenant, had you not been so much bent on soldierizing your figure.  Shooting is a natural gift, and is to be exercised in a natural way.”

“We shall see, Pathfinder; I call that a pretty attempt at a nail; and I doubt if the 55th has another hammer, as you call it, that can do just the same thing over again.”

“Jasper is not in the 55th, but there goes his rap.”

As the Pathfinder spoke, the bullet of Eau-douce hit the nail square, and drove it into the target, within an inch of the head.

“Be all ready to clench it, boys!” 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.

“Well, Jasper, lad,” continued Pathfinder, dropping the butt-end of his rifle to the ground, and resuming the discourse, as if he thought nothing of his own exploit, “you improve daily.  A few more tramps on land in my company, and the best marksman on the frontiers will have occasion to look keenly when he takes his stand ag’in you.  The Quartermaster is respectable, but he will never get any farther; whereas you, Jasper, have the gift, and may one day defy any who pull trigger.”

“Hoot, hoot!” exclaimed Muir; “do you call hitting the head of the nail respectable only, when it’s the perfection of the art?  Any one the least refined and elevated in sentiment knows that the delicate touches denote the master; whereas your sledge-hammer blows come from the rude and uninstructed.  If ’a miss is as good as a mile,’ a hit ought to be better, Pathfinder, whether it wound or kill.”