In those days n.o.body thought of standing gun to shoulder, as is the present custom. The rule was, "stock below elbow."
"Ready," said he in his dry incisive voice.
"Ready," repeated the trap puller at his elbow.
"Pull!" commanded Mr. Newmark abruptly.
Immediately the trap began to revolve rapidly; after a moment or so it sprung, and the gla.s.s ball, projected violently upward, sailed away through the air. The mechanism of the trap was such that no one could tell precisely how long it would revolve before springing; nor in what direction it would throw the target. Nevertheless the mark offered would now, in comparison with our saucer-shaped target, be considered easy.
Mr. Newmark brought his gun to his shoulder and discharged it apparently with one motion, before the ball had more than begun its flight. A roar of the noisy black powder shook the air. The gla.s.s sphere seemed actually to puff out in fine smoke. Only the feathers it had contained floated down wind.
"Dead!" announced the referee in a brisk business-like voice.
Mr. Newmark broke his gun and flipped the empty yellow sh.e.l.l into the box next him. A cloud of white powder smoke drifted down over the group. Bobby snuffed it eagerly. He thought it the most delicious smell in the world; and so continued to think it for many years until the nitros displaced the old-fashioned compounds. Four times Mr. Newmark repeated his initial performance; then stepped aside.
"Heinzman to shoot; Wellman on deck!" announced the scorer.
Mr. Heinzman was already at the mark; and young Wellman arose and began to break open a box of sh.e.l.ls. Mr. Newmark thrust his gun barrels into one of the pails and with the hickory wiper pumped the water up and down.
"He"s a good snap-shot," Bobby heard a man tell a stranger, in a half-voice.
"Has a brilliant style," commented the other.
They fell into a low-toned conversation on the partridge season, and the ducks, to which Bobby listened with all his ears, the while his eyes missed nothing of what took place before him. n.o.body now spoke aloud.
The chaffing had ceased. Shooter"s etiquette prohibited anything that even by remote possibility might "rattle" the contestants. Only the voices of the men at mark and the referee were heard, and the heavy _bang_ of the black powder. Bobby liked to listen to the referee.
Reporting, as he did, hundreds of results in the course of the afternoon, his intonation became mechanical.
"Dead!" he snapped in the crispest, shortest syllable, when the gla.s.s ball was broken by the charge.
"Law-s-s-t!" he drawled when the little sphere sailed away unharmed.
Each shooter on finishing his first string of five, swabbed out his gun, leaned it against the rack, and went to squat in the group where he commented to his friends on his own or others" luck, but always quietly.
An air of the strictest business held the entire a.s.sembly.
This broke slightly when Mr. Kincaid"s name was called. A stir went through the crowd; and some one called out,
"Go it, Old Reliable. Have you had any hoops put around her lately?"
Mr. Kincaid grinned good-naturedly, but made no reply. He had discarded his coat; and now wore a brown cardigan jacket. He took his place with the greatest deliberation, consuming twice as much time as any one else.
"Ready," said he.
"Ready," replied the trapper mechanically.
"Pool!" cried Mr. Kincaid.
The discharge delayed so long that Bobby looked to see if a misfire had occurred; but when the ball reached the exact top of its swing, Mr.
Kincaid broke it.
"One of the most reliable duck shots we have," said Bobby"s neighbour to the stranger. "He shoots just like that, always. Never in a hurry; but he seems to get there. Kills a lot of game in the season."
The shoot progressed with almost the precision of a machine. Bobby amused himself by closing his eyes to hear the regular _ready, pull, bang!_ that marked the progress of the score. From his level with the tops of the brown gra.s.ses of late summer he enjoyed the wandering puffs of hot air, the drift of pungent aromatic powder smoke, the rapid successive bending of the stalks as though fairies were running over them when the breezelets pa.s.sed. It was all very pleasant and, for the time being, he forgot his disappointment.
The match was to be at one-hundred b.a.l.l.s--sixty singles, and twenty pairs of doubles. Early in the game the different shooters began roughly to group themselves on the score-cards according to their ability. One cla.s.s, among whom were Newmark and Kincaid, continued to break their targets with unvarying accuracy. Young Wellman by rights belonged with these; but he had undershot a strong incomer; and the miss had cost him two others before he could recover his temper. The second cla.s.s had missed from one to five each. The third cla.s.s, typified by Mr. Heinzman, had a long string of "goose-eggs" to their discredit.
The fiftieth bird, however, Mr. Kincaid missed. It flipped sideways from the arm of the trap, and flew for twenty feet close to the ground. The referee had actually started to call "no bird"; but Mr. Kincaid elected to try for it; missed; and had to abide by his decision. At the close of the singles, Newmark had a score of sixty straight; Kincaid fifty-nine; and the others strung out variously in the rear.
At this point, a short recess was taken. The crowd of men lit fresh cigars; talked out loud; circulated about; and relaxed generally from the long strain. Some scattered out into the gra.s.s to help the trapper to look for unbroken b.a.l.l.s. Ordinarily Bobby loved to do this; but to-day he sidled up to where his friend was stooping over the j.a.panned box. Bobby watched him a moment in silence, methodically laying away the used bra.s.s sh.e.l.ls, one up and one down in regular succession.
"It"s too bad you got beat," he ventured timidly at last.
Mr. Kincaid ceased his occupation, removed his pipe from his mouth, and looked up at Bobby searchingly.
"Youngster," he said kindly, "I"m not beat."
"You"re behind," insisted Bobby, "and Newmark never misses."
Mr. Kincaid arose slowly, and without a word took Bobby by the arm and led him around the tree. He stopped and raised Bobby"s chin in his gnarled brown hand until the little boy"s eyes looked straight into his own. Bobby noticed that the twinkle had--not disappeared--but drawn far back into their gray depths, which had become unaccountably sober.
"Bobby," said Mr. Kincaid gravely, "always remember this, all your life, no matter what happens to you; a man is never defeated until the very last shot is fired."
He paused.
"And remember this, too: that even if he is defeated, he is not beaten, provided he has done the very best he could, and has never lost heart."
He looked a moment longer into Bobby"s eyes; and the little boy saw the gray twinkle flickering back to the surface, and the crow"s-feet deepening good-naturedly.
"That"s all, sonny," he said, and withdrew his hand from Bobby"s chin.
"So you want to see me win the rifle, do you?" asked Mr. Kincaid, as they turned away.
"Yes, sir," replied Bobby.
"Why?"
"Because you"re a friend of mine," replied Bobby with simple dignity.
"And that"s the very best reason in the world!" cried Mr. Kincaid heartily.
The shooting at the doubles began. Two b.a.l.l.s were placed in the trap at once--it will be remembered that it was provided with double arms--and thrown in the air together. At this game many good scores fell into disintegration, for it required great quickness of manipulation to catch both before one should reach the ground. Mr. Newmark"s snap method here stood him in good stead. When Mr. Kincaid stepped to the trap, the stranger turned to his friend.
"Here"s where the old fellow falls down, I"m afraid," said he a trifle regretfully. "He"s too deliberate for this business. I"m sorry. I"d like to see him give Newmark a race for it."
"Deliberate!" snorted the local man.
Mr. Kincaid"s preparations were as careful and as wasteful of time as ever. But when he enunciated his famous "pool!" the stranger was treated to a surprise. The first ball was literally snuffed into nothingness before it had risen five feet above the trap! Then quite slowly Mr.
Kincaid followed the second to the top of its flight and broke it as though it had been a single.
"Lord!" gasped the visitor. "He surely can"t do that with any certainty!"