Four Boy Hunters

Excerpt

CHAPTER I

TARGET SHOOTING AND A PLAN

Cling!

"A bull's-eye!"

Cling!

"Another bull's-eye, I declare!"

Cling!

"Three bull's-eyes, of all things! Snap, you are getting to be a wonder with the rifle. Why, even old Jed Sanborn couldn't do better than that."

Charley Dodge, a bright, manly boy of fifteen, laid down the rifle on the counter in the shooting gallery and smiled quietly. "I guess it was more luck than anything, Shep," he replied. "Perhaps I couldn't do it again."

"Nonsense," came from Sheppard Reed, also a boy of fifteen. "You have got it in you to shoot straight and that is all there is to it. I only wish I could shoot as well."

"How did you fellows make out?" came from a third youth, as he entered the gallery. He was sixteen years old but hardly as large as the average lad of ten.

"Snap just made three bull's-eyes!" cried Shep Red. "Made them as easily as pie, too."

"And what did you make?"

"Made one bull's-eye and two inner rings. Are you going to try your luck, Giant?"

"Humph!—-I don't think I can hit the back of the building unless they move it up to me," answered Will Caslette. "But I'll take a chance," he added, turning to the keeper of the gallery and fishing five cents from his pocket. "Got to learn to shoot if I'm going on a hunt, you know," he went on, to his chums.

"Then you can go with us?" questioned Charley Dodge, quickly.

"I think so—-mother said she would tell me for certain to-morrow."

The small youth took the rifle handed to him and aiming carefully, pulled the trigger.

"The outer ring," said Shep Reed. "That's not so bad but what it might be worse, Giant."

"Oh, it might be worse!" answered the small youth, coolly. "I might fire out of the window and kill somebody on the back street, or hit a duck in Rackson's pond. Here goes again."

The second shot was a little better, and the third made the bell ring, much to the small youth's delight.

"Hullo, you fellows!" came from the doorway, a lively boy of fourteen came in, curly hair dying and a cap set far back on his head. "Been looking for you all over town for about sixteen hours. Been shooting, eh? I'll bet a can of buttermilk against a shoestring that you all made outer rings."

"Hullo, Whopper!" called the others. "Come in and try your luck."

"Can't—-I'm dead broke this morning," answered Frank Dawson.
"I've got to wait a year or two till my next allowance comes in."

"Here's the money," answered Charley Dodge, producing five cents.
"Now, Whopper, don't make more than three bull's-eyes."

"I'm going to make twenty-'leven," answered the boy called Whopper. "Don't you know that I once went into a gallery in the city and made one hundred bull's-eyes in succession? The proprietor fainted and didn't get over it for two months."

"Phew! That's the biggest whopper yet!" ejaculated Giant. "Nothing like living up to your reputation."

The boy who could tell big stories on all occasions took up the rifle and shot three times with care, and as a result placed three inner rings to his credit....