Fred Fearnot's New Ranch: and How He and Terry Managed ItShackleford, H. K. (Harvey King)
General
Fred Fearnot's New Ranch: and How He and Terry Managed It
Shackleford, H. K. (Harvey King)
Adventure stories; Ranch life -- Juvenile fiction; Young men -- Juvenile fiction
The fact is, only through freights ran over the road at that section,
hence none of the cars were unlocked at the ranch. Of course, Terry had
his faithful revolver with him, and when Tom arrived, the sporting men
got around him and challenged him to show his money.
"All right, sir. Mr. Olcott has agreed to shoot, and I am ready to cover
any amount you want to put up, unless you have put up more than I
have."'
The original bettor offered to put up three hundred dollars.
"All right," said Tom. "I'll cover that."
Then several others put up one and two hundred each.
Terry had given Tom a check for one thousand dollars, and Tom hurried
off to the bank with it, cashed it, and covered all the bets.
The depot agent acted as stakeholder.
Then they went about a quarter of a mile up the road into a piece of
timber, where thirty paces were stepped off, and a piece of white paper,
about an inch square, was fastened, against the tree.
One man carried a sharp axe with him, saying that he was not going to
let any trick be played on him.
"It's easy enough," said he, "for one shot to be fired in the tree and
the other shots just to be blank cartridges."
Terry then fired the first shot, and every man in the party went to the
tree to look at the bullet hole.
Then Terry fired the other live shots with cool deliberation and
caution.
When the whole six bullets had been fired no one could tell, from the
appearance of the bullet hole, that any other bullet had hit the tree.
The man with the axe proceeded to cut into the tree in quest of the
bullets, and the whole six bullets were found, one on top of the other.
When they came back the report was that six bullets were shot into the
first bullet hole and were found when the chips were cut out.
On that the men paid the thousand dollars to Tom, whose enthusiasm was
so great that he was ready to risk the whole amount by offering to bet
two to one that Olcott could shoot an apple from his head with that
revolver at a distance of one hundred yards.
But the party of bettors had had enough. They didn't care to risk any
more money and some of them couldn't afford to lose a hundred dollars;
but firmly believing that they would win, they had borrowed a little to
make up that amount.
Evelyn and her two visiting friends agreed to go up to Crabtree and
stand up with Tom and his girl when they were married.
The girl lost no time in leaving Ranchman's Rest for Crabtree, and when
she arrived there Fred and Terry recognized her as a girl they had often
seen, without knowing who she was. They greeted her kindly, and so did
Evelyn, saying she remembered her face well, and within thirty minutes
after she arrived in Crabtree they were married in the parlor of the
hotel at Crabtree, with Fred and Evelyn standing up with them, and quite
a bevy of young ladies acting as maids of honor.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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