So much the earlier did he get into his little boat that evening and row out to where he had been on many previous evenings. But he sang his little song once and twice, and even through to the last verse without anyone showing herself, and after rowing up and down in front of the lumber yard for more than an hour in vain, he went back puzzled and depressed, and thought his affair was really in a bad way. On the following four or five evenings he had the same experience, and then gave up trying to meet the faithless girl, as he took her to be; for although he remembered her resolution only to see him once in four weeks, he thought that to be merely the preparation for a final rupture, and fell into indignant sadness. Hence the practice period for the sharpshooter recruits, which was just about to begin, came at a very welcome time. On several afternoons beforehand he went out to the range with an acquaintance who was a marksman to get at least a little practice, and be able to show the number of hits necessary for his application. His father looked on at this rather scornfully, and unexpectedly came to the range himself to dissuade his son in time from carrying out his foolish purpose, if, as he supposed, Karl knew nothing about shooting. But he happened to get there just as Karl, with half a dozen misses behind him, was making a number of rather good shots. "You needn't tell me," said Hediger astonished, "that you've never shot before; you've secretly spent many a franc on it, that's sure." "I have shot secretly, that's true, but at no cost. Do you know where, father?" "I thought as much!" "Even as a boy I often watched the shooting, listened to what the men said about it, and for years have so longed to do it that I used to dream about it, and after I had gone to bed I used to spend hours aiming at a target, and in that way I've fired hundreds of good shots." "That's capital! At that rate, they'll order whole companies of riflemen into bed in the future, and put them through such a mental drill; that'll save powder and shoe leather." "It's not so ridiculous as it sounds," said the experienced marksman who was teaching Karl, "it is certain that, of two riflemen who are equally gifted as regards eye and hand, the one who is accustomed to reflection will outstrip the other. Pulling the trigger requires an inborn knack and there are very peculiar things about it as there are about all exercises."