But Dan would make no promises, and neither could his father’s most earnest entreaties induce him to surrender even the smallest portion of the money he had in his pocket. What he had in his possession he was sure of--the barrel, with its eighty thousand dollars, he was not sure of; and believing that a single bird in the hand was worth a whole flock in the woods, he declared it to be his unalterable determination to hold fast to every cent he had. Godfrey was highly exasperated, but he took good care not to show it. Their near approach to the grove and to the men assembled there, obliged him to cease his entreaties, and with the mental resolve that Dan should be made to repent his refusal, Godfrey went to hunt up the man who had charge of the shooting. To his great delight he learned that there were so many contestants that the entrance fee was only seventy-five cents. This left him a quarter of a dollar to spend, and he made all haste to do it. Forgetting the resolution he had formed a short time before, to spend no more money with Silas Jones, he hurried off to the store, and returned with a plug of the tobacco for which the merchant had refused to credit him. When he came back, he saw Dan stretched out on the ground behind a small log squinting along the barrel of his rifle, which was pointed at a piece of white paper fastened to a board, and placed against a tree a few yards away. “The ongrateful scamp!” said his father, to himself. “He’s gone an’ spent six bits to go into the shootin’ match arter all. He ain’t fit to have money, he throws it about so scandalous. I’ll take keer that he don’t throw away no more.” For the benefit of our city readers, who may like to know something of the sports and pastimes of those whose means of recreation are not so abundant as their own, we will tell how a shooting match is conducted in the South and West. In the first place, we are glad to say that it is very different from turkey shooting as carried on in the Northern States. In the latter there is no sport whatever. The luckless turkey is tied to a stump, so that it has no chance for life, and the marksmen station themselves at distances varying from one to two hundred and fifty yards, and shoot at it, until some one kills or wounds it. It is a cruel practice, and no boy or man either who has the least spark of humanity or love of fair play in him, will engage in it. [Illustration: THE SHOOTING-MATCH.]