Frontier and pioneer life -- New Mexico -- Juvenile fiction; New Mexico -- Social life and customs -- 19th century -- Juvenile fiction
His piece was soon loaded; and, swinging her to the hunter's carry, he
turned to the crowd, now collected from all parts of the camp.
"Thar's one kind o' shootin'," said he, "that's jest as easy as fallin'
off a log. Any man kin do it as kin look straight through hind-sights.
But then thar's another kind that ain't so easy; it needs narve."
Here the trapper paused, and looked towards the Indian, who was also
reloading.
"Look hyar, stranger!" continued he, addressing the latter, "have ye got
a cummarade on the ground as knows yer shooting?"
The Indian after a moment's hesitation, answered, "Yes."
"Kin your cummarade depend on yer shot?"
"Oh! I think so. Why do you wish to know that?"
"Why, I'm a-going to show ye a shot we sometimes practise at Bent's
Fort, jest to tickle the greenhorns. 'Tain't much of a shot nayther;
but it tries the narves a little I reckon. Hoy! Rube!"
"What doo 'ee want?"
This was spoken in an energetic and angry-like voice, that turned all
eyes to the quarter whence it proceeded. At the first glance, there
seemed to be no one in that direction. In looking more carefully among
the logs and stumps, an individual was discovered seated by one of the
fires. It would have been difficult to tell that it was a human body,
had not the arms at the moment been in motion. The back was turned
toward the crowd, and the head had disappeared, sunk forward over the
fire. The object, from where we were standing, looked more like the
stump of a cotton-wood, dressed in dirt-coloured buckskin, than the body
of a human being. On getting nearer, and round to the front of it, it
was seen to be a man, though a very curious one, holding a long rib of
deer-meat in both hands, which he was polishing with a very poor set of
teeth.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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