Had I been king of the cat-tribe, they could not have regarded me with more curious attention than did the whole company, from this moment. Every inch of me was examined with the nicest scrutiny; and some plainly expressed, by their looks, that they never would have taken me for such a bite. I saw no alternative, but to throw myself upon a third chance-shot; for, though by the rules of sport I would have been allowed to shoot by proxy, by all the rules of good-breeding I was bound to shoot in person. It would have been unpardonable to disappoint the expectations which had been raised on me. Unfortunately too for me, the match differed, in one respect, from those which I had been in the habit of attending in my younger days. In olden-time, the contest was carried on chiefly with _shot-guns_, a generic term, which, in those days, embraced three descriptions of fire-arms: _Indian-traders_—a long, cheap, but sometimes excellent, kind of gun, that Mother Britain used to send hither for traffic with the Indians—the _large musket_, and the _shot-gun_, properly so-called. Rifles were, however, always permitted to compete with them, under equitable restrictions. These were, that they should be fired off-hand, while the shot-guns were allowed a rest, the distance being equal; or that the distance should be one hundred yards for the rifle to sixty for the shot-gun, the mode of firing being equal. But this was a match of rifles exclusively; and these are by far the most common at this time. Most of the competitors fire at the same target, which is usually a board from nine inches to a foot wide, charred on one side as black as it can be made by fire, without impairing materially the uniformity of its surface; on the darkened side of which is pegged, a square piece of white paper, which is larger or smaller, according to the distance at which it is to be placed from the marksmen. This is almost invariably sixty yards, and for it the paper is reduced to about two and a half inches square. Out of the centre of it is cut a rhombus of about the width of an inch, measured diagonally—this is the bull’s-eye, or diamond, as the marksmen choose to call it; in the centre of this is the cross. But every man is permitted to fix his target to his own taste; and accordingly, some remove one fourth of the paper, cutting from the centre of the square to the two lower corners, so as to leave a large opening from the centre downwards; while others reduce the angle more or less; but it is rarely the case that all are not satisfied with one of these figures.