worked on as if in a dream, when one day his father 

 surprised him by saying, "Joe, you have fairly earned 

 your new rifle. I am going to Lancaster and will 

 buy you the best one I can find. What bore do you 

 want?" 



He replied that he did not want less than three 

 balls to the ounce, but he would prefer one-half 

 ounce; that he wanted one that would kill a bear or 

 bring down a deer at long range; but that he did 

 not want any other make than Gibbs. 



When his father returned with the rifle and put it 

 in his hands he said, "Joe, I think if you lug this 

 heavy thing a day vou will soon get tired of fooling 

 your time away hunting; but if it don't suit you, Mr. 

 Gibbs has agreed to exchange it for a lighter one." 



It was not long before he found he had made a 

 mistake. Bears were growing scarce, the deer season 

 short, the bullets were too large for squirrels and 

 small game, and the rifle too heavy for quick shooting. 

 But his pride was touched, and he was not willing to 

 acknowledge his mistake. He found he could save 

 lead by using a smaller ball and thicker buckskin 

 patch; these patches he thoroughly saturated with 

 melted tallow. 



One day when starting out on a hunt he primed 

 his rifle, shaking the powder well into the touchhole, 

 closed the pan, and tried to force down a bullet with 

 one of these well-greased patches, but it would not 

 stay down; whenever he loosened his hold of the 

 ramrod, if would rise in the barrel. After several 

 times forcing the bullet down as far as he could by 

 hand grip on the ramrod, and finding it still coming 

 back, he lost patience; he put the end of the wooden 

 ramrod against a tree, grasping the rifle in both 

 hands, and said, "Dang you! you shall go down now 

 and stay there." He gave a violent thrust. 



When he got up from his back, his hands and arms 

 were lacerated and bleeding, and his gun lay some 

 distance from the tree further than he was. When 

 he gathered himself up he was dazed. His first 

 collected thought was what a fool he had been to 

 prime his gun before putting in the powder and 

 pushing down the ball, and then to be so careless as 

 to have set it at full instead of at half cock, as he 

 supposed he had done. On examining his hands he 

 found them badly torn by splinters of the ramrod. 



He picked up his rifle, expecting to find it had 

 burst. No, it was all right. The hammer with its 

 flint stood at half cock. On opening the pan, the 

 priming was unburnt. Here was witchcraft, or 

 something very like it. On examining the touchhole, 



MUSEUM, REGISTER, JOURNAL, AND GAZETTE. 



183.1 



SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 24. IS27. 



[Pine .til. 



IMPROVED SLIDE REST. 



VOL. VII. 



Figure 29. — Slide-rest, 1827, as built for the 

 trade by Matthias Baldwin and William 

 Mason. 



he found it plugged with lead hard driven in. Little 

 thought his father, when playing, as he thought, a 

 practical joke in spiking the gun with a lead shot, that 

 it would prove the turning point in his son's life 



83 Henry's version of this story gives only the bare essentials; 

 however, it apparently was a story that Saxton told and retold, 

 perhaps with such embellishments as an occasion permitted. 



59 



