Ranching in the Bad Lands. 37 



background of other gray objects, is very different from 

 firing into a target, brightly painted and a fixed number of 

 yards off. A man must be able to hit a bull's-eye eight 

 inches across every time to do good work with deer or 

 other game ; for the spot around the shoulders that is 

 fatal is not much bigger than this ; and a shot a little back 

 of that merely makes a wound which may in the end prove 

 mortal, but which will in all probability allow the animal to 

 escape for the time being. It takes a good shot to hit a 

 bull's-eye off-hand several times in succession at a hundred 

 yards, and if the bull's-eye was painted the same color as the 

 rest of the landscape, and was at an uncertain distance, and, 

 moreover, was alive, and likely to take to its heels at any 

 moment, the difficulty of making a good shot would be 

 greatly enhanced. The man who can kill his buck right 

 along at a hundred yards has a right to claim that he is a 

 good shot. If he can shoot off-hand standing up, that is 

 much the best way, but I myself always drop on one knee, 

 if I have time, unless the animal is very close. It is 

 curious to hear the nonsense that is talked and to 

 see the nonsense that is written about the distances 

 at which game is killed. Rifles now carry with deadly 

 effect the distance of a mile, and most middle-range 

 hunting-rifles would at least kill at half a mile ; and in war 

 firing is often begun at these ranges. But in war there is 

 very little accurate aiming, and the fact that there is a 

 variation of thirty or forty feet in the flight of the ball 

 makes no difference ; and, finally, a thousand bullets are 

 fired for every man that is killed and usually many more 

 than a thousand. How would that serve for a record on 



