40 Ranching in the Bad Lands. 



close, and are not flurried at all, shooting as well at a deer 

 as they do at a target They are, as a rule, fair shots 

 that is, they shoot a great deal better than Indians or 

 soldiers, or than the general run of Eastern amateur 

 sportsmen ; but I have never been out with one who has 

 not missed a great deal, and the " Leather-stocking " class 

 of shooting stories are generally untrue, at least to the 

 extent of suppressing part of the truth that is, the num- 

 ber of misses. Beyond question our Western hunters 

 are, as a body, to the full as good marksmen as, and 

 probably much better than, any other body of men in the 

 world, not even excepting the Dutch Boers or Tyrolese 

 Jagers, and a certain number of them who shoot a great 

 deal at game, and are able to squander cartridges very 

 freely, undoubtedly become crack shots, and perform 

 really wonderful feats. As an instance there is old 

 "Vic," a former scout and Indian fighter, and concededly 

 the best hunter on the Little Missouri ; probably there 

 are not a dozen men in the West who are better shots 

 or hunters than he is, and I have seen him do most 

 skilful work. He can run the muzzle of his rifle through 

 a board so as to hide the sights, and yet do quite good 

 shooting at some little distance ; he will cut the head off 

 a chicken at eighty or ninety yards, shoot a deer running 

 through brush at that distance, kill grouse on the wing 

 early in the season, and knock over antelopes when they 

 are so far off that I should not dream of shooting. He 

 firmly believes, and so do most men that speak of him, 

 that he never misses. Yet I have known him make miss 

 after miss at game, and some that were not such especially 



