214 SOLDIERS AS RIFLE SHOTS. 



more opportunities for soldiers becoming sporting shots 

 than among our own, we have the authority of Colonel 

 Dodge for saying, "they are generally as poor shots, 

 as can be found." * We might cite several reasons 

 for this, besides that of want of practice at game. In 

 the first place the "pull off" of all the old military 

 weapons at all events, is much too hard, the trigger 

 being set, for various military reasons, at nearly double 

 that of the sporting weapon ; then again the sights are 

 too coarse for a good sporting rifle. Of course if the 

 soldier lays aside his military arm and takes to a 

 sporting weapon, then he no longer shoots as a soldier 

 but as a civil sportsman. 



But to proceed with the more immediate subject 

 under consideration. Let us now suppose that the 

 hunter is out on the plain in quest of game, and that 

 he is at length approaching the goal of his hopes, a 

 great game country, inhabited by various sorts of 

 wild animals. 



For days perhaps the signs of game have been visible 

 all about, but the droppings and the tracks are some 

 days old; and the animals that made them have long 

 since moved off to other pastures, where all trace of 

 them is lost in the vast extent of the pathless wilderness. 

 There is probably no old hunter whose heart does not 

 kindle at the recollection of these first days of hope 

 and expectation, and recall how as a youthful sports- 

 man, he eagerly scanned these tell-tale traces, and 

 speculated upon the particular creatures that made them, 

 and how long ago it was since they did it; probably 



* The Hunting Grounds of the Great West, by Colonel Richard 

 I. Dodge, U.S.A., 1877, p. 106. 



