WARWICK WOODLANDS. 143 



** Certainly not less than nine pounds, and thirty inches ; but 

 I would prefer ten pounds and thirty-three inches ; though, ex- 

 cept for a fowl-gun to use in boat-shooting, such a piece would 

 be quite too ponderous and clumsy. My single gun is eleven 

 gauge, eight pounds and thirty-three inches ; and even with 

 loose shot executes superbly ; but with Ely's green cartridge I 

 have put forty BB shot into a square of two and a half feet at 

 one hundred and twenty-five yards ; sharply enough, too, to 

 imbed the shot so firmly in the fence against which I had fixed 

 my mark, that it required a good strong knife to get them out. 

 This 1 propose that you should use to-morrow, with a l\ oz. 

 SG cartridge, which contains eighteen buck-shot, and which, if 

 you get a shot any where within a hundred yards, will kill him. 

 as dead, 1 warrant it, as an ounce bullet." 



" Which you intend to try, I fancy," added Frank. 



" Not quite ! my rifle carries eighteen only to the pound ; 

 and yours, if I forget not, only thirty-two." 



" But mine is double.'' 



" Never mind that ; thirty-two will not execute with certainty 

 above a hundred and fifty yards !" 



" And how far in the devil's name would you have it execute, 

 as you calls it," asked old Tom. 



" Three hundred !" replied Harry, coolly. 



" Thunder !" replied Draw, " don't tell me no sich thunderhV 

 nonsense ; I'll stand all day and be shot at, like a Christmas 

 turkey, at sixty rods, for six-pence a shot, any how.'' 



" I'll bet you all the liquor we can drink while we are here, 

 Tom," answered Harry, " that I hit a four foot target at three 

 hundred yards to-morrow !" 



" Off hand ?" inquired Tom, with an attempt at a sneer. 



" Yes, off hand ! and no shot to do that either ; I know men 

 lots of them who would bet to hit a foot* square at that 

 distance !'' 



* When this was written strong exception was taken to it by a Southern 

 writer in the Spirit of the Times. Had that gentleman known what is the 

 practice of the heavy Tyrolese rifle he would not have written so confi- 

 dently. But it is needless to go so far as to the Tyrol. There is a well 

 known rifle-shot in New York, who can perform the feat, any day, which 

 the Southern writer scoffed at as utterly impossible. 



Scrope on Deerstalking will show to any impartial reader's satisfaction, 

 that stags in the Highlands are rarely lulled within 200 and generally be- 

 yond 300 yards' distance. 



