138 EARLY DAY STORIES. 



the caliber is small the bullet must reach a vital spot or the 

 game is very likely to get away. I knew a young man who 

 killed a large black bear with a 22 rifle, but the bear was 

 shot in the brain at a distance of not more than thirty steps, 

 while he was eating wild berries. Such cases however are 

 extremely rare, and even where deer are plentiful and not 

 very wild much better results would be had by using a large 

 bore gun than by using a small one. It is the weight of 

 the bullet that tells. 



In this connection it is proper to consider the distance 

 at which a rifle shot is pretty sure to find the mark. There 

 is much misconception upon this point with people generally. 

 It is commonly supposed that a good hunter, with a good 

 rifle, can easily kill deer at a distance' of four hundred or 

 five hundred yards. Such is not the case — at such a distance 

 no hunter, no matter how good his gun, would kill once in 

 five shots, and probably not once in ten. I believe that in 

 all miy hunting, the average distance at which game was 

 killed would be considerably less than a hundred yards — 

 probably not more than seventy-five yards, and the same 

 statement will apply to all others with whom I have hunted. 

 Of course I have often made much longer shots, but I early 

 found out b}^ experience, that long range shots were very 

 uncertain. There are reasons for this that will be explained. 

 If a rifle is sighted with "level sights" — that is, if the front 

 and rear sights are exactly the same distance above the bore 

 of the gun barrel there will be no elevation or upward trend 

 of the bullet when fired, and in one second after leaving 

 the muzzle of the g^^un that bullet will fall about sixteen feet. 

 Now how does this work out in practice? My Sharps car- 

 bine, an excellent gun, was sighted for one hundred yards, 

 and when fired at a target at that distance the bullet did not 

 fall perceptibly, but at a hundred and twenty-five yards it 

 would fall about two or three inches, and at a hundred and 

 fifty yards about six or eight inches. My 40-82 caliber Win- 



