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When we read the history of the Western 

 Hemisphere, horn the time when Columbus and 

 his followers broke its long sleep with the roar 

 of their match-lock, we cannot but notice 

 ) what an important part firearms played in 

 settling the great land. Imagine the stolid 

 Dutch fighting the treacherous Iroquois 

 with their own weapons; or the settler, unarmed, 

 driving westward his plodding ox-team, when the 

 great plains teemed v/ith buffalo-hunting savages. 

 Unjust as our dealings with the Indians may seem, the 

 settling of that wilderness without powder and blood- 

 shed, would have been a difficult matter. Besides 

 hating the whites for taking up their land, and slaugh- 

 tering the buffalo herds, the red men, like the knights 

 of old, looked on war as a pastime, and a means 

 for gaining advancement and honor. The young 

 "brave" was not a man until he had scalped an 

 enemy killed in battle. 



Since the war of 1812, Americans have won 

 world-wide fame for their skill in the use of fire- 

 arms. From the early wars, when our weather- 

 worn frontiersmen drove back the English, and the 

 Indians, our success has been the result of splendid 

 marksmanship. 



The gun that made our country what it is, th 

 gave us our independence, and was the " open 

 sesame " of the " dark and bloody ground, " was 

 the old long-barrelled muzzle-loader. This old 

 gun was as much an American institution as the 



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