294 KENTUCKY SPORTS. 



the general mast was a good one that year, squirrels were seen gambol- 

 ling on every tree around us. My companion, a stout, hale, and athletic 

 man, dressed in a homespun hunting-shirt, bare-legged and moccasined, 

 carried a long and heavy rifle, which, as he was loading it, he said had 

 proved efficient in all his former undertakings, and which he hoped 

 would not fail on this occasion, as he felt proud to shew me his skill. 

 The gun was wiped, the powder measured, the ball patched with six- 

 hundred-thread linen, and the charge sent home with a hickory rod. We 

 moved not a step from the place, for the squirrels were so numerous that 

 it was unnecessary to go after them. Boon pointed to one of these ani- 

 mals which had observed us, and was crouched on a branch about fifty 

 paces distant, and bade me mark well the spot where the ball should liit. 

 He raised his piece gradually, until the head (that being the name given 

 by the Kentuckians to the sight) of the barrel was brought to a line with 

 the spot wliich he intended to hit. The whip-hke report resounded 

 through the woods and along the hills, in repeated echoes. Judge of my 

 surprise, when I perceived that the ball had hit the piece of the bark 

 immediately beneath the squirrel, and shivered it into splinters, the con- 

 cussion produced by which had killed the animal, and sent it whirling 

 through the air, as if it had been blo^vn up by the explosion of a powder 

 magazine. Boon kept up his firing, and, before many hours had elapsed, 

 we had procured as many squirrels as we wished ; for you must know, 

 kind reader, that to load a rifle requires only a moment, and that if it 

 is wiped once after each shot, it will do duty for hours. Since that first 

 interview with our veteran Boon, I have seen many other individuals 

 perform the same feat. 



The snuffing of a candle with a ball, I first had an opportunity of 

 seeing near the banks of Green River, not far from a large pigeon-roost, 

 to which I had previously made a visit. I heard many reports of guns 

 during the early part of a dark night, and knowing them to be those of 

 rifles, I went towards the spot to ascertain the cause. On reaching the 

 place, I was welcomed by a dozen of tall stout men, who told me they 

 were exercising, for the purpose of enabling them to shoot under night at 

 the reflected light from the eyes of a deer or wolf, by torch-light, of 

 which I shall give you an account somewhere else. A fire was blazing 

 near, the smoke of which rose curling among the thick foliage of the 

 trees. At a distance which rendered it scarcely distinguishable, stood a 

 burning candle, as if intended for an oifering to the goddess of night, but 



