264 FIELD SHOOTING. 



they are flying low and darting a little, as they 

 generally do before rain, is sufficiently advanced 

 to go into the field after game. Once there, 

 the same principles apply to him as ought to 

 govern older marksmen, but do not always do so. 

 During the first part of my residence in Illinois, 

 although I was a good shot, as twenty brace of 

 quail may serve to prove, I was nothing like as 

 good as I have since become. Years of experience, 

 shooting many months in each year, and nearly 

 every day except Sundays, with much thought 

 over the principles of shooting as an art, have en- 

 abled me to arrive at as much certainty as men 

 attain to. It may seem like boasting, but never- 

 theless I declare my conviction that 1 can shoot 

 game-birds on the wing, in the field, as well as 

 anv man who lives or ever did live. I have had 

 a challenge out for three years, offering to shoot 

 against any man in the world, Western field- 

 shooting, and another offering to shoot against any 

 man in the world at pigeons. The challenge for 

 field-shooting has now been withdrawn, in con- 

 sequence of the accident which befell me in 1872, 

 when I was shot clean through the right thigh 

 by my own gun when the muzzle touched me. 

 It occurred in the way I shall now relate. 



