THE MYSTERY OF THE BLUE LOOSE 



1CJCJ 



laugh as he answered : "Never saw 

 the gun nor the picture my lad, hut I 

 know from your description the make 

 of it. General George Washington 

 owned just such a pieee as the one in 

 the picture. It 

 was presented 

 to him by Ma- 

 jor Nicholas in 

 1787, and it 

 was said that 

 the buck ven- 

 turing' within 

 one hundred 

 and fifty yards 

 of the general 

 and his gun 

 was as good as 

 a dead buck ; 

 but Mr. Olf 

 owns a better 

 gun. I have 

 studied t h e 

 American rifle 

 through all its 

 forms from 

 those made by 

 the good old 

 Peter Decherts 

 a n d Henrich 

 Lemans, the 

 short, clumsy 

 Tyrolean mod- 

 els of 1730, 

 through the 

 gradual stret- 

 ching of the 

 barrel up to the 

 Revolutionary 

 period. I have 

 followed it to 

 Kentucky and 

 examined the 

 first of the cel- 

 ebrated "Kain- 

 tuck" rifles 

 manufactured 

 by Mills in 1790 



and the gun of Daniel Boone, made of 

 imported horseshoe nails, and the beau- 

 tiful gun presented to Hon. Davey 

 Crockett by the young men of Phila- 

 delphia and still preserved in Ten- 



big Pete Darlinkle. 



nessee, and the one owned by Mr. C. 

 W. Callagan, of Hotel Maryland, said 

 to be one of Davey Crockett's guns, 

 flint-lock, 40-caliber barrel 5^2 feet 

 long and nearly one-half inch thick. 



I have visited 

 the Crank her- 

 mit of East 

 M ountain, 

 Great Barring- 

 ton, where the 

 self- styled 

 'Universal ge- 

 nius' is busy 

 making rifles, 

 lock, stock and 

 barrel, but the 

 gun I sent 

 West could 

 beat them all. 

 Strange," said 

 the old man, 

 "that in this 

 day of repeat- 

 ers any one 

 should order an 

 old - fashioned 

 muzzle loader, 

 and yet, within 

 their limits the 

 work done with 

 these old guns 

 has never been 

 excelled by any 

 of the modern 

 lead - pumping 

 machines. This 

 makes m e 

 think that Mr. 

 Olf is a true 

 sportsman. 

 Look him up 

 for me, that's 

 a good fellow ! 

 Ill bet you will 

 not have much 

 trouble in lo- 

 cating him, for 

 my life on it, every man in his neigh- 

 borhood knows both Olf and his gun." 



I had reason to hope that there 

 might still be some descendants of the 



