ithe body, which seemed as though totally unhinged, could
no more be bent, when the muscles were strung, than an iron post. No
one wrestled with Henri unless he wished to have his back broken. Few
could equal and none could beat him at running or leaping except Dick
Varley. When Henri ran a race even Joe Blunt laughed outright, for arms
and legs went like independent flails. When he leaped, he hurled
himself into space with a degree of violence that seemed to insure a
somersault--yet he always came down with a crash on his feet. Plunging
was Henri's forte. He generally lounged about the settlement, when
unoccupied, with his hands behind his back, apparently in a reverie, and
when called on to act, he seemed to fancy he must have lost time, and
could only make up for it by _plunging_. This habit got him into many
awkward scrapes, but his herculean power as often got him out of them.
He was a French-Canadian, and a particularly bad speaker of the English
language.

We offer no apology for this elaborate introduction of Henri, for he was
as good-hearted a fellow as ever lived, and deserves special notice.

But to return. The sort of rifle practice called "driving the nail," by
which this match was to be decided, was, and we believe still is, common
among the hunters of the far west. It consisted in this,--an ordinary
large-headed nail was driven a short way into a plank or a tree, and the
hunters, standing at a distance of fifty yards or so, fired at it until
they succeeded in driving it home. On the present occasion the major
resolved to test their shooting by making the distance seventy yards.

Some of the older men shook their heads.

"It's too far," said one; "ye might as well try to snuff the nose o' a
mosquito."

"Jim Scraggs is the only man as'll hit that," said another.

The man referred to was a long, lank, lantern-jawed fellow with a
cross-grained expression of countenance. He used the long, heavy,
Kentucky rifle, which, from the ball being little larger than a pea, was
called a pea-rifle. Jim was no favourite, and had been named Scraggs by
his companions on account of his appearance.

In a few minutes the lots were drawn, and the shooting began. Each
hunter wiped out the barrel of his piece with his ramrod as he stepped
forward; then, placing a ball in the palm of his left hand, he drew the
stopper of his powder-horn with his teeth, and poured out as much powder
as sufficed to cover the bulle