ght
nothing of his own exploit, "you improve daily. A few more tramps on
land in my company, and the best marksman on the frontiers will
have occasion to look keenly when he takes his stand ag'in you. The
Quartermaster is respectable, but he will never get any farther; whereas
you, Jasper, have the gift, and may one day defy any who pull trigger."

"Hoot, hoot!" exclaimed Muir; "do you call hitting the head of the nail
respectable only, when it's the perfection of the art? Any one the least
refined and elevated in sentiment knows that the delicate touches denote
the master; whereas your sledge-hammer blows come from the rude and
uninstructed. If 'a miss is as good as a mile,' a hit ought to be
better, Pathfinder, whether it wound or kill."

"The surest way of settling this rivalry will be to make another trial,"
observed Lundie, "and that will be of the potato. You're Scotch, Mr.
Muir, and might fare better were it a cake or a thistle; but frontier
law has declared for the American fruit, and the potato it shall be."

As Major Duncan manifested some impatience of manner, Muir had too much
tact to delay the sports any longer with his discursive remarks, but
judiciously prepared himself for the next appeal. To say the truth, the
Quartermaster had little or no faith in his own success in the trial of
skill that was to follow, nor would he have been so free in presenting
himself as a competitor at all had he anticipated it would have been
made; but Major Duncan, who was somewhat of a humorist in his own
quiet Scotch way, had secretly ordered it to be introduced expressly to
mortify him; for, a laird himself, Lundie did not relish the notion
that one who might claim to be a gentleman should bring discredit on
his caste by forming an unequal alliance. As soon as everything was
prepared, Muir was summoned to the stand, and the potato was held in
readiness to be thrown. As the sort of feat we are about to offer to the
reader, however, may be new to him, a word in explanation will render
the matter more clear. A potato of large size was selected, and given
to one who stood at the distance of twenty yards from the stand. At the
word "heave!" which was given by the marksman, the vegetable was
thrown with a gentle toss into the air, and it was the business of the
adventurer to cause a ball to pass through it before it reached the
ground.

The Quartermaster, in a hundred experiments, had once succeeded in
accomplishing this diff