was rather a silly
one; but it answered the purpose for which it was put, which was only to
draw him into conversation, and I proceeded to make as decent a retreat
as I could.

"I didn't know," said I, "but that you were going to meet the huntsmen,
or going to your stand."

"Ah, sure enough," rejoined he, "that _mout_ be a bee, as the old woman
said when she killed a wasp. It seems to me I ought to know you."

"Well, if you _ought_, why _don't_ you?"

"What _mout_ your name be?"

"It _might_ be anything," said I, with a borrowed wit, for I knew my man
and knew what kind of conversation would please him most.

"Well, what _is_ it, then?"

"It _is_ Hall," said I; "but you know it might as well have been
anything else."

"Pretty digging!" said he. "I find you're not the fool I took you to be;
so here's to a better acquaintance with you."

"With all my heart," returned I; "but you must be as clever as I've
been, and give me your name."

"To be sure I will, my old coon; take it, take it, and welcome. Anything
else about me you'd like to have?"

"No," said I, "there's nothing else about you worth having."

"Oh, yes there is, stranger! Do you see this?" holding up his ponderous
rifle with an ease that astonished me. "If you will go with me to the
shooting-match, and see me knock out the _bull's-eye_ with her a few
times, you'll agree the old _Soap-stick's_ worth something when Billy
Curlew puts his shoulder to her."

This short sentence was replete with information to me. It taught me
that my companion was _Billy Curlew_; that he was going to a
_shooting-match_; that he called his rifle the _Soap-stick_, and that he
was very confident of winning beef with her; or, which is nearly, but
not quite the same thing, _driving the cross with her_.

"Well," said I, "if the shooting-match is not too far out of my way,
I'll go to it with pleasure."

"Unless your way lies through the woods from here," said Billy, "it'll
not be much out of your way; for it's only a mile ahead of us, and there
is no other road for you to take till you get there; and as that thing
you're riding in ain't well suited to fast traveling among brushy knobs,
I reckon you won't lose much by going by. I reckon you hardly ever was
at a shooting-match, stranger, from the cut of your coat?"

"Oh, yes," returned I, "many a time. I won beef at one when I was hardly
old enough to hold a shot-gun off-hand."

"_Children_ don't go to shooting-matches ab