asping another
as he fell. Next instant, three shafts whistled over where he had stood.
But his found its mark on the body of him at whom he had aimed, causing
the man to stagger backward and throw down his bow, as he was bound to
do, if hit.

Next instant Dick was up again and his second arrow flew, striking full
and fair before ever he at whom it was aimed had drawn.

Now there remained Jack Green alone, and, as Dick set the third arrow,
but before he could draw, Jack Green shot.

"Beat!" said Dick, and stood quite still.

At him rushed the swift shaft, and passed over his shoulder within a
hairbreadth of his ear. Then came Dick's turn. On Jack Green's cap was
an archer's plume.

"Mark the plume, lords," he said, and lo! the feather leapt from that
cap.

Now there was silence. No one spoke, but Dick drew out three more
arrows.

"Tell me, captain," he said, "is your ground marked out in scores; and
what is the farthest that any one of you has sent a flighting shot?"

"Ay," answered the officer, "and twenty score and one yard is the
farthest, nor has that been done for many a day."

Dick steadied himself, and seemed to fill his lungs with air. Then,
stretching his long arms to the full, he drew the great bow till the
horns looked as though they came quite close together, and loosed. High
and far flew that shaft; men's eyes could scarcely follow it, and all
must wait long before a man came running to say where it had fallen.

"Twenty score and two yards!" he cried.

"Not much to win by," grunted Dick, "though enough. I have done twenty
and one score once, but that was somewhat downhill."

Then, while the silence still reigned, he set the second arrow on the
string, and waited, as though he knew not what to do. Presently, about
fifty paces from him, a wood dove flew from out a tree and, as such
birds do at the first breath of spring, for the day was mild and sunny,
hovered a moment in the air ere it dipped toward a great fir where
doubtless it had built for years. Never, poor fowl, was it destined to
build again, for as it turned its beak downward Dick's shaft pierced it
through and through and bore it onward to the earth.

Still in the midst of a great silence, Dick took up his quiver and
emptied it on the ground, then gave it to the captain of the archers,
saying:

"And you will, step sixty, nay, seventy paces, and set this mouth upward
in the grass where a man may see it well."

The captain did so,