ntly very
lightly hit. No one spoke a word of sympathy or exultation, but I caught
the glint of Stevenson's eye. Orme seemed not in the least disturbed.

We were now tied, but luck ran against us both for a time, since out of
the next five I missed three and Orme two, and the odds again were
against me. It stood the same at thirty, and at thirty-five. At forty
the fortune of war once more favored me, for although Orme shot like a
machine, with a grace and beauty of delivery I have never seen
surpassed, he lost one bird stone dead over the line, carried out by a
slant of the rising wind, which blew from left to right across the
field. Five birds farther on, yet another struggled over for him, and at
sixty-five I had him back of me two birds. The interest all along the
line was now intense. Stevenson later told me that they had never seen
such shooting as we were doing. For myself, it did not seem that I could
miss. I doubt not that eventually I must have won, for fate does not so
favor two men at the same hour.

We went on slowly, as such a match must, occasionally pausing to cool
our barrels, and taking full time with the loading. Following my
second's instructions perfectly, I looked neither to the right nor to
the left, not even watching Orme. I heard the confusion of low talk back
of us, and knew that a large crowd had assembled, but I did not look
toward the row of carriages, nor pay attention to the new arrivals which
constantly came in. We shot on steadily, and presently I lost a bird,
which came in sharply to the left.

The heap of dead birds, some of them still fluttering in their last
gasps, now grew larger at the side of the referee, and the negro boys
were perhaps less careful to wring the necks of the birds as they
gathered them. Occasionally a bird was tossed in such a way as to leave
a fluttering wing. Wild pigeons decoy readily to any such sign, and I
noticed that several birds, rising in such position that they headed
toward the score, were incomers, and very fast. My seventieth bird was
such, and it came straight and swift as an arrow, swooping down and
curving about with the great speed of these birds when fairly on the
wing. I covered it, lost sight of it, then suddenly realized that I must
fire quickly if I was to reach it before it crossed the score. It was so
close when I fired that the charge cut away the quills of a wing. It
fell, just inside the line, with its head up, and my gatherer pounced