"O yes, all right. Dan put me thro' the gunnery practice on the way
out, an' I went through it creditably. Only a slight hitch now and
then. Two or three balls in the mouth ready to spit into the gun--"

"Not all at once, though, Jenkins."

"In course not, lad: one at a time: no ramming; hit the butt on the
saddle; blaze away; one down, another come on--eh?"

"That's it," said Archie, eager for the fray. "How I wish Dan had let
me have a gun!"

"Safer not, lad. An' keep well in rear, for I may be apt to fire wide
in the heat of action."

With this final caution, the mariner put his gun on full cock, shook the
reins, and trotted quietly forward until he saw that the buffalo had
observed him. Then, as he afterwards expressed it, he "clapped on all
sail-stuns'ls alow and aloft, and sky-scrapers--and went into action
like a true blue British tar, with little Archie Sinclair full sail
astern."

He did not, however, come out of action with as much _eclat_ as he went
into it, but justice obliges us to admit that he came out victorious.

We cannot do better than give his own description of that action as
related beside the camp-fire that night, to a circle of admiring
friends.

"Well, you must know," he began, after finishing his supper and lighting
his pipe, "that long-legged frigate o' mine that Dan calls a chestnut--
though a cocoanut would be more like the thing, if you take size into
account--he's as keen for the chase as a small boy arter a butterfly,
an' before I could say `Jack Robinson,' a'most, he had me into the
middle o' the herd an' alongside o' the big bull. Any one could tell it
was him, in spite o' the dust we kicked up, by reason o' the side-glance
o' his wicked little eye, his big hairy fore'id, an' his tail stickin'
out stiff like a crook'd spankerboom.

"In course I was not a-goin' to fire into him, so I gave the frigate a
dig wi' my heels--tho' I'd got no irons on 'em--an' tried to shove up
alongside of a fat young cow as was skylarkin' on ahead. As we went
past the bull he made a vicious dab wi' his horn, and caught the frigate
on her flank--right abaft the mizzen chains, like. Whew! you should ha'
seen what a sheer she made right away to starboard! If it hadn't bin
that I was on the look-out, I'd ha' bin slap overboard that time, but I
see'd the squall comin', an', seizin' my brute's mane, held on like a
monkey wi' hand an' leg.

"Well, before I knew where I was, the cocoan--I mean