the chestnut, had
me alongside the cow. I stuck the muzzle a'most into her ribs, and let
drive. Down she went by the head, fairly scuttled, an' I could hear
young Archie givin' a wild cheer astern."

"`That's the way to go it, Jenkins!' he yelled. `Load again.'

"But it was easier said than done, I can tell you. You see, I've bin
brought up to cartridges all my life, an' the change to pullin' a
stopper out o' a horn wi' your teeth, pourin' the powder into your left
hand, wi' the gun under your left arm, an' the pitchin' o' the frigate,
like as if it was in a cross sea, was raither perplexin'. Hows'ever, it
had to be done, for I was alongside of another cow in a jiffy. I nigh
knocked out two o' my front teeth in tryin' to shove the stopper in my
mouth. Then, when I was pourin' the powder into my hand, I as near as
could be let fall the gun, which caused me to give a sort of gasp of
anxiety, when two o' the three bullets dropped out o' my mouth, but I
held on to the third wi' my teeth. Just then a puff o' wind blew the
powder out o' my hand into the buffalo's eyes, causin' her to bellow
like a fog-horn, an' obleegin' me to pour out another charge. I did it
hastily, as you may well believe, an' about three times what I wanted
came out. Hows'ever, I lost a deal of it in pourin' it into the gun;
then I spat the ball in, gettin' another nasty rap on the teeth as I did
so, but I'd bit the ball so that it stuck half-way down.

"It was no time to think o' trifles. I gave the butt an extra bang on
the pommel to send the ball home, shoved the muzzle right in among the
hair an' pulled the trigger. There was a bang that sounded to me as if
the ship's magazine had blown up. It was followed by a constellation o'
fire-works and--Archie Sinclair must tell you what happened arter that,
for I misremember the whole on it. The fire-works closed the scene to
me."

Archie, nothing loath, and with glistening eyes, took up the narrative
at this point, while the hero of the hour rekindled his pipe.

"The fact is," he said, "the gun had burst--was blown to atoms; not a
bit o' the barrel left, and a great lump o' the stock struck Jenkins on
the head, stunned him, and tumbled him off his horse."

"That was the magazine explosion and fire-works," explained Jenkins.

"But the queer thing was," continued Archie, "that the buffalo fell
dead, and, on examining it, we found that a bit o' the barrel had been
driven right into its brai