thought of great cities, but
it holds every straw and entangles every insect that lights upon it. It
soon became rumored in the town that the young master was a wonderful
shot with the pistol. Some said he could hit a fo'pence-ha'penny at
three rod; some, that he had shot a swallow, flying, with a single ball;
some, that he snuffed a candle five times out of six at ten paces, and
that he could hit any button in a man's coat he wanted to. In other
words, as in all such cases, all the common feats were ascribed to him,
as the current jokes of the day are laid at the door of any noted wit,
however innocent he may be of them.

In the natural course of things, Mr. Richard Venner, who had by this time
made some acquaintances, as we have seen, among that class of the
population least likely to allow a live cinder of gossip to go out for
want of air, had heard incidentally that the master up there at the
Institute was all the time practising with a pistol, that they say he can
snuff a candle at ten rods, (that was Mrs. Blanche Creamer's version,)
and that he could hit anybody he wanted to right in the eye, as far as he
could see the white of it.

Dick did not like the sound of all this any too well. Without believing
more than half of it, there was enough to make the Yankee schoolmaster
too unsafe to be trifled with. However, shooting at a mark was pleasant
work enough; he had no particular objection to it himself. Only he did
not care so much for those little popgun affairs that a man carries in
his pocket, and with which you could n't shoot a fellow,--a robber,
say,--without getting the muzzle under his nose. Pistols for boys;
long-range rifles for men. There was such a gun lying in a closet with
the fowling-pieces. He would go out into the fields and see what he
could do as a marksman.

The nature of the mark which Dick chose for experimenting upon was
singular. He had found some panes of glass which had been removed from
an old sash, and he placed these successively before his target,
arranging them at different angles. He found that a bullet would go
through the glass without glancing or having its force materially abated.
It was an interesting fact in physics, and might prove of some practical
significance hereafter. Nobody knows what may turn up to render these
out-of-the-way facts useful. All this was done in a quiet way in one of
the bare spots high up the side of The Mountain. He was very thoughtful
in