he merit of being strictly true, and hence were not very
thrilling or marvelous. Uncle Nathan's tendency was rather to tone down
and belittle his experiences than to exaggerate them. If he ever bragged
at all (and I suspect he did just a little, when telling us how he
outshot one of the famous riflemen of the American team, whom he was
guiding through these woods), he did it in such a sly, round-about
way that it was hard to catch him at it. His passage with the rifleman
referred to shows the difference between the practical off-hand skill of
the hunter in the woods and the science of the long-range target hitter.
Mr. Bull's Eye had heard that his guide was a capital shot and had seen
some proof of it, and hence could not rest till he had had a trial of
skill with him. Uncle Nathan, being the challenged party, had the right
to name the distance and the conditions. A piece of white paper the size
of a silver dollar was put upon a tree twelve rods off, the contestants
to fire three shots each off-hand. Uncle Nathan's first bullet barely
missed the mark, but the other two were planted well into it. Then the
great rifleman took his turn, and missed every time.

"By hemp!" said Uncle Nathan, "I was sorry I shot so well, Mr. ------
took it so to heart; and I had used his own rifle, too. He did not get
over it for a week."

But far more ignominious was the failure of Mr. Bull's Eye when he saw
his first bear. They were paddling slowly and silently down Dead River,
when the guide heard a slight noise in the bushes just behind a little
bend. He whispered to the rifleman, who sat kneeling in the bow of
the boat, to take his rifle. But instead of doing so he picked up his
two-barreled shot-gun. As they turned the point, there stood a bear
not twenty yards away, drinking from the stream. Uncle Nathan held the
canoe, while the man who had come so far in quest of this very game was
trying to lay down his shot-gun and pick up his rifle. "His hand moved
like the hand of a clock," said Uncle Nathan, "and I could hardly keep
my seat. I knew the bear would see us in a moment more, and run." Instead
of laying his gun by his side, where it belonged, he reached it across
in front of him and laid it upon his rifle, and in trying to get the
latter from under it a noise was made; the bear heard it and raised his
head. Still there was time, for as the bear sprang into the woods he
stopped and looked back,--"as I knew he would," said the guide; y