oughtfulness, his quick sympathy; and she felt deeply and speechlessly
grateful. And she was also vaguely touched with wonder.

"You can go in there now," he told her. "But there's one thing--I
want to show you--before you turn in."

"Yes?"

"I want to show you this little pistol." He took a light arm of blue
steel from his belt,--the small-calibered and automatic weapon with
which he had gilled the grouse. "It's only a twenty-two," Bill went on,
"but it shoots a long cartridge, and it shoots ten of 'em, fast as you
pull the trigger. You could kill a caribou with it, if you hit him
right."

"Yes?" And she wondered at this curious interlude in their moment of
parting.

"You see this little catch behind the trigger guard?" The girl nodded.
"When you want to fire it, all you have to do is to push up the little
catch with your thumb and pull the trigger. To-morrow I'm going to
teach you how to shoot with it--I mean shoot straight enough to take
the head off a grouse at twenty feet. And so it will bring you luck, I
want you to sleep with it,--under your pillow."

Understanding flashed through her, and a slow, grateful smile played at
her lips. "I don't want it, Bill," she told him.

"You'd feel safer with it," the man urged. He slipped it under her
pillow. "And even before you learn to shoot it well--you could--if
you had to--shoot and kill a man."

He smiled again and drew her curtain.

* * * * *

Bill was true to his promise to teach Virginia to shoot. The next day
he put up an empty can out from the door of the cabin and they had
target practice.

First he showed her how to hold the weapon and to stand. "See the can
just over the sights and press back gradually," he urged.

The first shot went wide of its mark. The second and third were no
better. But by watching her closely, Bill found out her mistake.

"You flinch," he told her. "It's an old mistake among hunters--and
the only way you can avoid it is by deepest concentration. Skill in
hunting--as well as in everything else--depends upon throwing the
whole energy of your mind and body into that one little part of an
instant when you pull the trigger. It's all right to be excited before.
You're not human if, the game knocked over, you're not excited after.
But unless you can hold like iron for that fraction of a second, you
can't shoot and you never can shoot."

"But I'm not excited now," she objected.

"You haven't got full discipli