us exhorted and encouraged the seaman recounted his day's experience.

"Well, you must know, messmates," said he, "that I set sail alone this
mornin', havin' in my pocket the small compass I always carry about me--
also my bearin's before startin', so as I shouldn't go lost in the
woods--though that wouldn't be likely in such an narrow inlet as this
Traitor's Trap, to say nothin' o' the landmarks alow and aloft of all
sorts. I carried a Winchester with me, because, not bein' what you may
call a crack shot, I thought it would give me a better chance to have a
lot o' resarve shots in the locker, d'ye see? I carried also a
six-shooter, as it might come handy, you know, if I fell in wi' a
Redskin or a bear, an' got to close quarters. Also my cutlass, for I've
bin used to that aboard ship when I was in the navy.

"Well, away I went--makin' sail down the valley to begin with, an' then
a long tack into the mountains right in the wind's eye, that bein' the
way to get on the blind side o' game. I hadn't gone far when up starts
a bird o' some sort--"

"What like was it?" asked the scout.

"No more notion than the man in the moon," returned the sailor. "What
wi' the flutter an' scurry an' leaves, branches an' feathers--an' the
start--I see'd nothin' clear, an' I was so anxious to git somethin' for
the pot, that six shots went arter it out o' the Winchester, before I
was quite sure I'd begun to fire--for you must know I've larned to fire
uncommon fast since I come to these parts. Hows'ever, I hit nothin'--"

"Not quite so bad as that, Dick," interrupted the scout gravely.

"Well, that's true, but you better tell that part of it yourself, Hunky,
as you know more about it than me."

"It wasn't of much consequence," said the scout betraying the slightest
possible twinkle in his grey eyes, "but Dick has a knack o' lettin'
drive without much regard to what's in front of him. I happened to be
more in front of him than that bird when he began to fire, an' the first
shot hit my right leggin', but by good luck only grazed the bark. Of
course I dropped behind a rock when the storm began and lay quiet there,
and when a lull came I halloo'd."

"Yes, he did halloo," said Dick, resuming the narrative, "an' that
halloo was more like the yell of a bull of Bashan than the cry of a
mortal man. It made my heart jump into my throat an' stick there, for I
thought I must have killed a whole Redskin tribe at one shot--"

"Six shots, Dic