way
into the target--and removed all the paint. Haven't the miracles
gone far enough now? Not to suit Cooper; for the purpose of
this whole scheme is to show off his prodigy, Deerslayer--
Hawkeye--Long-Rifle--Leather-Stocking--Pathfinder--Bumppo before
the ladies.

"'Be all ready to clench it, boys!' cried out Pathfinder,
stepping into his friend's tracks the instant they were vacant.
'Never mind a new nail; I can see that, though the paint is
gone, and what I can see I can hit at a hundred yards, though
it were only a mosquito's eye. Be ready to clench!'

"The rifle cracked, the bullet sped its way, and the head of the nail
was buried in the wood, covered by the piece of flattened lead."

There, you see, is a man who could hunt flies with a rifle, and command
a ducal salary in a Wild West show to-day if we had him back with us.

The recorded feat is certainly surprising just as it stands; but it
is not surprising enough for Cooper. Cooper adds a touch. He has made
Pathfinder do this miracle with another man's rifle; and not only that,
but Pathfinder did not have even the advantage of loading it himself.
He had everything against him, and yet he made that impossible shot; and
not only made it, but did it with absolute confidence, saying, "Be ready
to clench." Now a person like that would have undertaken that same feat
with a brickbat, and with Cooper to help he would have achieved it, too.

Pathfinder showed off handsomely that day before the ladies. His
very first feat was a thing which no Wild West show can touch. He was
standing with the group of marksmen, observing--a hundred yards from the
target, mind; one Jasper raised his rifle and drove the centre of the
bull's-eye. Then the Quartermaster fired. The target exhibited no result
this time. There was a laugh. "It's a dead miss," said Major Lundie.
Pathfinder waited an impressive moment or two; then said, in that calm,
indifferent, know-it-all way of his, "No, Major, he has covered Jasper's
bullet, as will be seen if any one will take the trouble to examine the
target."

Wasn't it remarkable! How could he see that little pellet fly through
the air and enter that distant bullet-hole? Yet that is what he did; for
nothing is impossible to a Cooper person. Did any of those people
have any deep-seated doubts about this thing? No; for that would imply
sanity, and these were all Cooper people.

"The respe