brought a gun. In fact, I didn't
start for this place at all. But I'm here now, and I reckon my fingers
would never get done itching if I couldn't get to pull a trigger. I used
to shoot some on the ranch, you know, and I hope I haven't lost anything
whatever of the knack. If I should beat your score now?"

"You're welcome to."

"Of course I'm more used to a revolver and rifle than to a shotgun, but
I allow I know a kink or two about trap shooting, just the same."

The rattle and click of guns being put together, the snapping of locks,
and the chatter, made pleasant music for gun lovers, as Frank returned
to his friends.

"You didn't let him have your gun?" growled Hodge.

"Yes; I will shoot with yours."

"You're welcome to, of course; but I shouldn't have done it."

"Here goes to kill the first bird!" cried Danny, ambling out with a
repeating shotgun in his hands.

"If you don't hit it first time, you can just sheep on kooting--I mean
keep on shooting!" jollied Rattleton.

"I wish there was a bee round here to sting him!" sighed Bink, as Danny
faced the trap. "I'm so sore from laughing that I know I can't hit
anything."

"You couldn't hit anything, anyway!" said Bruce, putting some shells
into his gun.

"I can hit you!" Bink growled, lunging at him.

"I meant anything small!" said Bruce, brushing aside Bink's blow as if
it had been a fly. "Shoo! Don't bother me, or I may get one of these
shells stuck."

A trap was sprung, and Danny blazed away.

"Missed!" said Dismal.

"And Danny is our crack shot!" moaned Bink. "The papers will say
to-night that our shooting was like a lot of schoolgirls."

"How?" asked Merriwell.

"All misses! Yah! Watch me smash one of those blackbirds into dust."

Bink went forward with much seeming confidence--and missed, too.

"Of course I didn't want to take away all the courage of you fellows by
hitting the first bird," he blandly explained. "But I could have done
it."

The conditions for shooting were fair, for the wind was not so strong as
it had been earlier in the day. Several shots were made, together with a
number of hits. Then Buck Badger's name was called, and he went up to
the line with Merriwell's gun. One of the boys who was manipulating the
traps sprung the middle one, and the bird shot swiftly off to the right.
It was a rather difficult target, but Badger knocked the clay bird into
dust.

"A good shot!" some one called from the crowd.

"It was a good sh