queeze." Then
the blank target, beside the great 28, began to sink, and down I dropped.
I was not nervous now; at least I did not tremble. I tried to fire slow,
to squeeze, to keep on my own target, (for truly, as the captain lately
said, firing on another man's target is one of the sad things of life.)
My second clip I had to shoot quicker until my last shot, when the coach
said, "Plenty of time." So I sighted and squeezed my best, felt that I
could call the bullseye, and pulling out the bolt for the last time, to
show that the breech and magazine were empty, stood up and stepped back.
Now for the score.

The target rose at last. The red disk was all I hoped for, but there came
the white, again the white, again the white, again, again, again, then
three times the red, and once the black. I still waited, having lost
count. Would the flag come now? But no, the target sank, and my coaches
congratulated me on a forty-five!

(_Evening. In the tent._) Well, I won't put in too much detail for you,
to whom perhaps this shooting has no interest. We finished at two hundred
yards and moved back, carrying benches, racks, chairs, flags, everything,
and began over again at three hundred yards, prone. The men were mostly
very much on the stretch, and I admit that I was, for while I now was
practically sure of my grade of marksman, I might, by shooting especially
well, even become a sharpshooter. Lucy was in a similar state, marksman
being within his grasp. Randall was swaggering; he had been shooting
well. But Knudsen was very anxious, surprising in so cool a fellow. "To
be Expert," he said, "I've got to make a fifty. Confound it, I'm afraid
that shot I sent into the wrong target will ruin my chances. I need the
little leeway it would give."

Well, he missed it by two, and that little error undid him. Lucy got his
grade of marksman, and his excitement was delightful. He sought out each
member of the squad and called for congratulations. How disgusted his
mother would be to see him with his hand on Pickle's shoulder, discussing
the score, for really, don't you know, socially Pickle is less than
nobody! I made my grade as sharpshooter, just made it, with a forty-nine.

Poor Reardon! His scores had not been good, only a miracle could make him
marksman, but he lost his chance. Loretta--

I'll tell you about Loretta, a sergeant whom the boys have nicknamed
thus. Luckily he is not in our platoon; but we soon got to know the lofty
smil