bullet, looked at it, and shook his head in token that he had cut off
too much or too little, no one knew which, sent down the ball, measured
the contents of his gun with his first and second fingers on the
protruding part of the ramrod, shook his head again, to signify there
was too much or too little powder, primed carefully, placed an arched
piece of tin over the hind sight to shade it, took his place, got a
friend to hold his hat over the foresight to shade it, took a very long
sight, fired, and didn't even eat the paper.

"My piece was badly _loadned_," said Simon, when he learned the place of
his ball.

"Oh, you didn't take time," said Mealy. "No man can shoot that's in such
a hurry as you is. I'd hardly got to sleep 'fore I heard the crack o'
the gun."

The next was Moses Firmby. He was a tall, slim man, of rather sallow
complexion; and it is a singular fact, that though probably no part of
the world is more healthy than the mountainous parts of Georgia, the
mountaineers have not generally robust frames or fine complexions: they
are, however, almost inexhaustible by toil.

Moses kept us not long in suspense. His rifle was already charged, and
he fixed it upon the target with a steadiness of nerve and aim that was
astonishing to me and alarming to all the rest. A few seconds, and the
report of his rifle broke the deathlike silence which prevailed.

"No great harm done yet," said Spivey, manifestly relieved from anxiety
by an event which seemed to me better calculated to produce despair.
Firmby's ball had cut out the lower angle of the diamond, directly on a