“That is more than enough to win,” he laughed.
Then he seemed to grow careless, for he missed again.
He finished by making ninety-six out of one hundred shots.
“There,” he said, “that is pretty bad, but it is good enough to beat the tenderfoot and have twenty to spare.”
“We shall see,” thought Frank.
Merriwell took the position Charlie had vacated, and then, to the amazement and disappointment of every one, missed the second ball.
No one was more surprised than Frank by the miss, but it did not rattle him in the least. He remembered the gun in his hands shot “close,” and resolved to take unusual care.
Then he went on shooting, and for the next fifty shots he did not make a single miss.
Frank followed up his success with twenty-five more without a break, and then missed one.
When eighty was reached, Frank was tied, having made seventy-eight.