As the beaters approached, crashing the underbrush and shouting lustily, the three stood motionless, guns ready: the suspense grew tense and the beaters grew silent as they hurried, unseen, from the line of fire. A moment of dead silence, then Lindsey heard to his right a dry twig snap and turning saw a big boar slip out from the brush and pause, its ugly tusks foam-flecked. His heavy gun crashed, the boar leaped convulsively across the clearing, falling at a second shot. As it dropped he whirled to cover a big buck which sped across his field of fire: as it fell he heard the cracking of a lighter weapon to his right and thought, as he shot again and again, that his guests were not being disappointed in their sport.
It was fast work while it lasted. Lindsey inspected with keen satisfaction the bag of two pigs and one deer that had fallen to his gun: he had missed one boar and another, which he had wounded, had escaped down the trail which led to his house. He turned to see how his friends had fared.
The Major was known as a crack shot but no game lay before him. Approaching him, surprised, Lindsey saw that he was absent-mindedly putting his rifle at safe the while he stared at Terry.
"Major, I'm sorry you had no chances—" Lindsey began but the Major interrupted him.
"Chances! Chances? Sus-marie-hosep! Some of those pigs almost ran up my breeches!" He was as nearly excited as Lindsey had ever seen him, and they had served together in a Kansas regiment.
"Lindsey, I'm sure glad you asked me to come—I've seen something worth seeing. I've seen him shoot!"
He pointed to Terry. His borrowed rifle stood nearby against a tree and he was busy clipping fresh ammunition into his pistol magazines. Five wild pigs lay in front of him near the opposite side of the clearing. Lindsey looked his unbelief.
"Yes, he did!" asserted the Major. "I watched him do it—that's why I drew a blank. Five pigs, five shots,—and after each shot he holstered the gun till the next pig hove in sight! I've seen good shooting, but such drawing—such certainty—
"Sus-marie-hosep!" he wound up, lamely.
Terry, having replenished his magazine, clipped it into the big automatic with a deft snap, and turned round toward them. Noting their attitude, he colored boyishly.