“Blaze a pine tree! Half of you won’t be able to hit the tree. Take the barn door.”
“We haven’t got knives,” said Ricker.
“I’ve got my hunting knife,” said Uncle Isaac; “one knife will do for the whole of us.”
“I’ve got an Indian tomahawk in the house,” said Charlie; “one that you gave me, Uncle Isaac, long ago.”
A bull’s eye was marked out on the barn door; the knife was held by the point of the blade, and flung. Uncle Isaac, when, after the first two trials, he had ascertained his distance, hit the centre of the target every time; Joe Griffin nearly as often; Charlie, Fred, and John, who had at other times practised a good deal with Uncle Isaac and each other, twice out of three times.
“It takes Walter Griffin to throw a knife. He’d hit that mark every time.”
“I wish he was here,” said Fred. “I feel, since he went to sea, as though about half of me was gone.”
As to the rest, some hit within six inches; others didn’t hit the door; and others flung the knife so that it struck flatways, or on the end of the handle.