"Well, I haven't missed anything—not to speak of—no more than you did," evaded Bill, plainly apprehensive. "What more do you want?"
Jim chuckled.
"Pausin' lightly to observe that it ought to be easy enough to best you, if we was on horseback—just because you peek at your sights when you shoot—I shall now show you something."
A chuck box was propped against the juniper trunk. From this the Texan produced a horseshoe hammer and the lids from two ten-pound lard pails. He strode over to where, ten yards away, two young cedars grew side by side, and nailed a lid to each tree, shoulder-high.
"There!" he challenged his opponent. "We ain't either of us going to miss such a mark as that—it's like putting your finger on it. But suppose the tree was shooting back? Time is what counts then. Now, how does this strike you? You take the lid on the left and I'll take the other. When the umpire says Go! we'll begin foggin'—and the man that scores six hits quickest gets the money. That's fair, isn't it, Johnson?"
This was a slip—Johnson had not given his name—a slip unnoticed by either of the ZK men, but not by Johnson.
"Fair enough, I should say," he answered.
"Why, Jim, that ain't practical—that ain't!" protested Bill uneasily. "You was talking about the tree a-shootin' back—but one shot will stop most men, let alone six. What's the good of shootin' a man all to pieces?"
"Suppose there was six men?"
"Then they get me, anyway. Wouldn't they, Mr. Umpire?" he appealed to Peter Johnson, who sat cross-legged and fanned himself with his big sombrero.