"Wait. I'll divide them according to your size and strength. These two are war bows. I think I'll give them to Master Tad and Ned Rector. It takes a strong arm to pull them, and you'll want to be careful which way you shoot."
"I'll show you fellows how to shoot," averred Stacy. "I can beat any boy in the bunch with the bow and arrow. I learned the trick up in New England, where I come from. My ancestors learned it from the Indians, who used to shoot them up, and the trick has been handed down in my family. Somebody throw up his hat and see me pink it," he directed, stringing his bow skilfully.
The boys could not repress a smile at Chunky's self-praise.
"Here you go," said Ned, sending his sombrero spinning high in the air, hoping thereby to take Stacy so much by surprise that he would be unable to draw a bead on it.
But Chunky demonstrated that, however slow he might be in some other things, he could twang a bow with remarkable skill.
Even before the hat had spent its upward flight, Stacy Brown's bowstring sang, a slender dark streak sped through the air, its course laid directly for the hat of which its owner was so proud.
"Hi there! Look out! You're going to hit it!" warned Ned.
That was exactly what Stacy had intended to do, though none had had the slightest idea that he could shoot well enough to accomplish the feat.
To their astonishment, the keen-pointed arrow went fairly into the center of the hat, coming out at the crown, its feathered butt tearing a great rent in the peak of the sombrero as it passed through.
Ned groaned as he witnessed the disaster that had come upon his new hat. But he got no sympathy from the rest of the boys.