Mr. Clifford, who was listening, seemed interested, and said, "I can understand, Jack, something of what you say. I have never shot a rifle until I came to America, but it is easy to understand why the muscles of the shoulders and arms and of the fingers must all work together perfectly to send a bit of lead over a great distance to a particular spot. We are learning a great deal in these last two or three days, are we not, Henry?"
"Yes, indeed, we are, father," his son replied.
"I think, if you will let me, Jack, I will go with you to-morrow and try my gun when Henry tries his."
"Why, of course, Mr. Clifford," said Jack. "I'd be mighty glad if you would. I was talking about that with Hugh only this morning, and telling him I didn't see how it would be possible for you to have any luck hunting until you had learned these things. You see, I am now telling you only just what Hugh told me years ago, when I first came out here. These are not discoveries that I have made, but things that I've been taught, and that I suppose everybody must be taught, or must learn for himself."
"Well," said Hugh, "I've always said that you took hold of this rifle shooting, almost from the start, son, better than anybody that I ever saw begin. Just as soon as you had learned something about shooting, you were always steady and a good shot."
"Well," said Mr. Clifford, "why should we not all go off to-morrow to this place where Jack is going to try Henry's gun, and then both of us can take a lesson? Why will you not come, Mr. Johnson, and teach me while Jack teaches my boy?"
"Why, surely, I'd like to," said Hugh. "No reason why I should stay in camp to-morrow afternoon."
Hugh asked Mr. Clifford and his son and Jones to eat supper with them that night, and they did so, and after the visitors had returned to their camp, Hugh said to Jack, "Son, we are poor for meat again; you or I will have to go up in the hills and kill something, or else we'll have to eat beaver."
"Well," said Jack, "let's wait and see what happens to-morrow. Perhaps we might run on something when we go down the creek."
"We might," said Hugh, "but I don't think we'll go down far enough to see any antelope, and we're not likely to run on any game down here in the valley."