“We came on the early morning train,” replied Ralph. “We were just in time to witness your parade, which I assure you was something we did not expect to see up here in the woods. You bowmen are bully soldiers.”
“Thank you,” said Arthur, raising his hand to his hat in response to Tom’s very slight nod. “There must be something in what you say, for every one who comes up here tells us the same. The truth is, we ought to be proficient. We have been under the strictest kind of a drill-master, and have done plenty of hard work since our organization two years ago.”
“What first put the idea into your heads?” inquired Loren. “You got it out of your history, didn’t you?”
“And if you did, why don’t you dress up like Indians and adopt their system of tactics?” chimed in Tom, who for the moment forgot that he had resolved that he would not have a word to say to any of the bowmen. “I have read that the Sioux have a drill of their own which is so very bewildering that our best troops can’t stand against it. It seems to me that you make hard work of something that might, under different management, be made to yield you any amount of pleasure.”
“We are very well satisfied with the way our affairs are managed,” answered Arthur, who did not quite like the tone in which Tom uttered these words. “You must know that we are not copying the aborigines, but the Merry Bowmen of Robin Hood’s time. Of course we have to work, for if we didn’t we couldn’t give exhibition drills; but somehow we see plenty of fun with it all. The idea was suggested to us, not by our histories, but by an old man who lives up here in the woods,” added Arthur, turning to Loren, at the same time jerking his thumb over his shoulder and nodding his head toward an indefinite point of the compass. If he intended by these motions to give his auditors an idea of the direction in which the old man referred to lived, he failed completely. “He has seen better days. He used to belong to an archery club in his own country—that’s England, you know—and I tell you he is a boss shot. He makes a very good living with his bow now; but he is so much ashamed of the accomplishment—”
“Excuse me,” interrupted Loren. “I don’t see why he should be ashamed of it.”
“Neither do I,” said Arthur. “But you see, there are very few people in this country who take any interest in archery, and sportsmen, as a general thing, look upon the long bow as a toy; but they always change their minds when they see what it can be made to do in the hands of an expert. Now take those two boys, for example,” added Arthur, directing Loren’s attention to the master bowman and his bugler. “It isn’t every rifle shot who can break as many glass balls in the air as they can.”
“Who are they?” inquired Tom. “We noticed them particularly during the drill.”
“They are Wayring and Sheldon. Would you like to know them? They’re good fellows.”
Arthur looked at Tom as he said this, but Tom didn’t act as though he heard him. He wasn’t anxious to make the acquaintance of boys who could beat him at any thing, but his cousins were not so mean spirited.