So out they went, and the Chief put up a piece of paper on a tree near the wagon-sheds, not a very big piece either.
“Now, you girl sharpshooters,” he laughed, stepping back, “let’s see what sort of scouts you’d make.”
Ted tried her luck first, and came within an inch of the paper, then Sue shot, and clipped the bark a couple of inches below the mark. Polly was laughing and eager, and managed to take a corner off the white square, but it was Ruth, quiet, steady-handed Grandma, as the girls called her, with spectacles and all, who lifted the rifle to her shoulder, aimed and sighted slowly, and put her bullet where it should go.
“There’s one place where you can’t trust to luck,” said Sandy. “That’s when you’re leveling a gun. You’ve got to think and figure too. Ruth’s got a calculating eye, I should say. We had one little shaver with us, in the Shoshone uprising, with only one eye, and he could pick off any brave’s topknot you’d prefer. We’ll throw some pieces of wood into the creek, and see if you can hit them on the go. That’s good practice.”
“Peggie, you didn’t try,” called Polly, as Peggie came around the corner of the house.
“I went over to the cook-shack to see Fun.”
“Fun?”
“Ah Fun, the cook. He came from California with Sandy a long time ago. His name is Ah Fun, and he never smiles. Isn’t that queer? I always go over and speak to him.”
“Oh, I want to see him too,” Polly said, so after the target practice, a formal call was paid to the cook-cabin, and there they found Ah Fun, a thin old Chinaman, with a face so yellow it looked like a dry maple leaf.
“Better not let the Doctor see him,” said Ruth, in her comical way, without a smile, when they came away. “He’ll gather him up for a fossil specimen sure as shooting.”