Kerwick raised his rifle, and aimed. But the barrel perceptibly wavered, and after an instant of hesitation he lowered the piece. He drew a long breath, aimed again, and then—then, with a convulsive jerk, he pulled the trigger.
At the crack of the rifle a little spray of glittering snow spurted up into the sunlight, just beyond the right edge of the target. The strain had been too heavy. Kerwick’s last and all important shot had gone wide! A small, red flag was raised before the face of the target. Slowly, mockingly it was waved to and fro. “Miss,” said the scorer softly, as he chalked down the fatal zero.
Pollard glanced quickly at the unlucky captain, and then settled into position for firing. Kerwick laughed weakly, and faced about, to walk away. But suddenly he stopped, turned from the sympathizing group behind the firing point, and fixed his gaze upon the targets; for he had become aware that the muscles around his mouth were twitching, and that—because of the glaring snow, perhaps—his eyes were being blinded by a hot gush of tears.
There came a sharp report. Pollard’s last bullet was speeding its way across the two hundred yards of snow. And in a moment the white disk crept into sight—but not on Pollard’s target! Bullseye though the shot was, it could be scored only as a miss.
“Da’—thunderation!” yelled Pollard, giving an exhibition of realistic acting sufficiently fine to have made Salvini faint dead away, could he have seen it. “Oh, glory! I’m on the wrong target—and there goes the blooming old cup! Kerwick’s score outranks. What luck! Oh, what infernal luck!”
There was a roar from the crowd. The knot of excited watchers did not need to be reminded of the rule that, in the case of an absolute tie, the winning score is the one in which the ranking shots lie nearest towards the end. Half the officers sought relief for their feelings by thumping Kerwick upon the back. The other half, among whom little Poore was more than conspicuous, piled themselves upon Pollard. And it was a long time before anybody heard Kerwick protesting that, whatever else he might have won, the cup was Pollard’s, because of a clause in the half-forgotten deed of gift by which the donor was barred from winning his own trophy.
“Why did I do it?” said Pollard later, when reproached for the brilliancy of his shooting in the earlier part of his score. “Well, you see, I just had to. Old Kerwick wouldn’t have half enjoyed his winning if he hadn’t been pushed for the place. Besides, if I’d shot much worse, that child Poore would have gobbled the cup, which never would have done. For I wanted that myself. But I felt like a beast, just the same, when poor old Kerwick broke down, after he’d started a lead mine in the snow with that last bullet of his.”