The targets, eight in number, which had been made by the boys a few days before, were really fine affairs. They were painted on sheets of strong pasteboard, and were each about eighteen inches in diameter. Every circle, from the bull's-eye to the outer ring, was carefully made out, and all the targets were of exactly the same measurements. Eight rough tripods already awaited them at the shooting-range, and each tripod had its upright piece of eighteen-inch plank at the top, to which a pasteboard target was now to be firmly fastened.
On any ordinary occasion one or two tripods would have been sufficient, but on this special day there was to be a real "match," and a target to each man would be required, so that the contestants could show a clear record of every shot. Experience had proved this to be the best plan.
The spot selected for the shooting-range was well adapted to the purpose. It was a plateau or broad strip of level land, forming the summit of the long slope that rose from the apple-orchard back of the Reed mansion. At the rear or eastern limit of this level land was a steep, grassy ridge, called by the D's the second hill.
Perhaps you will see the plateau more clearly if you read this description which Dorry afterward wrote in a letter to a friend at boarding-school:
"Don and the boys have made a rustic summer-house by an apple-tree on the second hill, back of the house. It's so high up that you can look across our place from it, and see the lake in front, and the village far down at the left. It is beautiful, at sunset, looking from the summer-house, for then the lake sometimes seems to be on fire, and the trees in the orchard between us and the road send long shadows that creep, creep up the hill as if they were alive. You see we really have two hills, and these are separated or joined, whichever you please, by a long level strip more than a hundred feet wide, forming a grassy terrace. I often imagine a long row of enormous giants resting there on the grass side by side, sitting on the great wide level place, with their backs leaning against the second hill, and their feet reaching nearly to the edge of the first hill. Now, I hope you understand. If you don't you will when you come here to visit me this fall. Well, it was on this level ground that we had the shooting-match I'm going to tell you about, and where something happened that I'll never, never forget as long as I live."
While Don and Ed, assisted by the doughty Daniel, are at work setting up the row of targets close to the base of the second hill, so that stray bullets may be safely buried in the soft earth-wall, and while Dorry and Charity are watching the boys from the shady summer-house, we may look into Mr. Reed's study.
He is sitting in his arm-chair by the window, but the warm breeze stealing through the closed blinds is not lulling him to repose; his face is troubled, and he holds something in his hand which he is studying intently, though it seems to give him no satisfaction. It is a small gold chain or necklace, with an old-fashioned square clasp. On a graceful mahogany stand close by are several articles carefully laid together near an open box, as though he had been examining them also. They were there when Donald knocked at the door, a few moments ago, to ask his uncle to come up and see the arrangements for the shooting-match. But Mr. Reed, without unlocking the door, had said he was very busy, and begged Don to excuse him.
"Certainly, Uncle; but I'm sorry," Don had replied, and even while trudging up the hill with the targets his mind had been busy.
"What is the matter? Something is troubling Uncle George yet. I've noticed it very much of late. There's more to be told, and I must soon have a good square talk with him about it. There's no use in putting it off for ever.—We can't excuse him from the match though. Why, it would spoil the whole thing not to have Uncle see it.—Wouldn't it, Dot?" he asked aloud, as Dorry at that moment joined him.
"Wouldn't what?"