The old man took the gun, weighed it in his hands, tried the pull-of the trigger, and examined the sights.
"Hit air about the weight of the ole Minie rifle," he said, "an' the sights air fine. Do hit shoot where you hold it?"
"I think it may be depended on at this range," replied the Duke.
"Well," said the old man, "I hain't shot for a purty long spell, but I'll jist try it a whet."
He lifted the gun to his shoulder, pressed his bronzed cheek to the stock, and slipped his left hand out to the full length of the arm under the barrel. The two figures were within a dozen paces of the dead fir tree. The Duke thought one of them was the Japanese whom he had seen watching the château, and the other a forester, but he could not be certain at the distance. For perhaps thirty seconds the mountaineer stood like a figure cast in plaster, then the muzzle of the rifle began slowly to descend, and the report crashed out over the tree tops.
The forester, a little in advance of the other, fell in the road, his head and shoulders doubled up under him. The other, at the report, jumped as high as he could into the air, turned entirely around before he touched the earth, and began to run down the road. He ran, evidently in terror, his legs moving grotesquely on the center of the brown ribbon. The old mountaineer remained unmoving; his left hand far out under the barrel of the rifle, his face set to the stock. He moved the bolt and returned his finger to the trigger. Then the rigid muzzle of the rifle began once more to descend, in a dead straight line, and the report followed. The quaint figure, its legs twinkling on the ribbon, shot up into the air, and then fell spraddled out in the road, its arms and legs extended.
The Duke of Dorset turned to the mountaineer.
"My friend," he said, "that is the best shooting I ever saw—a moving target at more than five hundred yards."
The old man removed the gun from his shoulder and handed it to the Duke, stopped, picked up his hat and put it on his head. Then he replied to the Duke's compliment.
"Stranger," he said, "hit air the Almighty that kills."