Sandy spread his feet a little farther apart and took a comfortable stance. “Here goes.”
The rifle barked again. “Same place,” Mr. Cook announced. “You sure you were centered?”
“As far as I could tell,” Sandy said, a little annoyed with himself for missing a second time.
“Let Mike have a try at it.”
Sandy handed the rifle over to Mike and stepped back. Two shots rang out in quick succession. Mike looked over at his father questioningly.
“I guess that proves it,” came the answer. “Here, take a look.” He ducked his head through the strap of the binoculars and turned the glasses over to Sandy.
Sandy swung over to the target and focused in on four neat holes clustered close together about five inches to the right of the bull’s-eye.
“I don’t get it,” he said, lowering the glasses. “How come we’re missing?”
“The sights are off,” Mr. Cook explained. “A little adjusting will fix that.” He reached into a side pocket on one of the gun cases and pulled out a screw driver. “Now, let’s see,” he said, glancing over at the target. “At fifty yards, a minute of angle has a value of about half an inch. Each click on this scope is equal to two minutes of angle. That would make—” he pursed his lips as he made the mental calculation—“ahh—five clicks to bring her in line.” He shook his head and pushed his hat back off his forehead. “That’s too much. We’ll have to adjust the windage screws on the scope’s mount.” Squatting on his haunches, he began to manipulate two screws on either side of the sight.
“Hey, Dad!” Mike cut in. “You left me out in left field somewhere. How about filling us in?” He turned to Sandy. “Do you know what’s going on?” he asked.