She felt safer to take the pistol, she said; for if any animal were to attack us, she could be sure to wound if not to kill it. "No animal," she argued very sensibly, "could be dangerous at a distance of twenty feet or more. And if he should come within that, I could not fail hitting pretty near his head or heart. You see, I missed only six inches in the shooting-gallery, and a bear or a wolf would be much larger than my target."
When you want to convince others, always speak as though your proposition is unquestionable. Every body knows that the majority of persons in the majority of cases find it troublesome to think for themselves, and that if you are positive enough, you can make them believe any thing. If Blanch had been a shade less logical and decided, I might have submitted that a pasteboard target does not pounce upon you and hug you to death, or tear you into inch pieces while you are taking aim, and that with a wild live creature to glare back with two great threatening eyes into her one blue eye looking at him, like a murderous violet, over the pistol-barrel, her nerves might be shaken to the extent of another six inches from the mark. But her air was one of such perfect conviction that my subjunctive case expired without a sigh.
The tree-tops were still full of sunshine when we started to go home, but the road was shaded. Blanch seemed a little uneasy.
"I believe we'd be awful good to eat," she said apprehensively. Even in speaking, she stopped short, I stopped, we stopped all two, as the French say. Directly in front of us and not far away, sitting with an air of deliberation in the middle of the road, was a large, clumsy, shaggy beast that looked at us with an inexplicable expression. I had never had the pleasure of an introduction to this animal, but none was needed. I had seen his portrait on the outside of hair-oil bottles. The resemblance was striking.
Blanch turned very red, and raised her pistol.
"Shall I fire?" asked the little heroine in a stage-whisper.
"Fire!"
Her hand was trembling like a leaf in the wind; but she took beautiful aim, and I am bound to confess that her pasteboard target could not have received the attention with more unmoved tranquillity. The pistol went hard, though, and the pull she had to give the trigger brought the muzzle down, so that instead of the shot striking within six inches of the bear's heart or brain, it struck up a little puff of dust, and took off the devoted head of a buttercup about five feet from us.
"Have I hit him?" she asked breathlessly, opening her eyes. She had shut them very tight on firing.
She had not hit him; but he took the hint, and got himself clumsily out of the way. I thought he acted as though his feelings were hurt.