That he is a good marksman goes without telling. At the age of
eight his father gave him a rifle of his own, and at twelve, with
either a "gun" or a Winchester, he was an expert. He taught
himself to use a weapon either in his left or right hand and to
shoot, Indian fashion, hanging by one leg from his pony and using
it as a cover, and to turn in the saddle and shoot behind him. I once
asked him if he really could shoot to the rear with a galloping
horse under him and hit a man.
"Well," he said, "maybe not to hit him, but I can come near enough
to him to make him decide my pony's so much faster than his that
it really isn't worth while to follow me."
Besides perfecting himself in what he tolerantly calls "tricks" of
horsemanship and marksmanship, he studied the signs of the trail,
forest and prairie, as a sailing-master studies the waves and clouds.
The knowledge he gathers from inanimate objects and dumb
animals seems little less than miraculous. And when you ask him
how he knows these things he always gives you a reason founded
on some fact or habit of nature that shows him to be a naturalist,
mineralogist, geologist, and botanist, and not merely a seventh son
of a seventh son.
In South Africa he would say to the officers: "There are a dozen
Boers five miles ahead of us riding Basuto ponies at a trot, and
leading five others.
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