The true northerner. [volume] (Paw Paw, Mich.) 1855-1920, 1881-02-11

Most Marvellous Shooting on Record.
They had been talking about the re-
markable performances of Bogardus, the
marksman who shoots with a rifle glass
balls which are sent into the air as fast
MS man can throw them. Presently, d.
B. lodges, the evangelical promoter Of
the Society for the Prevention Of Lying,
who was sitting by, said:
"That's nothing"
whats nothing?"
"Why, that shooting, Did you ever
know Tom Potter?"
mo"
"Well, Potter was the best hand with
rifle 1 ever saw; beat this man Bogar-
dus all hollow. I'll tell you what I've
seen this man Potter do. You know,
maybe, along there in the cherry season,
Mrs. Potter would want to preserve some
cherries; so Tom would pick 'em for her,
and how do you think he'd stone emp"
81 don't know. How"
"Why, he'd fill his gun with bird shot
and get boy to drop half bushel Of
cherries at one time from the roof of the
house. AS they came down he'd fire
and take the stone clean out of every
cherry in the lot. It's positive fact!
He might occasionally miss one, but not
often. But he did bigger shooting than
that when he wanted to-"
"What did he do?"
"Why, Jim Miller-did you know
him ?"
mo"
"Well, Tom made bet once with Jim
that he could shoot the button off his
own coat-tail by aiming in the opposite
direction, and Jim took him up"
"Did he do it?"
"Do it? He fixed himself in position
and aimed at tree in front of him. The
ball hit the tree, caromed, hit the corner
of house, caromed, struck lamp post,
caromed and flew behind Tom and nip
ped the button off as slick as a whistle.
You bet he did itl'
"That was fine shooting"
"Yes, but have seen Tom Potter beat
it. I've seen him stand under flock of
wild pigeons, billions of them, coming
like the wind, and kill them so fast
that the front of the flock never passed
a given line, but turned over and fell
down, so that it looked like brown and
feathery Niagara. Tom did it by hav-
ing twenty-three breech-l loading rifles
and boy to load 'em. He always shot
with that kind"
"You say you saw him do this sort of
shootipg?'
eyes, sir; and better than that, too.
Why, II tell you what have seen Tom
Potter do. l saw him once. set up an
India rubber target at three hundred
feet and hit the bulls eye twenty seven
times minute with the same ball! He
would hit the target, the ball would
bound right back into the rife-bar
just as Tom had clapped in fresh
charge of powder, and so kept her going
backward and forward, until at last he
happened to move his gun and the
bullet missed the muzzle of the gun.
1t was the biggest thing L ever saw-the
biggest except one. j"
"What was that?'
"Why, one day was out with him
when he was practicing, and it came on
! to rain. Tom didn't want to get wet,
and we had no umbrella, and what do
you think he did ?"
"What?"
"Now what do you think that man did
to keep dry?'"
81 can't imagine"
"Well, sir, he got me to load his
weapon for him, and L pledge you my
word, although it began to rain hard, he
hit every drop that came down, SO that
the ground for about eight feet around
MS was as dry as punk. 1t was beauti-
full, sir-beautiful.
And then the company rose up slowly
and passed out, one by one, each man
cycling Hodges and looking solemn as he
went by; and when they had gone
Hodges looked queerly for a moment,
and said to me:
"There's nothing hate so much as
liar. Give me man who is friend of
the solid truth. "-Chicdg0 Nea0S Letter.