The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1892-05-10
DEAD SHOTS.
Wonderful craftsmanship of the Texas
Rangers--Hand1ing Revolver and
Rifle with Equal Facility.

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Rife with Equal Facility.
The Rangers were the largest men I
saw in Texas, the State of big men,
says Richard Harding Davis, in HdT-
per's Weekly. And some of them we're
remarkably handsome in a sun-brown-
ed, broad-shouldered, easy, manly
way. They were also somewhat shy
with the strangers, listening very in
tently, but speaking little, and then in
a slow, gentle voice, and as they spoke
so seldom, they seemed to think what
they had to say was too valuable to
spoil by profanity.
When General Mabry found they
would not tell of their adventures, he
asked them to show how they could
shoot, and as this was something they
could do, and not something already
done, they went about it as gleefully as
schoolboys at ecess doing "stunts."
They placed a board a foot wide and
two feet high, some sixty feet off in the
prairie, and Sheriff Scheeley opened
hostilities by whipping out his revolver,
turning it in the air, and shooting, with
the sights upside down into the bulls
eye of the impromptu target. He did
this without disseminating what he
vas saying to me, but rather as though
he were punctuating his remarks with
audible commas.
Then he said, 81 didn't think a you
Rangers would let a little one penny
sheriff get in the first shot on you"
He could afford to say this because he
had been a Ranger himself, and his
brother Joe was one of the best cap
tains the Rangers have had, and he
and all of his six brothers are all over
six feet high. But the taunt produced
an instantaneous volley from every
man in the company; they did not
take the trouble to rise, but shot from
where happened to be sitting or lying
and talking together, and the air rang
with the report and a hundred quick
vibrating little gasps, like the singing
of a wire string when it is frightened on
a banjo.
They exhibited some most wonderful
shooting. They shot with both hands
at the same time, with the hammer
underneath, holding the rifle in one
hand, andnever, when it was a revolver
they were using, with a glance at the
sights. They would some times fire
four shots from 4 Winchester between
the time they had picked it up from
the ground and before it had nestled
comfortably against their shoulder.
They also sent n man on a pony
racing around a tree about as thick as
a mans leg, and were dissatisfied be
cause he only put four out of six shots
into it. Then General Mabry, who
seemed to think | did not fully appre-
ciate what they we're doing, gave a
Winchester ride to Captain Brooks
and myself, and told us to show which
of us could first put eight shots into the
target.
1t seems that to shoot a Winchester
you have to pull a trigger n wayaDd
work a lever backwards and forwards;
this would naturally suggest that there
are three movements-one to throw
out the empty shell, one to replace it
with another cartridge, and the third
to explodet this cartridge. Capt. Brooks,
as far as I could make out from the
sound, used only one movement for his
entire eight shots. AS I guessed, the
trial was more to show Capt. Brooks's
quickness than his craftsmanship. I
paid no attention to the target, but
devoted myself assiduously to manipu-
lating the lever and trigger and aimed
blankly at the prairie.
When l had fired two shots into
space, the captain had put his eight
into the board. They sounded as they
went off like ~ire-crackers we'll started
in a barrel, and mine, in comparison,
like minute guns at sea. The Rangers,
I found, after l saw more of them,
could not shoot as rapidly with a re-
volver as with a rife, and had become
so expert with the smaller weapon that
instead of pressing the trigger for each
shot, they would pull steadily on it,
and snap the hammer until the six
shots were exhausted.
THE BABY'S DAINTY BASKET.