The Kootenai herald. [volume] (Kootenai, Idaho) 1891-1904, 1892-08-26
EXPERT eHooTERs.
Some Remarkably Eapid Firing by the
big Rangers of Texas.

Some Remarkably Eapid Firing by the
Zig Rangers of Texas.
The rangers were the largest men saw
in Texas. the state of big men. And some
of them were remarkably handsome in a
sunburned, broad shouldered, easy, manly
way. They were also somewhat shy with
the strangers, listening very intently, but
speaking little, and then in II 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 recess do
ing "stints." They placed board a foot
wide and two feet high some sixty feet off
in the prairie and Sheriff Scheeley opened
hostilites by whipping out his revolver,
turning it in the air and shooting, with
the sights upside down, into the bullseye
of the impromptu target. lie did this
without disseminating what he was saying
to me, but rather as though he were
punctuating his remarks with audible
commas.
Then he said, II didn't think a. you
rangers would let little one penny sher-
iff 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 captains the rangers have
had, and he and all of his brothers are 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 they happened
to be sitting or lying and talking together
and the mir rang with the reports and a
hundred quick vibrating little gasps, like
the singing of a wire string when it is
frightened on Il banjo
They exhibited some most wonderful
shooting. They shot with both hands at
the same time, with the hammer under
meath, holding the rifle in one hand, and
never, when it was a revolver they were
using, with II glance at the sights. They
would sometimes fire four shots from a
Winchester between the time they had
picked it up from the ground and before
IL had nestled comfortably against their
shoulder. They also sent one man on a pony
racing around a tree about as thick as
mans leg, and were dissatisfied because he
only put four out of six shots into it. Then
General Mabry, who seemed to think did
not fully appreciate what they were doing,
BdNG Il ~ luCntSbeI Tlllc 10 captain IbfOOkS
and myself and told us to show which of
us could first put eight shots into the tar
get.
1t seems that to shoot u Winchester you
have to pull IL trigger one way and work
lever backward and forward This would
naturally suggest that there are three
to throw out the empty
shell, one to replace it with another car
fridge and the third to explode this car
fridge. Captain Brooks, so far as | could
make out from the sound, used only one
for his entire eight Shots AS
guessed, the trial was more to show Cap
tain Brooks quic.,ness rather than his
craftsmanship, paid no attention to the
target, but devoted myself assiduously to
the lever and trigger and
aimed blankly at the prairie.
When | had lired two shots into space
the captain had put his eight into the
board. They sounded as they went off like
lrecrackers well started in barrel, and
mine, in comparison, like minute guns at
sea. The rangers, | found after / saw
more of them could shoot as rapidly with
o revolver AS with rife, and had become
so expert with the smaller weapon that in
stead of pressing the trigger for each shot
they would pun steadily on it aud snap the
hammer until the six shots were exhausted.
Richard Harding Davis in Harpers
Weekly.