The daily morning journal and courier., 1900-07-09
MORNING COURIER MONDAY JULY

be. Otherwise, it is plain that the near
 CT you come to hair-trigger the bette
 your aim will be.
 However, whether Miss Mivart wa:
 fully aware of what she was doing, no
 body ever knows, unless perhaps it was
 Greville-and he, like Zuleika, never
 told. But Burton had a bad time of It
 and all his beautiful score went fol
 worse than nothing at all. That
 though, was the end And the begin
 ming ought to come first. The begin.
 ming was when Miss Mivart undertook
 to learn to shoot a carbine
 There was a target-practice competi-
 tion going on a the post; not one whict
 was of any interest to the service, or
 even to the department at large; just a
 little local affair, devised to keep up the
 esprit de corps of the troops and to
 tighten the monotony of life. There
 were three contests, one for troops and
 companies, as such; one for individual gprivates, and one for the officers. This
 last was to finish off, and then there
 was to be a big hop,
 Every one knew from the first, when
 Burton Greville shot with their troops, that the officers competition would lie i between them. This made It interest
 ing in more ways than one, because the | rivalry was not confined to the target
 range, but extended to the winning of i Miss Mivart's hand and heart, and eve ry one believed that this would settle a matter she did not appear to be able to settle for herself. Not that she was to
 blame for that Any one, even a person { much more certain of her own mind
 than Miss Mivart was, would have been put to + to choose.
 | They were both first lieutenants and | both cavalrymen and both good to look | upon. Burton was fair and Greville was dark but she had no fixed preju- diees regarding that. She had often said SO Also, both were as much in love with her as even she could have wished, and were more than willing that all the world should see it--than which nothing is more pleasant and soothing to right-minded woman.
 The rifle contest lasted ten days, dur ing which time the air hummed With the ping and sing of bullets over the range, and with the calls of the mark CTS in the rifle-pits Only scores and records and bets were thought and talked about.
 Miss Mivart herself had bet, with all the daring wickedness of a kitten teas ing beetle. She even went so far as to bet on both Burton and Greville at once. The adjutant undertook to ex- plain to her that that was called "hedg- ing' and was not looked upon as alto gether sporty. Miss Mivart was hurt. Was It really dishonest, she wanted to know The adjutant felt that he had been unkind. He hastened to assure her that it was not-not dishonest in the least only that 1t took away from the excitement of the thing to a certain ex- tent. Miss Mivart smiled and shook her head. No, she didn't think that it did, because, of course. she knew herself which one she wanted to have win. The adjutant admitted that that might pos siby be just as interesting for herself and the fortunate man. And which was he, if he might ask? Miss Mivart shook her head and smiled again. No, she didn't think he might ask. As the man himself didn't know, she could hardly tell any one else just yet, could she? She had her own ideas about fair play.
 T can shoot q carbine. myself, she told the adjutant, with her cleft chin proudly raised; and my shoulder Is all black and blue. MT. Burton is teaching me"
 "Oh! said the adjutant. and what does Grevlle think about that?" The adjutant was married, so he was out of the hunning.
 MT Grevlle is teaching me, too,' said Georgia; and here he comes for me now 4&
 Burton was safe on the target range. over behind the barracks, Miss Mivart and Greville went In the other direction, by the back of the officers row, over in the foothills across the creek. Greville nailed the top of a big red pasteboard | box to the trunk of a tree, and Miss hit it once out of sixteen times when she was aiming at the head of d prairie dog at least twenty feet away to the right. The other fifteen shots were scattered among the foothills.
 Then her shoulder hurt her so that she was ready to cry. Greville would have liked to have her cry upon his own shoulder, but, as she didn't, he did some faicy shooting to distract her He found mushroom can, and threw 1t | into the air and filled it full of holes. She had seen Burton do the same thing | that morning with a tomato tin. In fact, from where she sat now, on a |ichen- covered rock, she could see the can glittering in the sun. over beyond the arroyo. So she thirsted for fresher sensations.
 "T'll tell you sbe said to Greville, as ne held up the mushroom can for her to inspect the eight holes he had made with five shots, "let me toss up your nat, and you make a hole through the trademark in the crown"
 It was a nice, new straw hat. Gre villeville had sent east for 1t, and it had 'ome by stage the day before It had cost him, express paid, S4.75, This, too, II time when anything he had left af- CT settling his mess and suffers and