The Houma courier. (Houma, La.) 1878-1939, 1900-10-13
On the Triggers Pull
By GwendoIen OYertOn.

e


HERE is always trouble of one
sort or another when a woman
NEEDLES with those things which do
not concern her sex
Obviously, carbines were none Of
Miss Nfvart's concern If she felt that
she had to play with firearms she
should have kept to Flobert rifles.
Nothing would do, however, but that
ahe must learn to shoot a carbine,
and the result was that the whole
post rose up and cut Burton, to a
inani 50 that there was no peace for
him any longer in that regiment, and
he a w seek transfer to another.
oher results, also but
an.
H 1 tat
did was done on eea
thought that It piees
skllinesss The. lattat based 6hs
gument upon the general frivolous
ness Of her ways, and upon the iuno-
eency Of her round, blue eyes. The
former held to bhe belief that Miss
Mivart was one OF a ase women favor
ties Of Fortune who look greater fools
than they are. They said, with GER
tain show of reason, that Georgia
MiYart was child Of the service and
not an importation from civil life
She had been porn in a garrison, and
had played with rows Of empty, green
trimmed cartridge shells at an age
when most little girls play with paper
dolls. She had hummed snatches of
the bugle calls before she could talk,
and the person she had admired the
most and obeyed the best for the first
dozen years of her life had been
Kreutzer, Capt. Mivart's tow-headed
striker. A few years of boarding
school back east could not have OBJ
liberated all that
Besides, the veriest civilian, who has
never come nearer to a carbine than
to watch a Fourth of July militia pa
rade, might reasonably be expected
to know by intuition that in target
practice competition every trigger has
got to pull just so hard, whatever the
regulation number or fraction of
pounds may be. Otherwise, it is plain
that the nearer you come to hair
trigger the better your aim will be.
However, whether Miss Mivart was
fully aware of what she was doing, no
body ever knew, unless perhaps it was
Greville-and he, like Zuleilka, never
told. But Burton had a bad time of it,
and all his beautiful score went for
worse than nothing at all.
That, though, was the end. The be-
ginning ought to come first The be-
ginning was when Miss Mivart under
took to learn to shoot carbine
There was a target practice compe-
ttition going on at the post; not one
which was of any interest to the
service, or even to the department at
large; just a little local affair, devised
to keep mp 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 privates and
one for the officers. This last was
to finish of, and then there was to be
3 big hop.
Everyone knew from the first, when
Burton and Greville shot with their
troops that the officers competition
would lie between them. This made
il interesting ia more ways than one,
because the tlvalry was not confined
TO the target range, but extended to
the winning Of Miss Mivart's hand and
heart, and everyone 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.
Anyone, even 8 person much more
certain Of her own mind than Miss
Aigart was, would have been put to It
20 choose.