The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1901-10-13

". liz
vided the town. You see, Hunt lived on
the east side of the railway Much to
my regret, I was unable to follow Mr.
Hunts advice, but instead began prep-y
arations looking to his capture. On or
binary occaSionsaI used Derrincer pis-
tol,f because 1T was smaller and easier
to carry, but this time [ thought per-
haps I would do better to take nv
Colts with me. So | took it out of
its case, cleaned and oiled it thoroughly
and then set out for the east side of the
town When l crossed the tracks and
entered the residence portion [ soon
found that Hunt had communicated to
his ne1ghbors his threat against me, for
l was followed at respectable distance
bN' quite good-sized crowd of eurios-
ity seekers. At that time Danville was
pretty tough place and shooting scrapes
were the peoples principal diversion. l
frequently heard of my man that day,
but was unable to get a sight Of him.
Late in the afternoon L met a fellow
that resided close to Hunt and he In
formed me that theslatter had repented
of, his purpose to kill me on sight and
was making preparations to leave Dan
vile. My informant told me that Hunt
intended to go on horseback by the
nearest road out of town, which was at
the east end of the main street, and con-
tinued east to Covington, Ind, the state
line being only four miles distant. Ac-
Cordingly, L proceeded to take UP my
station at a point by which [ thought
Hunt would pass, and waited for him to
put in an appearance. While 1 was
waiting, the sheriff and chief of police
came up-they wereeout for walk
and asked me who Twas laying for
told them I wanted Tom Hunt, but was
about coming to the conclusion that ne
had given me the slip and left town by
another route. AS / said this l saw
fellow on horseback approaching from
the direction from which 1 expected
Hunt to appear The man was coming
along at an easy gallop Stepping to
the edge of the walk and taking quick
glance in that direction, I saw that It
was the man 1 was after. l ran at
once into the middle of the street and
held up my hand, commanding him to
stop. He came to halt and drew
something from his pocket which, by
the CLEAN, I well knew was revolver.
Wheeling his horse at the same instant,
Hunt dashed madly back in the direc-
ton from which he had come, belaboripg
the animal at every step with the mar
ness strap. At this the sheriff and
chief of police sprang to my side and, 3;
pulling their revolvers, cried: Why
don't you shoot Halls?'
% Well 1 replied, I never could get
the consent of my mind to shoot man
in Sthe back AS 1 said this Hunt had
reached the street crossing, and, evident
ly being afraid 1 would make target OF
his back, made a turn for the corner OF
the next street. As he did this l saw
my opportunity, and, taking a quick aim
atzthe horse along the barrel of my Colt,
I moved the weapon forward some as
lance in front to make allowance for the
aimed in a direct line for the horses
neck, only some distance in front of him.
AS soon as I touched the trigger the horse
seemed to make one smasmodic leap into
the air, burst the saddle girth and threw
his rider far over his head into the street.
Chief of Police Lafferty calculated with
a laugh. Now you have done it, you have
killed them BOTH
'"'No,' I said, I plead guilty to killing
the horse, but if the man is dead the
animal is responsible When we reached
the place we found the horse giving its
last gasp, and an investigation disclosed
that the bullet had entered just back OF
his ear. It took some time to get Hunt
into breathing condition again. and by
reundings he was safely lodged behind
the bars of the town jail.
Zone reason for the fine shooting that
could be done with a Colts revolver was
the length of the barrel and the size of
the handle, which gave the hand a firm
grip the weapon. The tendency since
then has been to shorten the barrel and
increase the size of the grip SO as to
make the revolver easy to carry, and
these changes have detracted greatly
from the weapons usefulness The de-
mand seemed to be for a gun which
should have a large caliber and a short
barrel, to be heavily charged. The con-
sequence was that the heaviness of the
charge and the weight of the bullet pro-
duced a big recoil, which could not be
prevented on account of the short hand
hold.
Say" calculated the secret service Of
fcer, suddenly, did you ever reflect on
the reason why so many shots that are
fired with deadly intent fail of result?
I'll tell you why it is. You see the av-
erage man, when he flies INTO a passion
and wants to shoot somebody, whips out
his pistol, f1ourishes it around in the air
and then brings it down to a level with
his opponents head and fires it, thinking
doubtless that the head j. the best place
at which to aim. Their lie defects which
7 have mentioned get in their work and
the reeoil elevates the revolver above
the would-be victims head and the bull
let sails merrily into the sky or ceiling.
is the case may be-
Now, that is all wrong. The head is
the smallest part of the body, and of
course presents the poorest target The
best place to shoot a man to put him out
of action and the place where you are
ssurest to strike him-where in fact You
can scarcely miss-is the lower part Of
his body in the region of the stomach
Instead of fourishing a revolver around
in the air and bringing it down, the way
to do is to quietly draw the weapon from
the pocket, drop it toward the ground
then make an upward motion with the
weapon, catching a line along the ground
or floor up your opponents leg. stopping
at the stomach. where there IS little or no
protection against pistol ball and the
chances of recovery from a wound are
small. Here you have the whole vital
region of the body in range. If you hap
pen to shoot little higher than you in
tend you are pretty certain to strike a
vital spot and disable your opponent and
If you shoot lower-say in the groin-you
have him in about as bad shape In hand
ling a revolver in this manner you oct
rid of the unnecessary downward notion
Another advantage is that the movement
can be executed so quickly and easily that
it catches a. man off his guard. He does
not have time to prepare himself for the
attack"
DO the secret service officers have to
furnish their own revolvers?s' Capt. Halls
was asked.
NO he replied, 1.-THE government sup
plies the weapons to us and they are the