Yardarm

“ We might have been out a couple of hours, watching every patch of jungle and blade of long rank grass for a sight of the striped skin, writhing through the reeds, that we so longed to see, when the quick, short crack of a rifle away to the right brought us to a halt, and every one drew a long breath and turned, gun in hand, in the direction whence the sound had come. ”

“ For the first few yards there was little or no cover save a few stumps and a pile of firewood, and behind these he crept, hardly daring to breathe. He had buckled the filled cartridge belt around him, but the rifle was an impediment that could not be disposed of so easily. So long as he must crawl, he had to drag the weapon along as best he could; and remembering that he had heard that even a plug of snow will cause a gun barrel to burst when it is fired, he halted behind the woodpile and stopped the muzzle of the rifle with a rag torn from his handkerchief. ”

“ The long, cumbrous rifle seemed the favourite weapon, and in the hands of the diminutive, sallow, but black-eyed and venturous dweller in the swamps of the lowlands, across whose knee we may here and there see it resting, it may confidently be held as fatal at a hundred yards. ”

“ If it became necessary to resort to the expedient of blowing up the gun, it would be done by placing a shell in the breech of the chamber, the breech closed, another shell inside the muzzle, the lanyard fastened to the firing lever and strung out of the front pit door for a distance of 25 or 30 feet to a large tree standing at our rear, fastened to the tree, and when retreating pull it from there, blowing the gun and the gun pit into as many pieces. ”

“ High against the chimney, on two dogwood forks, rested the long rifle with its fishtail sight and the brass plate on the stock for the bullets and the "patching." Below it hung the old powder-horn, its wooden plug dangling from a string,—tools of the long ago. Closing one's eyes one could see the tall grandsires fighting in the beech forest, a brown patch of hide sighted over the brass knife-blade bead, and death, and to load again with the flat neck of the bullet set in the palm of the hand and covered with powder. ”

“ The central pellets have thus an allowance given them to compensate for distance and the motion of the object. You look along the imaginary line, higher at the breech according to distance, and at this elevation the gun is fired, exactly as a rifle target-shooter sets his breech sights to a given distance.
“How does a man drive a nail? Certainly not by closing one eye and looking along the hammer; but with both eyes open, he mechanically balances the hammer and strikes instinctively, never, if accustomed to the use of the tool, missing his aim. It is the same in shooting.” ”

“ Accordingly I struck off to my left, and continuing straight forward for some hundred yards, I again struck into the thick jungle and came round to the wind. Success depended on extreme caution; therefore I advised my three men to keep close behind me with the spare rifles, as I carried my single-barrelled Beattie. This rifle was extremely accurate, therefore I had chosen it for this close work, when I expected to get a shot at the eye or forehead of a lion crouching in the bush. ”

“ No person who understands anything about a rifle would select a light gun with a large bore, any more than he would have a heavy carriage for a small horse. If the man objects to the weight of the rifle, let him content himself with a smaller bore, but do not rob the barrels of their good metal for the sake of a heavy ball. The more metal that the barrel possesses in proportion to the diameter of the bore, the better will the rifle carry, nine times out of ten. ”

“ Little Rifle, experienced in the dangers of a hunter’s life, was not caught with an unloaded gun. The thin puff of smoke had hardly begun to curl up from the clump of bushes when his rifle was at his shoulder, and he sent the return bullet crashing among the leaves and twigs. ”

“ In these days of light, narrow, well-decked punts and complicated breech-loading swivel-guns it is not easy to realise the skill that was necessary to work, single-handed, the broad, pointed craft, with only a few inches of protection from the waves, with the great muzzle—loader firmly fixed upon its block. ”

“ A head bends low; a left eye closes; the right, brown as a hawk’s and as fierce, glares, from beneath corrugated brow, along a barrel that rests as though in a grip of steel. The keen report of a sporting rifle—not loud, but crisp and clear—rings through the silent wood, and there is a heavy fall and a groan. ”

“ The SWELL OF THE MUZZLE is the largest part of gun in front of the neck. It is terminated by the muzzle mouldings, which in field and siege guns, consist of the lip and fillet. In sea-coast guns and heavy howitzers and columbiads, there is no fillet. In field and siege howitzers, and in mortars, a muzzle-band takes the place of the swell of the muzzle.
The FACE of the piece is the terminating plane perpendicular to the axis of the bore. ”

“ In addition to the stores, and side arms for the service of the gun, a heavy gun in the field requires men’s harness, and dragropes, a lifting jack, a set of intrenching tools, and three planks of a foot wide, and ten or twelve feet long. There should be a lever, and fulcrums, and prop, for every two guns; besides a gyn, rollers, tackles, and ropes for every four guns. The side arms, handspikes, and planks are strapped on the cheek; the gyn, rollers, tackles, &c., are carried on a platform waggon. ”

“ I had kicked another rifle, but hadn't the pluck to go back and fetch it.
I just held on, trembling all over, and waited and listened, and then started again, following the door round till I got to the wall, and there, the first thing I felt, was a box on the ledge, right in the corner between the door and the wall. I felt it all over; it had a square hole in the top, and my hand went in and—oh! it was such a jolly feeling—it was nearly full of paper packets of ammunition. ”

“ In the farmhouses here and there may be found such a weapon, half a century old or more, with a barrel not quite equal in length to the punt-gun, but so long that, when carried under the arm of a tall man, the muzzle touches the ground where it is irregular in level. ”

“ We jump into boots and spurs, whip the saddles from saplings and stumps, rattle the bits between the teeth of our excited horses, sling carbines over shoulder, poke fresh cartridges into revolver chambers, look well to the broad horsehair "cinches," or girths. ”

“ Ah! if the brute had gazed a little closer at that big oak trunk, off to his left, he would have seen a short, sturdy-looking boy, who had just finished pouring the priming into the pan of his rifle, and drawing back the hammer, was stealthily peering around the trunk, so as to decide how best to aim at the creature. ”

“ The Americans envelope the ball in a piece of greased skin, and it leaves the barrel as a true sphere, though with a spinning motion, correcting any aberration with which it leaves the barrel. Yet this spinning motion does not wholly remedy the defect of the barrel, for any bruises at the mouth induce inaccuracy; and so sensible are the hunters of this, that in shooting-matches they use a rifle with a supplementary mouth-piece to prevent injury. ”

“ Many a time while on a march we would be caught in heavy rains. The dirt road would soon be worked into a loblolly of sticky yellow mud. Thereupon we would take off our shoes and socks, tie them to the barrel of our muskets a little below the muzzle and just above the end of the stock, poise the piece on the hammer on either shoulder, stock uppermost, and roll up our breeches to the knees. ”

“ In the rifle, however, there is a loss by friction. All our English rifle practice, old and new, is to make the ball do its own packing by a tight fit. An old-fashioned rifle had the ball hammered in by a wooden mallet and then driven down by an iron rammer, leaving the form that of a short cylinder, with one flat and one hemispherical end, and jagged portions of a screw round it. As the flat end was foremost, the wonder is how any accuracy at all was attained even at 150 yards. ”

“ It seems legitimate with this rudimentary weapon to shoot animals on the stand, or set, a sporting permit not granted to the devotee of the shotgun, who has a hundred chances to our one.
We found from the very first that the arrow was more humane than the gun. Counting all hunters, for every animal brought home with the gun, whether duck, quail, or deer, at least two are hit and die in pain in the brush. ”

“ Being at order arms, at the preparatory command quickly raise and turn the rifle, regrasping it with both hands between the rear sight and muzzle, barrel down, thumbs around the stock and toward the butt; at the same time raise the rifle above the shoulder farthest from the opponent, butt elevated and to the rear, elbows slightly bent and knees straight. Each individual takes such position of the feet, shoulders, and hands as best accords with his natural dexterity. ”

“ He rides nearer up to distinguish the body more clearly, but generally contents himself with the eyes, which he takes as his mark, and discharges his rifle at them. Owing to the light which falls from behind on the barrel and the back of the sight, a most careful aim can be taken, and as a rule you can ride up to within thirty or forty yards of the animal. Even after the shot I have seen the unhit animals only run a few yards and then stop curiously, so that I have been able to give them a second barrel. ”

“ The muzzle of the gun described a semicircle and the knotted hands began to travel towards the left, more rapidly now, across his broad back. Still he struggled and wrenched, but uselessly. He strove to fire the weapon, but his fingers were woven about it so that the hammer would not work. Then the miner began forcing upward.
The white skin beneath the men’s strips of clothing was stretched over great knots and ridges which sunk and swelled and quivered. ”

“ Fell out to work at 7, pioneers helping us. Ordnance train came up from town this morning and deposited their stores inside of the fort, filling our magazines with artillery ammunition; 90 boxes of three inch rifle; 40 12-pounder guns; 150 boxes of infantry ammunition, guns, sabres and other stores piled up inside the works covered with tarpaulins. A sergeant and seven men with them as guards, to guard our guns also, which lightens our duty greatly. ”

“ On a new rifle being obtained I passed the preliminary test, and a rather repentant instructor remarked that it might be possible to make a soldier of me some day.
Since then my fellow-soldiers and I have had almost unlimited rifle practice, on miniature and open ranges, at bull and disappearing targets, in field firing at distances from [pg 58] 100 to 600 yards. On a field exceeding 600 yards it is almost impossible to hit a point the size of an ordinary bull; fire then must be directed towards a position. Field or volley firing is very interesting. ”

“ At other times a gun is fastened to a tree, and at the muzzle of the barrel is fixed a bait, to which a string is tied, that passes round the tree and is attached to the trigger—so that if the bait be pulled at all forcibly the gun is sure to go off. ”

“ The barrel is rifle-bored. The lever-ramrod renders wadding or patch unnecessary, and secures the charge against moisture, or becoming loose by rough handling or hard riding. The hammer, when at full cock, forms the sight by which to take aim, and is readily raised at full cock by the thumb, with one hand. The movements of the revolving chamber and hammer are ingeniously arranged and combined. The breech, containing six cylindrical cells for holding the powder and ball, moves one-sixth of a revolution at a time; it can only be fired when the chamber and the barrel are in a direct line. ”

“ Every rifle expert knows what his gun is capable of, in accuracy, and an archer should know just what to expect of an arrow under the most favorable conditions. We therefore tried shooting the same arrow over the same course with the same release, under these fairly stable conditions: The day was calm. We shot an arrow ten times in succession and all the shots centered in a six inch bull's-eye; that is, none went out of a circle of this diameter. In other words, at sixty yards a bow can shoot arrows with an error of dispersion of no more than six inches. ”

“ The two red-heads, Ben and Tom, looked back along the column, both thinking that here, indeed, was a gallant little fighting force. Every man carried a musket, a heavy pistol, 100 rounds of ammunition for the musket, 30 for the pistol, and a large, strong hunter’s knife. ”

“ As a precaution, it is well to insert a wet sponge just before putting in the ball. The muzzle is sufficiently elevated to allow the ball to roll down the bore, the cartridge is inserted, the mouth of the outer bag foremost, the fold down, and carefully pushed home without breaking it; a dry hay-wad is placed upon it, and rammed once; then a clay or wet hay wad, and rammed twice; and finally, if firing at angles of depression, a wad of clay a half-calibre in length, or a wet hay-wad is put on the ball.
40. May the ball cool in the gun without igniting the charge? ”

“ If the hedge is too thick to fire through, it should not be cut down, but a hole should be cut in the growth for the muzzle of the gun sufficiently large to aim through. If it is necessary to cut a gap in the hedge, the growth should be cut through close to the ground, but without removing it until the moment for opening fire. ”

“ What they would do yard-arm and yard-arm with small charges of powder is a problem. With the muzzles depressed possibly the guns might batter in the top sides, but they could scarcely effect anything below the water-line, and the men would be quite sheltered till the topsides were burst in. ”