ON THE TRIGGER'S PULL

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 2478, 14 August 1903, Page 3

ON THE TRIGGER'S PULL

HOW A PRIZE WAS WON AND LOST. There is always trouble of one sort or another when a woman meddles with those things whioh do not concorn her sex. Obviously, carbines were nono of Miss Mivart's concern. If she felt that she had to play with firearms fche should have kept to Plobeit rifles. Nothing would do, however, but that she must learn to shoot a carbine, and the result was that tho whole post rose up and cut Burton, to a man ; so that there was no peaco for him any longer in that regiment, and he had to seek transfer to another. There were other results, also, but they come further on. Some thought that what Miss Mivart did was done on purpose, and somo thought that it was a Diece of idiotic silliness. The latter based their argument upon the general frlvolousnesa of her ways, and upon the innocency of her ionnd, blue feres, The former held to the belief that Miss Mivart was one of those women favourites of Fortune who looa greater fools than they are. They said, with I certain show of ieason, that Georgia Mivart was a child of the service and not an importation from civil life. She had been born in a garrison, and had played with rows of empty, green-rimmed 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 beat for the first dozen years of her life had been Kreutser, Captain Mlvart s towheaded Btrikei. A few years of boarding school back east could not have obliterated all that. Besides, the veriest civilian, who has never come nearer to a carbine than to watch a Fourth of July militia parade, might reasonably be expected to know by intuition that in a target-practice competition every trigger has got to pull just so hard, whatever the regulation number of fraction of pounds may be. Otherwise, it is plain that the nearer you come to a hair-trigger the better your aim will be. Howftver, whether Miss Mivart was fully aware of what she was doing, nobody ever knew, unless perhaps it wa3 Greville—and he, like Zuleika, never told. But Burton bad a bad time of it, and all his beautiful score went for worse than nothing at all. That, though, was the end. And the be ginning ought to come flrst. The beginning was when Miss Mivart undertook to learn to shoot a carbine. There was a target-practice competition 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 up the esprit de corps of the troops and to lighten the monotony of life. There were three contests, one f»r troops and companies, as such; one for individual privates, 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 aud Greville shot with their troops, that the officers' competition would lie between them. Thw made it inter eating in more ways than one, because the rivalry was not confined to the tarSet range, but extended to the winning of liss Mivart's hand and heart, and everyone believed that this would settle a matter she did not appenrto beable to settle for heiself. Not that she wa? to blame for that. Anyone, even a person much more certain of her own mind than Miss Mivart was, would have been hard put to it to choose. They were both first lieutenants, and both cavalrymen, and both good to look upon. Burton was fair aud Greville was dark, but she had no fixed prejudices regarding that She had often said so. Also, both were as much in love with hrr 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 a rightminded woman The riflo contest lasted ten days, during which time the air hummed with the ping and sing cf bullets over on the range, and with the calls of the markers in the riflepits. Only scores and records and bets were thought and talked about. Miss Mivart horßelf had bet, with all the daring wickedness of a kitten teasing a beetle. Sho oven went so far as to bet on both Burton and Greville at once. The adjutant undertook to explain to her that that was called " hedging," and was not looked upon as altogether sporty. Miss Mivart was hurt Was it really dishonest, she wanted to know. The adjutant felt lhat ho had been unkind. He hastened to assure her that it was not—not dishonest in the least; only that it took away from tho excitement of the thing to a certain extent. Miss Mivart smiled and shook her head. No, she didn't think that it did, because, of course, she knew herself which one she wunted to have win. The adjutant admitted that that might possibly be just as interesting for heiself 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 elße just yet, could sbe ? She had her own ideas about fair play. " I can shoot a carbine myself,'' sho told the adjutant, with her cleft chin proudly raised; " and my shoulder is all black and blue. Mr. Burton is teaching me." " Oh!" si i 1 the adjutant, " and what does Greville think about thut ?" The adjutant was married, so he was out of the running. " Mr. Greville is teaching me, too," said Georgia; '' and here he comes for me now. ' Bmton was safe on the target range, over behind the barracks. Miss Mivait and Grevillo went in the other direction, by tho back of the officers' row, over in the foothills across the creek. Greville nailed the top of a big red pafto-board box to the trunk of a tree, and Mm Mlvart hit it once out of sixteen times—wnen she was aiming at the head of a prairie dog at least twenty feet p way to the tight Tho other fifteen Bhofs wete 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 Bhe dldnt, he aid some fancy shooting to distract her. He found a mushroom-can, and threw It 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 Bhe sat now, on a lichencoverad rook, she could see the mutilated can glittering in tho sun, over beyond the arroyo. So she thirsted for fresher sensations. " I'll tell you," she said to Greville, as ho held up the mushroom-can for her to inspect the eight holes he had made with five shots, " let me toss np your hat and yon make h hols through the trade-mark In the crown.' It was a nioo straw hat Greville had Bent East for it and it had come by stage the day before. It hod cost him, express {wid, four dollars and seventy-five cents. This, too. at a time when anything he had left after settling bis mess and sutler's and tailor's bills, went into slick-pins and candy and books and music and riding-whips for Miss Mivart. But he took off the hat and gayo It to her without even a llogoring glance at that high-priced trade-mark within. And he folt that it was worth four times four dollars and seventy-five oeuts. when Bhe picked up the tatterr'd remains, at last, and aiiked if Bhe might have them to hang in her room. Then Bhe looked down at her grimy hand and consul err d the first finger, crooking it open and shut. " I think it's going to swell." she pouted. " That is a perfectly awful trigger to pull," Greville did what any man might have been expeoted to do. He caught the hand and kissed it Mlas Mivart looked absolutely unconscious of it. She might have been ten miles away herself. Greville, therefore, thought that she wa9 angry, and his heart was nMcd with contrition. Yet he was old and wise enough to be a first lieutenant He walked beside her back to the post in a state of humble dejection she could not understand. The next morning it was Burton's turn. Greville wss over on the range now, vainly trying to bring his reoor*} up to where Burton's was. This time Miss Mivart Hred at a white pasteboard-box oover, and hit it threo times out of twenty. She was jubilant, and so was Burton, because she was making suoh progress under his tuition. "That's an easy carbine to shoot, isn't it !" she asked as thuy wandered home: " it isn't at all hard to pull the trigger." Burton glanced at her, and she met his ejes Innocently, " It's just liko any other trigger," he told her. "Tea, of course. And is that the very same carbine you use in tli« competition—-

tne one you snot wiin yesterday, tog win use i this afternoon when yon finish up ?' ! He told her that it was. I " Well," she said, complacently, '• I think I'm doing ver> nicely, don't you. I hit the large* three times, and my first ftngei doesn't hurt a bit-this morning ' That afternoon the competition came to sn end, with Burton a good many points ahead of Greville. And that night there was the big hop. It had been understood from the first that the man who won was to take Miss M ivart to the hop. So Bhe went over with Burton, and gave him one-third of her dances. Greville had another third, and the rust were open to the post at large. Greville did not look hsppy at all. It was not the target record he minded. - He never thought about that. It wee having to go down the board-walk to the hOp-room behind Bur ton. and to watch Miss Mlvart leaning on his arm aod looking up into his face from under the white mists of her lace hood. He was not consoled at all when she looked up into his own face even more sweetly at the beginning of the seoood dance, and whispered that she was "so sorry." Now as the second dance had been Greville's. the third was Burton's. That was the way it had been arranged. As the band began the waits, Miss Mivart stood beside Greville in the centre of quite a group. The commanding officer was in the group, so was Burton's captain, and so was the adjutant There were some others as well, and also some women. MLsb Mlvart may have chosen that position, dr It may simply have happened so. Anyway, just as the waits started, Burton, light-hearted add light-footed, came slipping and sliding over the candle-waxed floor, end pushed his way into the midst. " Ours," he said triumphantly. But Miss did pot heed him at once. She was telling them all how she had learned to shoot a carbine as well as anyone, and they, the men, at anyrate, were hanging on her words. " Mr. Greville taught me/ she said, " and so did Mr. Burton." (This wss the first either had known of the other's part in it, and the? exchanged a look). " Thoy taught me with their own carbines, too. The veiy same ones they used themselves in the competition. But I shot best with Mr. Burton's carbine. Me must have fixed his trigger to pull more easily; it was almost like, what do you call It, a hair-trigger?" She looked about for an answer, and saw on their faces a stare of stony horror aod surprise. They had moved a little away from Burton, and the commanding officer's steely eyes were on his face. The face had turned white, even with the sunburn, aod Burton's voice was just a trifle unsteady as he spoke. •This is onr dance, I think, Miss Mivart, he said. The innocent, round, blue orbs looked just a little coldly into his. " No," she told him, " I think you are mistaken. It is Mr. Greville's dance." And she turned and laid her hand on Greville's arm.—Gwendolen Oveiton, in the " Argonaut"