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Updated: July 16, 2025
I think, the greatest masses fly near the shores of the great Canadian lakes, and sometimes so low, that they may be easily killed with a horse-pistol, or even knocked down with a long pole. During the first spring in which I resided at Goderich, the store- keeper was out of shot, and the pigeons happened to be uncommonly numerous.
The hall, lit by a flambeau that Mungo held in one hand, while the other held a huge horse-pistol, looked like the entrance to a dungeon, something altogether sinister and ugly to the foreigner, who had the uneasy notion that he fought for his life in a prison.
He could hold a musket with one hand and shoot with precision as easily as other men did with a horse-pistol. His lungs were his weak point, and his voice was never strong. He was at that time in the prime of life. His hair was a chestnut brown, his cheeks were prominent, and his head was not large in contrast to every other part of his body, which seemed large and bony at all points.
The job was just finished when the negro awoke in a lazy sort of way. He stared stupidly at the young hunters and then his eyes opened widely and he sat bolt upright. "Wha-what's dis?" he stammered. "Whar did yo' cum from?" "Stay where you are," ordered Snap, sternly, and flourished the horse-pistol. "Do-doan yo' shoot me!" cried the negro. "Then stay right where you are.
"Hi, what's this, a hold-up?" exclaimed the old farmer, and then of a sudden he reached between the barrels of potatoes and brought forth a long horse-pistol and pointed it at them. "Don't shoot!" cried Pepper, thinking the old fellow might be just scared enough to pull the trigger of his ancient weapon. "This isn't any hold-up."
"Wot's in the pistol?" inquired Bumpus, pointing to the weapon which Corrie had stuck ostentatiously into his belt. "Nothin'," answered the boy. "I fired the last charge I had into the face of a savage." "Fling it at him," suggested Bumpus, getting cautiously up. "Here, hand it to me. I've seed a heavy horse-pistol like that do great execution when well aimed by a stout arm."
"It's ole Meshach," said the negro, silently, with desperate eyes. "I hoped it wasn't. Dar is de hat, sho!" He cocked his huge horse-pistol, and took aim directly from below. "Pore Jack! Pore Jack! I reckon Roxy won't have pore Jack, caze Tommy won't sing. Sing, Tommy, little Roxy's pet: 'Pore Jack! Pore "
The great horse-pistol boomed on the night, and in the smoke the negro rushed into the bush and sought the fields. Down from his seat in the window-sill the witless villager came backward, all bestrewn, measuring his body in the sand, where he lay, silent as the other shadows, with his arms extended in the frenzy of death, and his mouth wide open and flowing blood.
Meditating on this, 'Lizabeth stepped to the kitchen window and closed the shutter; then, reaching down an old horse-pistol from the rack above the mantelshelf, she fetched out powder and bullet and fell to loading quietly, as one who knew the trick of it.
All gazed and not far distant beheld a scene that touched their hearts. On the rocks lay the dead lion and over him stood his mate, licking his face with her rough tongue. "Look out!" cried Abe Blower, and drew his horse-pistol a companion weapon to that carried by Tom Dillon. "She'll come fer us, sure!" The old miner was right.
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