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I brought with me a short Snider carbine the best and handiest weapon to stop a wild pig at a short range and a double-barrelled muzzle-loading shot-gun. The latter I gave to the "devil" to carry, and promised him that he should fire at least five shots from it at pigeons or mountain fowl before we returned to the village.
To aid them in their hunt they have adopted the breech-loading rifle and muzzle-loading shotgun, but the bow and arrow has still its place with them and they were depending wholly upon this crude weapon for hunting partridges and other small game now, as they had no shotgun ammunition. The boys were constantly practicing with it while at play and were very expert in its use.
Their guns were mostly Kentucky rifles of the muzzle-loading style. Their ammunition was about all gone I do not think there were twenty rounds left in their whole camp. If the emigrants had had a good supply of ammunition they never would have surrendered, and I do not think we could have captured them without great loss, for they were brave men, very resolute and determined.
There was no second shot; only the "thudety-thud" of the Pony's hoofs. The pursuer was armed with a muzzle-loading trade musket. The shot startled Shag. Now he could see them rushing his way; soon they would be upon him. With a bellow of frightened rage at the stupidity of A'tim, he stuck his scraggy tail out with its tip curled over his back, and broke into a solemn gallop.
The California Grizzly made his reputation as a man-killer in the days of the muzzle-loading rifle, when failure to stop him with one shot deprived the hunter of all advantage in respect of weapons and reversed their positions instantly, the bear becoming the hunter and the man the game.
He cites an example where he himself was set to fight a battle by a West Point superior with old-fashioned muzzle-loading guns, the improved arms which were at hand and which might easily have been used with good effect remaining in the rear.
At such times, I would signal to my men, and they would ride up and scare the buffalo away." In more modern times, the height of pleasure to a Blackfoot was to ride a good horse and run buffalo. When bows and arrows, and, later, muzzle-loading "fukes" were the only weapons, no more buffalo were killed than could actually be utilized.
The shift from sail to steam, from oak to iron, from shot to shell, and from muzzle-loading smoothbore to breech-loading rifle began about 1850; and progress thereafter was so swift that an up-to-date ship of each succeeding decade was capable of defeating a whole squadron of ten years before.
Their pistols were not so good as mine they were double-barreled, muzzle-loading derringers, with only two shots. "Things culminated on a moonlight night when we were charging along before a quartering whole sail breeze, making, I should judge, about eleven knots. I was on lookout, as usual, and keeping a good one I know, even though my eyes would half close at times from sheer need of sleep.
Trading an old muzzle-loading shotgun to an Indian chief for the future site of a great city could not have seemed more of a bargain in the days of our forefathers. He made the trip almost half a day sooner than he had promised and went straight up to Injun Jim's camp with his load. He was whistling all the way up the canyon to the tepee; but then he stopped.
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