"Twenty score and two yards!" he cried.
"Not much to win by," grunted Dick, "though enough. I have done twenty
and one score once, but that was somewhat downhill."
Then, while the silence still reigned, he set the second arrow on the
string, and waited, as though he knew not what to do. Presently, about
fifty paces from him, a wood dove flew from out a tree and, as such
birds do at the first breath of spring, for the day was mild and sunny,
hovered a moment in the air ere it dipped toward a great fir where
doubtless it had built for years. Never, poor fowl, was it destined to
build again, for as it turned its beak downward Dick's shaft pierced it
through and through and bore it onward to the earth.
Still in the midst of a great silence, Dick took up his quiver and
emptied it on the ground, then gave it to the captain of the archers,
saying:
"And you will, step sixty, nay, seventy paces, and set this mouth upward
in the grass where a man may see it well."
The captain did so, propping the quiver straight with stones and a
bit of wood. Then, having studied all things with his eyes, Dick shot
upward, but softly. Making a gentle curve, the arrow turned in the air
as it drew near the quiver, and fell into its mouth, striking it flat.
"Ill done," grumbled Dick; "had I shot well, it should have been pinned
to earth. Well, yon shadow baulked me, and it might have been worse.
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