He brought his rifle
along also,--his "Betsy," as he always called it; which, however, he
declared was bewitched just now; and for a while John watched him curiously
as he nailed a target on a tree in front of John's door, drew on it the face
of the person whom he charged with having bewitched his gun, and then,
standing back, shot it with a silver bullet; after which, the spell being
now undone, he dug the bullet out of the tree again and went off to hunt
with confidence in his luck.
And then the making of history was going on under his eyes down there in the
town, and many a thoughtful hour he studied that. The mere procession of
figures across his field of vision symbolized the march of destiny, the
onward sweep of the race, the winning of the continent. Now the barbaric
paint and plumes of some proud Indian, peaceably come to trade in pelts but
really to note the changes that had taken place in his great hunting ground,
loved and ranged of old beyond all others: this figure was the Past--the
old, old Past. Next, the picturesque, rugged outlines of some backwoods
rifleman, who with his fellows had dislodged and pushed the Indian westward:
this figure was the Present--the short-lived Present.
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