Three Times Loaded.

Waikato Times, Volume XXIV, Issue 1991, 11 April 1885, Page 2 (Supplement)

Three Times Loaded.

" She ain't what you call a fancy piece," said a Gaspe fisherman, holding out an old flintlook army rifle that had been remodelled and altered to the requirements of the nineteenth century. " She ain't putty, but lor ! haow she can kick. I vutn for it sne kin aout kick and shoot anything of her size around Gaspe. So, ain't it, Sal ? " added the fisherman, referring to a comrade, who walked with « slew to starboard as if he had been kicked by the self same old gun or had shifted his ballast. " She a a corker," responded the latter individual. " She kern near throwin' me aout of plomb onct," he continued. "Ye see I broke my gun one day and sent over to Captain Jim's to borrer this. He sent it back by my boy and forgot to say anythin' abaout it's bein' loaded. So I filled her up with a powerful load and put her in the boat. Cut jest before I started to go cow porpoise shootin 1 my old woman got took with with a spell and I was obliged to ride up to the town for the pill-maker, ao 1 let one o1o 1 my boys take the boat. He loaded up the old cannon, not knowin' I'd filled her, and was abaout gom', when his inarm got better and I concluded to go, so I kern down and went myself. " Well," continued the old man, rubbing his shoulder in recollection, " when I got •outside I sighted a big cow, and, standin' up, let her have it. Wall, when I picked myself up I was swimmin' and the boat abaout ten foot off. The drat busted old gun had kicked me clean overboard and haow I got back I can't tell you. Then I found my arm was out of jint and I was that mashed and black on that side ye'd thonght I'd been pounded. Did the gun burst ! Not muoh. When I climbed in tliar she wa3 lyin' in the bottom, smokin' like a volcinny ; but threo loads or thirty I reckon wouldn't disturb her in'ards." " It's ourus," put in the ownov of the relic, " but ever since then she's bed the darndest kick to her yon ever see. She's laid many a man on his back, and the curestest part of it is she never kioki till you've fired and then

she lets out, kinder takin' you unawares lik«. You try her, if you want to," The writer declined the proffered ©eurteiy. — Gaspe Correspondence Philadelphia Timts.