He took himself some distance from the camp to an isolated glade, shaded from the noonday sun by the overhanging branches of the encroaching trees. There, in the cool of the dappled greenery, he set up some pieces of wood, measured out twelve paces, and drew his pistol. He carefully eased off single shots from a Colt Patterson he’d borrowed from one of his fellow recruits at the bunkhouse.
Inevitably, as he himself had guessed, the first shots went wide of the mark. After four rounds, he lowered the piece, settled his breathing, and tried again. The fifth shot took out a tiny corner of one of the hunks of wood. With deliberate slowness, he reloaded the five-chambered cylinder. Fortunately, this later model was fitted with a hinged loading lever, so there was no need to disassemble the wea
