Page:Handbook for Boys.djvu/101

80 quills of deep red and turquoise blue. The Indian was as much puzzled by my preference for the quill work as I was by his for the cotton print.

The standard target for men is four feet across with a nine-inch bull's-eye, and around that four rings, each four and three quarter inches wide. The bull's-eye counts nine, the other

rings seven, five, three, one. The bought targets are made of straw, but a good target may be made of a box filled with sods, or a bank covered with sacking on which are painted the usual rings.

Now comes the most grip important point of all—how to shoot. There are several ways of holding an arrow, but only one good one. Most boys know the ordinary finger and thumb pinch, or grip. This is all very well for a toy bow, but a hunter's bow cannot be drawn that way. No one has strength enough in his fingers for it. The true archer's grip of the arrow is shown in the cut. The thumb and little finger have nothing to do with it.

As in golf and all such things, there is a right "form." You attend to your end of the arrow's flight and the other will take care of itself.

Stand perfectly straight. Plant your feet with the centres of the two heels in line with the target. (Cut page 78.) Grasp the bow in the middle with the left hand and place the arrow on the string at the left side of the bow. Hold the bow plumb, and draw as above till the notch of the arrow is right under your eye, and the head of the arrow back to the bow. The right elbow must be in the same line with the arrow. Let go the arrow by straightening the fingers a little, turning the hand outward at the bottom and drawing it back one inch. Always do this in exactly the same way and your shooting will be even. Your left hand should not move a hair's breadth until the arrow strikes the target.

To begin shooting put the target very near, within fifteen or twenty yards; but the proper shooting distance when the archer is in good practice is forty yards for a four-foot target and thirty yards for a three-foot target. A good shot, shooting twelve arrows at this should score fifty.