"We will have no signaling," he said, turning round and facing Merriwell's crowd. "As we step up here, let the traps be sprung, and we'll shoot at the birds, whether ready or not."

He was supremely confident in his own abilities.

"All right. Any way to suit you. Go ahead!"

Before Badger could turn back, he heard the sound made by the traps springing. Two birds shot out, one toward the right and the other straight away.

Bang! bang! Badger wheeled and fired quickly, and made a clean kill of both birds. There was a skirmish fire of clapping hands in the circle of his admirers.

"Fine work!" Merriwell admitted, as he stepped into place with Bart's gun.

He stood with his gun down until the birds were hurled from the traps, then, with a couple of quick snapshots, smashed them to pieces.

"Whoop-e-ee-ee!" squealed Danny Griswold, turning a handspring. "This soft snap can shoot a little!"

Again the Westerner made a clean kill of two birds. Frank followed him and did the same.

Five times more the Kansan did this, and Merriwell duplicated the performance. The antagonistic crowds ceased to whoop and shout their exclamations of pleasure. The thing was becoming interesting. It began to seem that Badger and Merriwell would again tie. Then Badger, becoming overconfident, missed a bird. He stepped back, with a look of chagrin on his face.

Frank stepped forward, pitched up his gun as the birds were thrown--and missed one! Merriwell missed with the left barrel of his gun, and Badger had missed with the left barrel.

"Now you're monkeying!" Hodge grumbled, as Merriwell retired into the circle of his friends. "Don't do it, Merry! What did you do that for?

You could have made the whole string straight, without a single goose-egg!"

Badger's dark, heavy face was flushed as he advanced again into position. He felt, like Hodge, that Merriwell had purposely missed that second bird, and it annoyed and angered him. This was the worst possible thing that could have happened to him, for when he fired he again missed a bird.

"Don't imitate him again!" Hodge implored.

And Merriwell did not. He made a clean kill of both birds.

"Only two more birds apiece, and Merry one ahead!" squealed Bink, vainly tiptoeing to see as well as those who were taller.

"You want to see Merry do him up?" said Bruce. "You little runt, I'll take pity on you!"

"Me, too!" squeaked Danny.

With little apparent exertion of strength, Browning hoisted the little fellows to his shoulders, thus elevating them above the heads of others, where they sat in great glee, squealing and laughing, Danny on the young giant's right shoulder and Bink on his left, as Badger walked out to shoot at his last two birds.

Again the Westerner killed his birds.

"Now, if Merry misses one, it will be another tie!" grunted Bart.

"Stop hawking through your tat--I mean----Oh, I don't know what I mean!

But just keep still!" Rattleton almost breathlessly begged. "Merry is all right!"

And Rattleton's confidence was justified. Merry fired, with the same result.

"Pulverized 'em!" howled Bink.

"Smashed 'em into bug-dust!" squealed Danny.

"Bub-bub-beat Badger again!" sputtered Gamp.

A cheer of gratification went up from the circle of Frank's friends.

Merriwell motioned to Rattleton to bring him some sh.e.l.ls.

"Bring me Danny's gun, too!" he called; and Harry ran out to him with a box of sh.e.l.ls that he knew were reliable and with Griswold's repeating shotgun.

"All three traps at once!" said Merriwell to the trap manipulators.

Three birds flew at the same moment of time.

Bang! bang! bang!

Badger in his best shooting at two birds had never made cleaner kills.

The clay birds seemed to vanish in puffs of dust at the crack of the gun. Merriwell put down Danny's repeater, and took up Bart's gun.

"Three birds again!" he commanded, as he dropped in the two sh.e.l.ls and closed the breech with a click.

Almost before the words were out of his mouth, the birds were thrown.

Bang! bang! bang!

He killed the left and center birds with the two loads in the gun; then reloaded and killed the third bird before it could touch the ground!

Badger's face grew redder. There was a wild clapping of hands, joined in by many who were in Badger's crowd.

"Whoop-ee-e-ee!" squealed Danny, wildly waving his cap. "Who says we can't shoot?"

They had been shooting at a rise of twenty-five yards. Merriwell stepped back five yards, thus increasing the distance to thirty. He loaded his gun and held an extra sh.e.l.l in his left hand. Then he turned his back on the traps.

"Pull when you want to?" he called.

The manipulators of the traps seemed to desire to test him. There was an exasperating delay and some questions; then the traps were sprung with startling suddenness.

Merriwell's quick ear was alert. He wheeled as if on a pivot, killed the left bird and the right one. Then dropped in another sh.e.l.l with a slowness that set Bart Hodge wild, and killed the third bird, which had gone off at a difficult tangent, at a distance of at least sixty yards!

"Come on!" grated Defarge, almost beside himself with anger and disappointment. "The devil can't beat him! Let's get out of here!"

"Right!" said Pike, also turning wrathfully away. Badger seemed turned to a statue.

Then again the unexpected happened. A soph.o.m.ore, who was known to be an intimate friend of Morton Agnew, by seeming accident fired off a gun with which he had been monkeying. Agnew, who had, unnoticed, wormed his way into Merriwell's crowd during the excitement of the shooting-contest, fell to the ground with a cry, as if shot, knocking Harry Rattleton over as he did so.

The sh.e.l.ls which Harry had been so carefully guarding were scattered on the ground, and seemed likely to be stepped on and lost in the excitement that followed.

Agnew flounced and threshed about, crying out that he was shot. He was anxiously lifted up, and on his face was seen a drop of blood, which had come from a cut recently made.

"One shot went in right there!" he cried. "I think there are others! Get me into a carriage quick!"