The hunter will readily understand it as given.
If he has seen a deer and it has escaped him, and you ask him why he
didn't shoot it; he almost invariably says, "I couldn't get my gun on it
before it jumped out of my sight." To such as do not understand that
phrase I will say, the expression is allowable, as the bullet or charge
of shot flies so swiftly (even in advance of the sharp report of the
gun). The distance of twenty rods or more is virtually annihilated: Hence
the expression, "I held the gun on it," (though it was rods away.) If he
sighted his gun straight toward the object he wished to hit whether it
was in the air, under water, or on the ground, he would claim that he
held his gun on it.
I said that the bullet flew in advance of the report of the gun. That is
true, on the start, or until it struck an object. If the object was at a
reasonable distance, but if the distance proved too far, it of course
would fall behind the sound. The bullet is the bold--fearless--and often
cruel companion of the report of the gun, and loses in its velocity the
farther it flies, being impeded and resisted by the air, and at last is
left flattened and out of shape, a dead weight, while the report of the
gun passes on very swiftly, and dies away in the distance to be heard no
more.
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