I meant it to fall a few paces before us in the path, where it could be seen.

But alas for my hopes! At the critical moment my horse started, my finger struck the scrap aslant, the pebble flew out, and the bit of stuff fluttered into a whin-bush close to my stirrup--and was lost! I was bitterly disappointed, for the same thing might happen again, and I had now only three scraps left.

But fortune favoured me, by putting it into my neighbour's head to plunge into a hot debate with the shock-headed man on the nature of some animals seen on a distant brow; which he said were izards, while the other maintained that they were common goats.

He continued, on this account, to ride with his face turned from me, and I had time to fit another pebble into the second piece of stuff.

Sliding it on to my thigh, I poised it, and flipped it.
This time my finger struck the tiny missile fairly in the middle, and shot it so far and so truly that it dropped exactly in the path ten paces in front of us.