After supper they brought out these rifles and compared them.

Preston insisted that the squirrel rifles were better.
"Not for real service," said Dunlap, throwing a cartridge into the breech of the Sharp, and ejecting it to show how fast it could be done.
"But I can roll a squirrel's eye right out of his head most every time with the old-style gun," said Preston.

"This is the gun that won the Battle of New Orleans." "It wouldn't have won against the Sharp," said Thatcher; "and you know we expect to have a larger mark than a squirrel's head, when we get to Kansas." This was the first breech-loader I had ever seen, and I looked it over with a buying eye.

It didn't seem to me that it would be much better for hunting than the old-fashioned rifle, loaded with powder and a molded bullet rammed down with a patch of oiled cloth around it; for after you have shot at your game once, you either have hit it, or it runs or flies away.

If you have hit it, you can generally get it, and if it goes away, you have time to reload.