When the first round was in full swing, Tony noticed a very interesting thing. The contestants were grouped in sets of four. Each one would take a turn at shooting three arrows at the target and then step back for the next archer until each had shot six arrows. They would go up to the target together to total the scores and gather the arrows. One person would enter the scores, one would pull the arrows, and one would hunt for arrows that might have missed the target. Tony wondered how they knew which arrows were which, and he found, upon inquiring of a friendly neighbor, that each archer had his own colored marking or crest on his arrows up near the feathers.

Just before lunch time Harrison found his friends.

"How are you doing?" he asked. "Enjoying it?"

"I'll say," ventured Tony, "but there is plenty that I don't understand."

"Well, maybe I can clear it up for you while we eat our lunch. Let's take it over there in the shade and go to work on it."

When they had spread out the lunch the girls had prepared, Maris turned the topic of conversation back to the meet.

"Tony," she began, "how about having those expert friends of ours tell us the meaning of those words we have been hearing?"

"Oh, yes," Tony replied, "what is a 'round' and an 'end,' for example?"

"Well, here you are," Harrison started, as he unwrapped a deviled-egg sandwich. "Championships in archery are determined by the scores made during the shooting of what archers call rounds. A round is made up of a certain number of arrows shot at a given distance. For example, the Columbia Round is very frequently used for women. It consists of the shooting of seventy-two arrows: twenty-four arrows shot at fifty yards, twenty-four arrows at forty yards, and twenty-four arrows at thirty yards. The National Round is forty-eight arrows at sixty yards and twenty-four arrows at fifty yards. These two rounds together determine the important women's championships. Usually the National is shot in the morning, and the Columbia in the afternoon. If the meet is longer than one day, four rounds are shot, a Double Columbia and a Double National.

A High-school Girls' Archery Team.

"Men have their own rounds known as the York Round and the American Round. The York consists of seventy-two arrows at one hundred yards, forty-eight arrows at eighty yards, and twenty-four arrows at sixty yards. The York is usually shot in the morning, and the American - thirty arrows at sixty, fifty, and forty yards each - in the afternoon. Bigger championships are made up of the Double York and the Double American. Both men and women are shooting the same."

Tony was still a little puzzled. "Then what is an 'end'?" he asked.

"Well, an end refers to six arrows. A half dozen arrows shot at any distance are called an end. Thus the American Round is made up of five ends of arrows shot at each distance - sixty, fifty, and forty yards."

Maris ventured the next question and directed it at Alyce. "I noticed some youngsters down at the end of the shooting line aiming at some targets that were closer than the other targets. Who were they?"

"Oh," Alyce smiled, "in most archery groups there is a senior and a junior division. Juniors under sixteen years of age shoot the Junior American Round as the basis for their competition. Thirty arrows at each distance of forty, thirty, and fifty yards makes up the Junior American Round."

Harrison had caught up with the rest now in his eating and was ready to continue his story. "No doubt by now you are wondering what scores the champion considers good for these rounds, but before going into that let me make sure that you know how the scoring is done. I'm sure you've noticed that the targets are marked off into five circles. All standard archery targets are marked in this way. The center circle is called the 'gold.' When hit, it scores nine for the contestant. The second ring from the center is red, and the score is seven. The blue ring, which is next, scores five; the black, three; and the outer white ring, one. If an arrow hits on the line between colors, the value of the highest color is counted. Rebounds from the target or arrows which go through the target are counted five.

"Now the good scores. The outstanding men archers shoot scores in the seven hundreds in the York and American Rounds. Good women archers shoot scores of four hundred and eighty or over in the Columbia Round and three hundred and seventy or more in the National Round. The highest records to date are as follows: York, 813; American, 722; Single National, 492; and Columbia, 550. The best Single Junior American score is 698."

By now the archers were assembled again on the field for the afternoon round. A whistle announced that it was time for the shooting to begin.

"After this round/5 Harrison was saying as he threw his bow over his shoulder, "there will be a Clout Shoot."

"A what?" Tony asked. But Harrison was already striding across the field out of earshot. However, they were soon to see what the Clout Shoot was.

After the second round the guests were directed to go to the other end of the field for the Clout Shoot. The word clout turned out to mean a white flag or other object placed on the ground as a mark for longdistance shooting. A target was marked out on the ground around the flag with whitewash. The diameter of the target was forty-eight feet and the rings counted for the same score as the regular forty-eight-inch target. The men shot thirty-six arrows in all at the clout from a distance of one hundred and eighty yards, the women from one hundred and forty yards, and the juniors from one hundred and twenty yards.

In order to shoot the arrow up into the air far enough to carry to the clout, the archers leaned back from their hips and tipped their bows at approximately a forty-five-degree angle, as shown in the photograph. The arrow seemed to disappear into the clouds as it was sent from the bow. It took a keen eye to watch its flight and determine where it fell in relation to the target. After the other events of the tournament, this kind of shooting offered a relaxation and a new thrill to the archers and the audience alike. Tony and Maris found out later that the scores for clout shooting were not added to the other scores, but that there was a separate winner for this event.

Correct Form for Clout Shooting.

And so it was that Tony and Maris became acquainted with archery. They found to their surprise that there was much more to the ancient sport than they had imagined. The tournament they witnessed that day was full of thrills. There were moments of excitement, such as when the best archer made six "golds." The crowd watched intently as each arrow sped to its mark. Tony marveled at the steady precision with which the experts drew their bows, drawing the string back each time to the same position, then suddenly relaxing as though someone had released an unseen spring.