The Rifle / Gary Paulsen 105 p.

A 1768 flintlock rifle is at the centerpiece in this story. Cornish McManus meticulously handcrafts this rifle from birds’ eye maple and steel. Paulsen painstaking describes how McManus incorporated his own design into the current techniques to produce a rifle so “sweet” (accurate) that it such a superior killing machine that British officers were told to make their wills before they left camp. Each owner’s attitude towards the rifle gives Paulsen an opportunity to show its changing role -- from a requirement for survival to a showpiece. A series of co-incidences place the rifle in a position to take the life of a teenager in 1994.