Spring came early, but none too early for the majority of Beaufort people. In particular, none too early for Ned, whose ankle was proving a check on his farther winter sports; and none too early for Tom, to whom Christmas had brought a gun which he had hardly been able to use even on rabbits; and none too early for Bob, who, as has been said, was not a cold-weather dog.

With the advent of the south winds and the steady dripping thaw, Ned’s ankle and Tom’s cough—keepsakes from that memorable Newton trip—rapidly disappeared; and the nearer ventured the ducks, the stronger felt the two boys. Together—Tom no longer Ned’s squire, but now, by virtue of that Christmas present, become his brother-at-arms—they haunted the levee, watching for the flight to set in and the ice to go out.

Bob accompanied them. But he was not especially interested in ducks. Dread of gun forbade him to hunt them, alive; and instinct forbade him to gnaw the bones of them, dead. Summer really was Bob’s only unclouded season, for then he could share in all Ned’s excursions. Still, even a dog cannot go through life without trials.

All through the spring vacation that ice which had made such good skating on the Mississippi hung and hung, regardless of the fact that its mission had been fulfilled, and that it ought to leave the field to the hunters. Meanwhile the wild fowl had been making use of the Missouri waterway; and when, at last, the blockade in the Mississippi was lifted, and in the shape of enormous floes of slush swept down the channel, mashing against the piers of the Beaufort bridge and piling up on the shores, the relief was too late.

Most of the ducks had passed by, on another route, and Ned and Tom had killed never a one.

Tom was disappointed beyond measure. His new gun yearned for its first duck, and but illy submitted to the superior blood-record of Ned’s gun. Probably this is why, in its mistaken zeal, it brought to bag what it did.

The duck crop being a failure, the boys had to content themselves with the snipe crop. After the ducks, save now and then a wood-duck or a blue-winged teal which had decided to stay all summer, were beyond reach of even a thirteen-inch cannon, not to speak of a twelve gauge single-barrel, jack snipe and plover still lingered in the marshes and along the edges of the streams.

It was the second Saturday in April, and Ned and Tom were among the sloughs across the river, raking the country for whatever might be so unlucky as to offer itself as an acceptable target. The withdrawal of the ice from the Mississippi had given release to that in the sloughs, and everything was springlike and green and watery.

Now it was afternoon. As to what the boys had thus far secured, the less said, the better. Of course, one cannot have good luck on every trip. But there was a chance, yet, to round out the day well, had not Tom’s gun, impatient and unruly, sailed in without waiting, and on its own hook.

The slough was on the boys’ right. They were walking single file—Ned carelessly a few paces ahead, or Tom carelessly a few paces behind, just as critics choose—on the alert for game. It might be a pair of plover winging overhead, or a jack snipe whisking from under their feet, or, possibly, a belated duck squawking from its covert, or—something else.

“Boom!” And Ned was on his knees, and, astonished, was trying not to fall farther.

It had happened so very suddenly. The first thing that he knew, his ears had been deafened by a tremendous crash, and at the same instant he had been struck a violent blow on the back, and thrown forward. The next thing that he knew, he was tottering on his knees, and Tom was bending over him, wailing:

“I’ve killed him, I’ve killed him! Oh, dear, what shall I do!”

“I know you didn’t mean to, Tom,” comforted Ned, still rather hazy as to just what had taken place.

“Are you dying, Ned? Don’t die! Oh, don’t die!” pleaded Tom.

Ned examined himself, inwardly, a moment, to determine what his exact state might be. He could place no pain; but this was what seemed awful: that he might be dreadfully wounded somewhere, and yet not know it!

“Where did it hit me, Tom?” he asked, faintly, and not daring to stir.

“I shot your shoulder all to pieces!” cried Tom, wildly. “And my gun wasn’t even cocked!”

Ned fearfully looked over at his left shoulder. He beheld his coat at that spot in tatters, and his whole left sleeve torn so that it hung in only threads.

With such havoc made, surely there ought to be pain; but on the contrary the sole sensation was a curious numbness in his left side and extending to his left elbow.

He wondered if it could be true that he was about to die. He found himself not afraid, although it was hard to die away off there, in the open country, beside a slough. He was sorry for himself, and for his father and mother, and for Tom. What would Bob think? What would the boys and girls say? Poor little Zu-zu would cry and cry, and keep his duck wings forever.

“Can you move your arm? Try!” implored Tom.

Ned cautiously tried, and found that he could swing his arm and wiggle his fingers. But it was as though he was experimenting with the arm of somebody else.

Both were now becoming somewhat more hopeful. Of the two, Tom, as was natural, was the more excited and frightened, because upon his head rested the accident, and because it was he who could view the full extent of the damage.

Ned could only imagine; Tom could both see and imagine.

“I don’t believe I’m shot so bad, after all,” mused Ned, easing himself by settling back upon his heels. “It doesn’t hurt a bit.”

“But you are! I’m afraid you are!” moaned Tom, pitifully. “And it’s all my fault, though I don’t see how it ever happened.”

From the appearance of that back it seemed to Tom that the whole load must have entered Ned’s shoulder.

“Isn’t any one in sight to help us?” queried Ned.

“Not a soul,” said Tom, with a quaver of despair in his voice. “Shall I fix you as good as I can, and then run like lightning and get a wagon, or something?”

“I bet I could walk as far as the road,” asserted Ned, pondering. “That would be a better place to leave me, for people are more apt to come along there, you know.”

“But I hate to have you walk, Ned,” said Tom. “It might not be right for you.”

Nevertheless he took Ned’s hand and helped him get on his feet—which was done with no apparent harm.

“I don’t need to be held up,” objected Ned, as Tom started to put an arm around his waist, and lead him off. “You carry the guns. You weren’t going to forget them, were you?”

Tom raised Ned’s gun from the spot where it had dropped when Ned himself had dropped, and then gave his own, lying where he had flung it, a kick.

“It can stay here and rust, for all of me,” he declared. “I’ll never touch it again; never.”

“Shucks, you will, too,” scolded Ned. “Now you pick it up.”

So Tom roughly picked it up. Together the two boys—the injured and the sound—slowly walked across the field, with Tom watching Ned askance, as if expecting him to keel over at any instant.

Ned, however, while keeping himself well in hand, and on the lookout for any new and warning symptoms, did not feel the least discomfort from the motion.

His shoulder was numb, and only numb.

To reach the road they had to cross a railway track; and as they neared it Tom halted and cried, joyfully:

“Listen!”

A clattering rumble, around the curve, fell upon their ears.

“A train—it’s a train!” cried Tom. “You stay here and I’ll go ahead and stop it.”

“Maybe it won’t stop,” said Ned.

“Yes, it will. I’ll make it,” assured Tom, running forward. “They wouldn’t go on and leave you here to die!”

Uncertain as to how he would do it, but determined to stop the train at all hazard, Tom flew for the track.

Around the long curve swept the Pacific Coast Limited, due in Beaufort at 3:21. The engineer, peering ahead, was startled to see, planted between the rails in the rapidly nearing distance, a boy with a gun in each hand, threatening the advance of the train.

The engineer opened the whistle valve, and the engine sounded its angry, impatient command: “Out of the way!”

Tom saw the white flare of steam, and a second later heard the quick shriek of warning. But he never budged. He only waved his arms and guns.

He tried to make the engineer know; now he flourished the guns, and now he patted his left shoulder, and now he pointed off toward Ned, and wept aloud in his fear that he was not being understood.

The engineer and the fireman noted the gestures, and saw that the boy stubbornly stood and budged not.

It seemed to be a question of either slowing down or running over him.

To Tom it was a question of either saving Ned or being run over.

The engineer’s hand tightened on the air-brake lever. The other hand grudgingly jerked the throttle.

Tom saw the engine still closing in upon him at relentless speed—and he only gestured the more.

Then, on a sudden, with grinding of wheels, and a disgusted wheeze, the train stopped; the pilot of the engine just touched his boot-legs.

“What’s the matter with you, eh?” demanded the engineer, savagely, leaning out of his window.

“A boy’s been shot! He’s got to be taken to town right away,” explained Tom, hastening around beside the cab, and looking up at the grimy face far above him.

He clutched the cab steps imploringly, resolved that the train should not start without him.

The fireman had jumped to the cab door and was listening.

“Well, where is he?” demanded the engineer.

“There——” began Tom, but he was interrupted by a brakeman, who, followed by the conductor, came running up from the foremost coach.

“What’s the matter here?” asked the brakeman.

“A boy’s shot, and you’ve got to take him to Beaufort,” announced Tom, again.

“Where is he?” snapped the conductor, now taking hold of affairs.

“He’s coming. All right, Ned,” encouraged Tom, beckoning to Ned, who was walking as fast as he could, through the field, toward them.

“That him?” demanded the conductor, shortly.

“Yes, sir,” replied Tom. “He’s——”

“Go ahead,” ordered the conductor, turning on his heel, to the engineer. “Young man, this is a dangerous business you’re in—stopping limited trains just for the fun of it. I’ve a mind to take you to town and turn you over to the officers.”

He glared at Tom, and the brakeman glared at Tom, and the fireman and engineer glared at Tom, and all the faces stuck out of the windows of the line of coaches glared at Tom.

The engineer reached for the throttle, and Tom reached for the conductor’s coat-tail.

“Oh, but it’s true, it’s true!” cried Tom. “He is shot. I shot him myself. You look at his shoulder and you’ll see. Please wait! Please wait, just a second. If it isn’t so, you can do anything to me you like. See—how his left sleeve is all torn.”

“Have him hurry up, then,” said the conductor, moved by Tom’s appeal, and able to see for himself that evidently something was wrong with Ned.

Tom dropped his guns, and jumping down the slight embankment sped to Ned, to help him pass a barbed wire fence, and climb the gravelly slope.

“By Jinks—the boy is hurt!” observed the brakeman.

The conductor tapped with his foot impatiently.

“At any rate, he’s making us lose lots of time,” he remarked.

“All aboard!” he called, as Tom and Ned toiled up to the track. And he added, kindly, as the sight of Ned’s pale face and tattered back impressed him: “Get in the first coach, lad. Help him in, Jack.”

With a boost from the brakeman Ned safely landed upon the vestibuled platform. At the same instant, as though he had touched a concealed lever, the train started, so eager was it to be again under way.

Ned, with Tom steadying him, entered the coach, and sat meekly in the seat next to the door. The conductor came to interview them, and curious passengers crowded around; the news that “a boy has been shot” had spread adown the long line of aisles.

Tom answered a multitude of questions; and Ned, too, had his share. He told everybody, in reply to their queries, that he felt all right, but in truth his shoulder was beginning to throb and sting.

Presently a physician came through, and after a keen look into Ned’s face, and a light fingering of the arm and shoulder, pronounced no bones broken; and being told that the victim was going only to Beaufort gave it as his opinion that the wound should wait, rather than be examined on the train.

Over the bridge rumbled the train; and in a moment Ned and Tom, two forlorn figures, descended at the depot.

Their car had stopped beyond the depot crowd, and nobody noticed them emerge from the vestibule, upon the bricks below. Tom, who had halted a limited train, was equal to this next crisis.

The hacks and ’buses were at the other end of the depot, but across the wide brick walk he saw Luke Denee’s white horse and veteran express and transfer wagon, with Luke himself standing by it, waiting for whatever hauling the train might have brought him.

“Oh, Mr. Denee! Mr. Denee!” called Tom, running forward. “Won’t you carry Ned Miller up town—he’s been shot!”

“What’s that?” inquired Luke, bustling forward. “Ned Miller? Where is he—why, bless my soul!” catching sight of Ned himself. “Who shot him?”

“I did. My gun went off by accident,” explained Tom, wearily; he was growing tired of confessing it so often. “He ought to be got to a doctor right away.”

“You bet I’ll take him, and we’ll get him there in a jiffy,” assured Luke. “Golly the grog and the great horn spoon, Ned boy—did Tom take you for a goose, or a snipe, or what?”

“A what, I guess,” replied Ned, as Luke helped him into the rear of the wagon, and settled him upon a trunk. The train was pulling out, and from every window the passengers’ faces stared out upon them.

Barely waiting for Tom, with the two guns, to leap into the wagon, Luke plumped upon the seat and lifting the lines clucked vigorously to his white horse. The report of Ned’s plight was now being repeated from mouth to mouth through the depot and vicinity, and as the wagon rolled away and turned down the street it was followed by a murmur and many eyes.

With Ned sitting upon the trunk, and Tom standing beside him to steady him, and Luke laying the whip on his astonished steed, the wagon rattled down the thoroughfare. Scenting something wrong, the people whom it passed gazed after it in wonder.

“Where to? Which doctor?” asked Luke, over his shoulder.

“Dr. Mathews—he’s the one the Millers use,” directed Tom. “Is that all right, Ned?”

Ned nodded.

Dr. Mathews’ office was at his house, and luckily they caught him in. Ned was wearing a hunting coat, and an ordinary coat under it. The doctor put him in a chair, and not saying “by your leave” swiftly and skilfully cut away the layers of cloth, and ripping up the shirt underneath laid bare the shoulder.

Tom, gazing, beheld a group of little round, blue holes, and some smears of blood.

“Oh, dear!” he groaned. “Isn’t that awful!”

The doctor was delicately inserting a slender steel probe into one of the holes. Ned, hunched over, holding his breath and clenching his teeth, feared a sorry time.

“Does it hurt you much?” asked the doctor, gently exploring with the probe.

“N-n-no, it doesn’t,” replied Ned, relieved. He could not feel the probe at all.

“Numb, eh?” remarked the doctor. “Well, that’s good.”

“Is it very bad, doctor?” asked Ned.

“Not a bit of it!” assured the doctor, cheerfully. “Just a flesh wound, and in a week or so you’ll be as well as ever! You’ve been struck by only—let’s see—ten, eleven, thirteen—by thirteen shot, and they’re on top of the shoulder-blade, every one of them, so far as I can tell.”

“Oh, I’m so glad!” sighed Tom, bursting into tears. Now that the worst was over, he collapsed.

“Don’t cry, Tom, old fellow,” begged Ned. “Everything’s all right, now.”

“Yes, indeed,” assured the doctor. “But you had a very, very narrow escape. The load must have passed between your shoulder and neck—and if it had swerved a fraction of an inch to the right, or so as to enter lower, you’d have bled to death long before this.”

“Oh, Ned!” exclaimed Tom, aghast at what might have been.

“But it didn’t swerve, you know,” prompted Ned.

Here Mr. Miller, frightened as he never had been frightened before, rushed in. Bad news travels fast.

“Ned!” he cried, at the sight of his son under the probe.

“Now that will do, Mr. Miller,” cautioned the doctor, smiling to quiet his fear. “Ned is right side up, and almost ready for another hunt. He’s pretty tough, you must understand.”

“Nothing serious?” questioned Mr. Miller.

“Not in the slightest,” asserted the doctor, with a belittling shake of his head, and withdrawing the probe from the last hole. “I’ll simply dress this place with antiseptic, and you can take him home in my carriage. Just have him keep quiet for a few days, and I think that he’ll soon be as fit as a fiddle.”

So Ned was carried home in Doctor Mathews’ carriage, his father driving. Tom was left to bring the guns, and answer queries along the way.

One would suppose that Mrs. Miller, by this time, would have been so used to having Ned return after having figured in some hair-breadth escape, that she would take no especial notice of such a little thing as thirteen shot in his left shoulder.

But when she witnessed him gingerly clamber down upon the horse-block, his arm in a sling, she acted as though this was his first, instead of maybe his hundredth, accident.

Yet the thirteen shot in his shoulder did not concern her so much as did the rest of the load, that had passed so near, just missing his neck and his lungs.

Bob followed Ned in from the gate, and sniffing the antiseptic, and wondering why his master did not respond, as usual, to his energetic greetings, remained upon the front porch, to consider the new smell, and ponder over what was up.

Ned’s wound did not trouble him much. He got his hurts easily, as a rule, and just as easily he was rid of them. Young blood is good blood for healing purposes, as well as for purposes in general.

Tom was constant in his attentions, as were Zu-zu and Mrs. Pearce. They sent or brought fruit and books and everything that might benefit or amuse.

Neither of the boys could understand why Tom’s gun had exploded, when it wasn’t cocked. However, upon examining the cartridge it was found that the cap bore a faint dot, where the plunger of the gun had rested upon it. The cap had been too sensitive, and a light jar had sent it off.

“Still, I’d no business to have it pointed toward you,” asserted Tom, when Ned tried to excuse him.

“Tom says he guesses you’ll never want to go hunting with him again,” said Zu-zu, one day, on paying a visit to Ned. “He says he’s never going again, either.”

“That’s all nonsense,” vowed Ned. “You tell him so, Zu-zu. He’s the safest fellow in the world to go with, now, he’ll be so mighty careful. My folks think that way, too.”

When Zu-zu went home she carried in a little pill box six shot that the doctor had cut out from just beneath the skin of Ned’s back, where they had come to the surface; and right and left she proudly showed them among her friends.

Only one thing remains to note. Ten days after the shooting, Mrs. Miller finally succeeded in tracing to its source an unsavory odor that had been bothering her, about the house, for some time. She searched Ned’s ill-fated hunting coat, and with a cry of disgust bore it, at arm’s length, into the room where Ned, with the contented Bob beside him, was sitting.

“What do you think I found?” she asked, thrusting in her hand, and drawing out, between her finger tips, a mass of feathers.

“It’s a plover!” fairly shouted Ned, with a howl of laughter. “That’s what I shot the day I was hurt. I’d forgotten all about it. Ugh! Take it away!”

“And Tom was so jealous that he shot you!” retorted Mrs. Miller, hurrying out. “Well, his bag was the biggest, I think.”