“Don’t tell me he’s—” but Alice paused, not willing to utter the fatal word. Several rolls of bandages fell from her hands.
“Oh, I’m all right,” went on Jed. “I’ll live to be an old man if I wait to be shot, I guess. Whoa, there, ponies,” this last to his team.
“Then isn’t any one hurt?” asked Alice, and though she was undoubtedly glad of it, there was a distinct note of disappointment in her voice.
“No one,” explained Ned, as he told how it had happened. Jed took part of the blame, for not announcing his presence, but, nevertheless, Fenn was a bit shaky for some time after the incident, and Ned and the others were nervous.
“The doctor will be right over!” suddenly cried Bart, bursting through the bushes. “Who is it, and is he badly hurt?” Then he had to be told how it was, and he hurried back into the house to countermand the order for the physician. Alice gathered up her bandages, and with her box of remedies retraced her steps. She had missed a chance to practice for her chosen profession, but she was glad of it.
A more careful investigation of how Fenn had stood when he shot, and a calculation of the angle at which he held the rifle, showed that the bullet must have gone well over Jed’s head, so it was not so bad as at first thought.
“But it was mostly my own fault,” concluded the odd man, as he drove away. “Never again will I keep on when I see a black cat—” He stopped suddenly, checked his team, and got out of the empty wagon.
“What’s the matter now?” asked Frank.
“There’s a horseshoe in the field there, and it’s turned the wrong way for luck,” explained Jed, as he picked it up. “I was drivin’ right toward it—must have come off one of my horses when I was comin’ around to get a good place to toss off the wood.”