The boy still felt aggrieved, and he now fired furiously towards the sky.
The arrow rushed into the air, and came down a moment later, striking the water fairly.
The archer’s face beamed with smiles; he spoke. “Boys, that is as it should be; and when we get warmed up in this game, it will be sport.”
“It will certainly be warm work if we dig down six feet in this dirt,” Will growled.
The boys changed their positions before George shot the next arrow, and, as luck would have it, Will took his stand near a horrible, miry hole which had been scooped out by the river in a great overflow that very spring. He threw his paddles down carelessly, and fixed his eyes on the experimentalist.
That worthy now fitted another arrow to the bowstring, and after taking deliberate aim at a star overhead, he gravely “fired.”
Every head was bent to observe the arrow’s flight, and each one was prepared to spring aside if it should come down too close to him. Each one except Bob Herriman. He, poor wretch, had placed himself in so cramped a position that he could not see it fly.
Having made this clear to the reader, surely he will guess what happened.
The arrow descended fairly in the evergreen, struck a branch, glanced, and Mr. Bob received a stinging blow on the back of the head. He wriggled and nearly fell out of the tree. His mouth flew open, and a half-suppressed ejaculation escaped him.