But Julian's alarm was premature. Not a shot had touched it.
The members of the Chickering set continued the delightful sport of snatching hats and caps from each other's heads and shooting at them with Paulding's fine English gun; but the only damage done was by the falls the articles received, for not a shot touched any of them.
"Of course, fellahs, a moor cock doesn't fly that way," Willis drawlingly explained, in extenuation of the poor shooting. "He doesn't go right up and down, you 'now. He has wings, don't you 'now, and flies straight away, like a shot. I could hit a grouse without any trouble, but this kind of shooting! The best shot in England would be bothered with it."
"We'll have a try at the clay pigeons and blackbirds soon," Chickering comfortingly promised.
"But, gwathious, I've twied them, and they're harder to hit than thethe are! I could do better if I could only keep my eyeth open, but the minute I begin to pull the twigger my eyeth go shut, and I can't help it."
They had turned round and were retracing their way toward Merriwell and his friends without noticing it. Suddenly Lew Veazie jumped straight up into the air, clapped a hand smartly against one of his legs, and began to dance a hornpipe. At almost the same moment a shot was fired by some one.
"Thay, fellowth, I'm thyot!" he gasped, turning deathly pale. "Honeth, thith ithn't a joke! I'm thyot! Ow! It burnth like fire!"
"Where?" Ollie anxiously asked, staring at the dancing youth, and looking quickly about to make sure that no loaded gun was pointed in his direction. The others looked about, too.
"This reckless shooting ought to be forbidden!" declared Skelding, regardless of the fact that the shooting he and his friends had been doing was of the most reckless character. Veazie dropped down on the ground, and began to pull up one leg of his trousers.
"It stwuck me wight here!" he gasped. "I think it must have gone thwough my leg. I can feel the blood twickling down."