“That is true.”
“But he may not have meant to do me harm. The pistol was loaded with blanks. It may have been his intention to frighten me.”
Frank was watching Gene closely. It was Skelding’s first impulse to state that this was the fact, but it seemed to him that Merriwell’s eyes could look straight into his heart and detect if he spoke the truth; so his impulse to try to shelter Defarge in such a manner quickly left him, and he said:
“The revolver was loaded with ball cartridges originally. Defarge did not know they had been changed for blanks.”
“They were changed?”
“If they had not been you would be a dead man now, Frank Merriwell.”
“Tell me how it happened, Skelding.”
Gene glanced toward Defarge, as if he did not like to talk of it there.
“Look at him,” said Merry. “He is asleep. See—his eyes are closing now.”