“No, I don’t think he will,” answered Mr. Russell. “He’s spoiled for hunting.”
“Well,” said Ned, gazing after poor Bob, now a speck townward. “It isn’t his fault, anyway. He can’t help it.”
“Supposing you try a shot,” proposed Mr. Russell, handing the gun and a shell to him.
Bob’s failure to toe the scratch, in this, the only particular, vanished from Ned’s mind. He gladly seized gun and shell.
“No, that’s not the right way to put in a cartridge,” corrected Mr. Russell, kindly. “You have the muzzle pointed exactly at my stomach! And when you close the breech, that will bring the muzzle about at my mouth! Let me show you a better way.”
“There!” he continued, returning the weapon to Ned. “When you load, always be sure that nobody is in line with the piece. The chances are that the shell won’t explode, but if it should, even once in a thousand times, or in ten thousand, and there be an accident, you’d never forgive yourself. It’s impossible to be too cautious, and it’s very easy not to be cautious enough, Ned.”
Ned, somewhat abashed, but impressed by the earnestness of Mr. Russell’s voice, this time loaded more carefully, and Mr. Russell had him repeat the operation to make certain that the lesson was learned.
“One small mistake might ruin your whole life, Ned,” warned Mr. Russell. “So start right. And now for a mark,” he proceeded. “I’ll set a can on that fence post, yonder, and I’ll wager that you can’t put as many shot in it as I did in that other can on the fly. Did you ever shoot a gun?”
“Once,” confessed Ned, reluctantly. “A long time ago. And it kicked me over, and made my lip bleed, and when I came home, and father found out he said it served me right. It was Chuck Donahue’s; his big muzzle loader.”
“Did you hit anything?” queried Mr. Russell, smiling as he walked away.