“Is it very bad, doctor?” asked Ned.
“Not a bit of it!” assured the doctor, cheerfully. “Just a flesh wound, and in a week or so you’ll be as well as ever! You’ve been struck by only—let’s see—ten, eleven, thirteen—by thirteen shot, and they’re on top of the shoulder-blade, every one of them, so far as I can tell.”
“Oh, I’m so glad!” sighed Tom, bursting into tears. Now that the worst was over, he collapsed.
“Don’t cry, Tom, old fellow,” begged Ned. “Everything’s all right, now.”
“Yes, indeed,” assured the doctor. “But you had a very, very narrow escape. The load must have passed between your shoulder and neck—and if it had swerved a fraction of an inch to the right, or so as to enter lower, you’d have bled to death long before this.”
“Oh, Ned!” exclaimed Tom, aghast at what might have been.
“But it didn’t swerve, you know,” prompted Ned.
Here Mr. Miller, frightened as he never had been frightened before, rushed in. Bad news travels fast.
“Ned!” he cried, at the sight of his son under the probe.
“Now that will do, Mr. Miller,” cautioned the doctor, smiling to quiet his fear. “Ned is right side up, and almost ready for another hunt. He’s pretty tough, you must understand.”