Neither of the boys could understand why Tom’s gun had exploded, when it wasn’t cocked. However, upon examining the cartridge it was found that the cap bore a faint dot, where the plunger of the gun had rested upon it. The cap had been too sensitive, and a light jar had sent it off.
“Still, I’d no business to have it pointed toward you,” asserted Tom, when Ned tried to excuse him.
“Tom says he guesses you’ll never want to go hunting with him again,” said Zu-zu, one day, on paying a visit to Ned. “He says he’s never going again, either.”
“That’s all nonsense,” vowed Ned. “You tell him so, Zu-zu. He’s the safest fellow in the world to go with, now, he’ll be so mighty careful. My folks think that way, too.”
When Zu-zu went home she carried in a little pill box six shot that the doctor had cut out from just beneath the skin of Ned’s back, where they had come to the surface; and right and left she proudly showed them among her friends.
Only one thing remains to note. Ten days after the shooting, Mrs. Miller finally succeeded in tracing to its source an unsavory odor that had been bothering her, about the house, for some time. She searched Ned’s ill-fated hunting coat, and with a cry of disgust bore it, at arm’s length, into the room where Ned, with the contented Bob beside him, was sitting.
“What do you think I found?” she asked, thrusting in her hand, and drawing out, between her finger tips, a mass of feathers.
“It’s a plover!” fairly shouted Ned, with a howl of laughter. “That’s what I shot the day I was hurt. I’d forgotten all about it. Ugh! Take it away!”
“And Tom was so jealous that he shot you!” retorted Mrs. Miller, hurrying out. “Well, his bag was the biggest, I think.”