"She says she did," said Bob, the tease.—"But are you quite sure, Miss Chase, that you really didn't aim at his head? For most women his ankle would have been wonderfully near the mark."
"I shall treat the aspersion with silent contempt," laughed Miss Chase.
"Where did you learn to shoot like that, Dorothy?" asked Mrs. Orban.
"Oh, I've patronized every shooting gallery that has come to the village for the last eighteen years, I should think," was the answer. "But, do you know, I feel most awfully remorseful about that poor fellow. He will be lame for a long time."
In the kitchen sat Manuel, the stable-boy, his leg bandaged and resting on a chair; for the midnight visitor on both occasions had been no other. He confessed to the first performance quite readily, and declared that this second had been at the instigation of Sinkum Fung, who promised always to get the reward for stolen goods, and give him half. Mr. Orban was not sorry to get hold of some definite reason for turning Sinkum Fung out of the place. He had long suspected him to be a cheat, and he wanted an Englishman in the store. But Manuel, when he was well, was to be allowed to retrieve his character, as he protested vehemently he would.
"You needn't worry about Manuel," said Bob. "We shall all be coming to you to shoot us, if you'll just bind us up as beautifully afterwards. Did you learn that in the shooting galleries too, in case you put the showman's eye out?"
Miss Chase really did treat this speech with silent scorn, and changed the subject.
The clearing up of the black-fellow mystery was a great relief to every one's mind.
"Though it comes rather late in the day, just when we are going away," said Mrs. Orban.
"Do you know, I don't feel a bit as if we were really going," Miss Chase declared the very evening before their departure.