"I done hit," he answered dully.
Mike licked the wrinkled hand which moved in slow caress over his jaws.
"You?" whispered Donald in amazed unbelief.
"Gawd help me, yes. I shot him ... I wish hit hed er been myself," returned the old man, between breaths which came in deep, body-shaking gasps.
Slowly the doctor bent, laid his chum back on the ground, and knelt beside him until the fast glazing eyes—which never wavered from his—closed forever, and the pain-tortured little body lay still. Big Jerry, too, sank down and dropped his massive head onto his hands, while his frame rose and fell with convulsive heaving.
"Hit war this erway," he began to speak at last, and told his story in broken, laboring sentences. "I war erhuntin' with ... with yo'r rifle-gun in the woods thar beyond ther ravine. Jest es I war startin' fer the cabin, I seen ... I seen a man erstandin' hyar on the bank, er peerin' down towards the river, thar. I looked whar he war erlookin', an' seen ye down thar, bathin' yo'r face in ther water. The man war ertotin' a rifle-gun, an' uv a sudden he drapped ter his knee an' raised hit, an' I knowed he war kalkerlatin' ter shoot ye.
"I tried fer ter shout, ter cry out a warnin' ter ye, but my voice hed somehow lost hits power, an' wouldn't kerry above the noise of the falls. Thar war but one thing fer ter do, an' hit called fer powerful quick action.
"Yo' war my foster-son, an' ef 'twar yo'r life er his'n I allowed I knowed whar my duty lay. But I didn't aim fer ter kill him.... I wish ter Gawd I hed. 'Taint boastin' none fer me ter say ter ye thet I aimed only fer ter shoot the arm what war holdin' the gun.
"In course hit takes time fer ter tell ye all this, but I acted like I thought. Then ..." he paused, and went on only with a supreme effort, "then, jest as I started the trigger-pull, I seen ... I seen leetle Mike spring out o' the bushes straight at ... at the man. I seen him, I tells ye, erfore I fired. My mind told me not ter pull thet trigger, an' ... an' I done hit. My aim war true, but ..." he stopped altogether.
"The man," asked Donald at length, through clenched teeth. "What happened to him?"