By this time Frank had dashed across the intervening space and had reached her side.
“You’re safe now! Where did that dog come from?” he asked her. “What were you doing here?”
But Minnie’s tongue was not ready to function just yet. She was breathing hard. Her breast was heaving sharply, her face was of a grayish pallor, her wide eyes glassy, her lips trembling, her body aquiver.
Frank took her hand and held it for a moment, thinking she might faint, but as the other boys approached and the girls, too, the color came back to her cheeks, her eyes became normal, and she was able to stammer:
“We were nutting, and all of a sudden this dog came rushing toward us. It ran around in a big ring, and I saw the foam flying. I realized that it was mad!”
“It was mad!” exclaimed Helen Allen. “It ran around in a big ring and we thought it was going to go back to the road, but we started running away from it, anyhow. Then it ran again at us, and we screamed and ran back.”
Frank turned the dog over, after a quick glance had told him it was breathing no more, and all of them saw the red spot where the bullet had reached its mark—squarely in the side of the head.
“This hunting dog was dead when it struck at Minnie’s feet,” observed Ralph West.
“I’ll claim to the world that’s some shooting,” said Lanky. “Good thing you had some target practice—especially following my good lessons.” And there was a merry smile on the lean fellow’s face as he permitted a laughing remark to fit into the situation.
The boys and girls marveled at the shot that Frank Allen had made at a time when only a good shot would answer the requirements.