"But we're so glad you didn't get shot," Amy ventured mildly. "We heard that last one back there in the woods, and we thought—"
"We'd gotten ours?" grinned Roy. "Well, we hadn't—not yet."
"It was too near for comfort, just the same," Frank added. "I could almost hear the wind from it as it whizzed past me."
Here Betty, who had been watching Allen closely, uttered a sharp exclamation, and all turned to her.
"Allen," she cried, for he had swayed a little and rested his hand against a tree as though to steady himself, "why didn't you tell us? Oh, Allen! It's blood!"
"Nothing at all," said Allen, laughing a little unsteadily, as Mrs. Irving and the girls and boys gathered about him anxiously. "A little thing will bleed like a shambles sometimes. It's nothing—Betty—"
But Betty, with a little catch in her breath, was tearing aside the soft shirt, which was clotted with blood at the shoulder.
"Oh, Allen, Allen!" she was murmuring over and over in a way that sent the blood pounding madly to Allen Washburn's head, and made the wound a blessing. "Why didn't you tell me? Oh, your poor shoulder! Some one get some water, quick," she ordered imperiously, turning to the anxious group. "I don't think it's serious, but we must stop this bleeding. Please hurry."
And hurry they did, bringing water from a near-by spring in cups they expertly improvised from leaves as they had done so many times just for the fun of it.
Then the boys produced some spotless white handkerchiefs, which served as a makeshift bandage, till they could reach the cottage. The bullet, as Betty had said, had not much more than grazed the shoulder, yet the wound had bled profusely, and Allen was beginning to feel a little sick and dizzy, from the loss of blood.