"How did you happen to find me so soon?" asked the Englishman.
"Thank Dick for that," said Banks. "He dragged me out of bed before dawn. He heard the shooting last night; but didn't think much about it then. But when he learned that you had been out all day he began to worry."
Dick Goodine nodded.
"That's right," he said. "The more I thought over them two shots, an' the yellin' I heard, the queerer it all seemed to me."
"Did you see any one, Reginald?" asked Banks. "Do you know who plugged you—or can you make a guess?"
Rayton shook his head. "I didn't see anything," he replied—"not even the flash of the rifle. No, I can't guess. It was all so sudden!—and I was so dashed angry and surprised, you know! I let fly with both barrels—and then I fell down. Blood was just spurting, you know. I felt very weak—and mad enough to chew somebody."
"So you fired the second shot, did you?" queried Banks.
"Yes. I only hope I peppered the dirty cad. Of course, it may not have been intentional. I haven't thought it out yet. Whoever fired the shot may have mistaken me for a moose or deer. But it is pretty hard lines, I think, if a chap can't walk through the woods without being sniped at by some fool with a rifle."
"That's what set me wonderin'—that second shot," said the trapper. "I was a durned idjit, though! I might er known there wasn't any strangers shootin' 'round this country now—any of the kind that hollers like all git-out every time they hit something—or think they do. But I was a good ways off, an' late, so I just kept hikin' along for home."
"That's all right, old boy," said Rayton. "No harm done, I think. But are you sure there are no strangers in the woods now? Who do you think shot me, then?"