“Are you hit, Tom?” Ned yelled, as he drew in his head and had a glimpse of his chum swaying in the middle of the forward cabin. “Did they get you?”
As if in a daze Tom put his hand to his head and took off his cap. There was a queer look on his face as he looked at a neat, round hole through the cap’s visor, close to where it set on his head.
“They missed you!” Ned joyfully cried when he saw this. “But it was a narrow squeak, Tom!”
Holding the punctured cap in his left hand, Tom put his right hand to his head and when he brought his fingers down there was a little smear of blood on them.
“You’re hit—after all!” gasped Ned.
“No, just a graze,” and Tom found his voice for the first time since the shooting. “It was a close call,” he went on. “It fairly had me going for a moment or two. That bullet must have creased me, Ned. It skimmed right past my head. Yes, I was creased.”
This is a term used by Westerners to indicate that a bullet grazes a man or an animal. The effect, while not serious, is to render the victim incapable of speech or action for a short time. Often wild horses are subdued in that way. Needless to say, it takes a sure shot to “crease” a beast and not send the bullet deep enough to kill. In the case of the hunters firing from below on the airship it was undoubtedly accidental.
“It was just a graze,” declared Tom again, and an examination showed this to be the case. The bullet had buried itself in the upper part of the window frame after piercing Tom’s cap and drawing a little blood. The wound was treated with an antiseptic solution, and then, feeling more like himself, Tom prepared to ascertain their position.
They had soon left the hunters behind, and doubtless those wild riders had a strange tale to tell around the campfire that night.
By calculating their speed and distance and by identifying certain landmarks, Tom made, certain that they were over Turkey—and the wilder part of that country.