“Kid, you ain't hurt much?” queried Buell, with concern.
I would have snapped out a reply, but I caught sight of Dick's pale face and anxious eyes.
“Ken,” he called, with both gladness and doubt in his voice, “you look pretty good—but that blood.... Tell me, quick!”
“It's nothing, Dick, only a little cut. The bullet just ticked my arm.”
Whatever Dick's reply was it got drowned in Herky-Jerky's long explosion of strange language. Herky was plainly glad I had not been badly hurt. I had already heard mirth, anger, disgust, and fear in his outbreaks, and now relief was added. He stripped off my coat, cut off the bloody sleeve of my shirt, and washed the wound. It was painful and bled freely, but it was not much worse than cuts from spikes when playing ball. Herky bound it tightly with a strip of my shirt-sleeve, and over that my handkerchief.
“Thar, kid, thet'll stiffen up an' be sore fer a day or two, but it ain't nothin'. You'll soon be bouncin' clubs offen our heads.”
It was plain that Herky—and the others, for that matter, except Buell—thought more of me because I had wielded a club so vigorously.
“Look at thet lump, kid,” said Bud, bending his head. “Now, ain't thet a nice way to treat a feller? It made me plumb mad, it did.”
“I'm likely to hurt somebody yet,” I declared.
They looked at me curiously. Buell raised his face with a queer smile. Bud broke into a laugh.