NED’S ankle healed all too rapidly, for him; he was out of school only three days. However, it remained weak for a much longer time, affording him the fun of limping about with a . The boys quite envied him, and the girls gazed on him with symptoms of and pity.  
Little Zu-zu Pearce, who, since his rescue of Tom, had adopted him as her own especial hero, came up to him, as he was by the schoolhouse steps, and looking at him gravely, said:
 
“Does it hurt you awful, Ned?”
 
“Naw,” Ned. “It’s nothing but just a common , and it’s about well, now.”
 
“I don’t believe you’d say, even if it was you,” asserted Zu-zu, admiringly. “And you were awful brave not to let go of that rope and be killed!”
 
“Aw, I couldn’t have let go if I’d tried,” asserted Ned, uneasily. “I was tied on.”
 
“Well, I don’t care—you didn’t let go, anyway,” returned Zu-zu; and she skipped back to the other girls, leaving Ned red and embarrassed, but nevertheless gazing after her with a pleased expression in his eyes and a warmth in his heart.
 
 
But, as in the case of many a badge of honor, the cane presently became irksome. Ned wanted a gun, and he knew that it was no use to to be a hunter if he couldn’t walk and run. So he dropped the cane, now unnecessary, and fell to teasing his father for a shotgun.
 
Living as they did beside the Mississippi, which is a great thoroughfare for wild in their flights from north to south, and from south to north, each fall and spring the Beauforters were given splendid duck-shooting.
 
All the men who liked hunting, and nearly all the older boys, and some of the younger whose folks did not care, had guns. Hunting played as important a part in a Beaufort boy’s program as did swimming and rowing.
 
Although Ned had mastered the two sports last mentioned, it did not seem to his mother that she ever could consent to his taking up the first—hunting with a gun.
 
Time had proved to her that there were plenty of dangers to which Ned was exposed, without adding to the list powder and lead.
 
Ned argued for; his mother pleaded against; Mr. listened and smiled, and was non-committal. Down deep in his mind he knew that in the end Ned would win the day.
 
“Well, Helen, I don’t see but what we’ll have to give the boy the gun,” he remarked to his wife, when they were alone, one evening.
 
 
“Oh, Will!” Mrs. Miller, in piteous tones.
 
“But you see, my dear, it will be very hard to keep him from being with other boys who have guns,” explained her husband, “and it would be better to let him have a gun of his own, and understand how to use it, than to leave him to pick up what he can, and maybe get injured through his ignorance.”
 
“Oh, Will!” again appealed Mrs. Miller. “It doesn’t seem as though I could agree to it.”
 
Then mother-like, that her boy might live his strong, sturdy life, she consented.
 
“Ned,” Mr. Miller, the next noon, “supposing we let you have a gun, will you promise to do exactly as we say?”
 
“Yes, sir,” agreed Ned, .
 
“And you’ll be careful?” his mother, anxiously gazing at him.
 
“Of course,” assured Ned.
 
He half-way expected that his father would take him straight down town and buy a gun; but he was disappointed. There were farther preliminaries.
 
“All right,” said his father. “But before you get the gun, I want to be sure that you know how to handle it. I don’t want you shooting yourself, or shooting anybody else, which would be about as bad. So I’ve arranged with Mr. Russell to take you out and show you a few things.”
 
Mr. Russell lived across the street. He was a great hunter, and had all manner of shooting stuff. He was known as a very steady, man, and Mr. and Mrs. Miller felt that they could safely trust Ned to him.
 
As for Ned, his disappointment was not keen, after all. Going out with Mr. Russell, whom he regarded as the finest hunter in town, was next best thing to having a gun, oneself.
 
“Say——” he began, his face .
 
“Ned!” his mother.
 
“I mean—when are we going?” resumed Ned, too excited to offer other apology. “And will he help me train Bob to be a hunting dog?”
 
“He’ll let you know when he’s ready,” stated Mr. Miller. “And until then you must wait, and not bother either him or us, about gun or dog.”
 
Ned strove to walk his paths with patience, and soon was rewarded. The twentieth of September, and the first frost had just passed, and hazelnuts and hickory-nuts were ripe for , when Mr. Russell sent over word for Ned to be ready that night after school, and they would go out for a little while.
 
“!” shouted Ned, through the . “Did he say to take a lunch, father? Will you put it up, mother? How long are we to stay? Where are we going? Can I stay as long as he does?”
 
“Oh, Neddie!” protested his mother, placing her hands over her ears.
 
 
“Ned, be still!” ordered his father. “I don’t think you’ll need a lunch—although, judging from your appetite, you ought to carry one with you all the time. No, Mr. Russell said that he was merely going out on the flats for an hour, to shoot off some old shells, and that you could help him, if you liked.”
 
“Oh!” responded Ned, a bit . “Shall I take Bob?”
 
“If neither Mr. Russell nor Bob objects, I’m sure I don’t,” laughed Mr. Miller.
 
As soon as school was out Ned to Mr. Russell’s, and found him sorting over shells, and stuffing some into his coat pockets. Ned was a little surprised to note that he was dressed just as usual, and evidently did not intend to wear his business-like hunting coat, with its stains from game and weather, and its pockets with here and there a mysterious feather; or his boots; or even his brown cap with visor.
 
“Hello, young man,” greeted Mr. Russell.
 
“Hello,” replied Ned. “Are we going to kill anything?”
 
“Nothing except some cans and of wood, I guess,” responded Mr. Russell.
 
“Do you want Bob?” Ned, hopefully.
 
“Why, yes; take him along, if you wish to,” answered Mr. Russell, surveying Bob, who was wagging his tail near by. “He’s pretty old to train, now, but we can see if there’s any good in him, maybe.”
 
Bob, who, at the stroke of the bell for the close of school always hied out upon the front walk to wait for his master, and thus, this afternoon, had caught him ere he entered the Russell gate, had been uneasily at the gun case, and eyeing Mr. Russell’s preparations. He , and uncertainly. There was something that he didn’t like.
 
In spite of Mr. Russell’s ordinary Ned was as proud as a peacock when they started up the street together, while Bob, with worried air, behind.
 
The flats for which they were bound lay just west of the town; they were a wide stretch of low, level land, pasture and shallow , given over to cows and frogs.
 
Ned and Mr. Russell over a fence, and stopped in a field where there were no cattle or persons within range.
 
Mr. Russell took the gun from its case, and snapped it together.
 
“Say—is that your gun?” demanded Ned, surprised. “I thought you had a double-barrel!”
 
“This is a new one,” replied Mr. Russell. “See, how it comes apart?” and he unsnapped the fore-end, and took off the barrel. “Now you try,” he bade, passing the parts to Ned.
 
Without Ned fitted them together. Then he handled the piece fondly.
 
It was a compact little single-barrel, twelve-bore, with low, hammer, pistol grip, barrel of bronzed twist, stock of polished , and all the metal trimmings blued, to prevent , and avoid alarming game by flashes of sun; in fact, from the sight to the rubber plate it seemed a perfect little gun.
 
“My!” sighed Ned, boldly putting it to his shoulder, and aiming into space. “It is choke-bore, Mr. Russell?”
 
“Yes, siree,” assured Mr. Russell, who had been watching him with a twinkle in his eyes. “Shall I show you?” and he extended his hand.
 
With a final loving pat of the breech Ned regretfully turned the gun over to him, and awaited the next number on the program.
 
Mr. Russell inserted a shell, and said:
 
“Now go off from me about thirty yards, and throw up this tin can, and let’s see what I can do to it.”
 
Ned obeyed. He ran out, close followed by Bob, until Mr. Russell told him to stop.
 
“Throw it high, and away from you,” called Mr. Russell.
 
Up sailed the can. “Bang!” went the gun. “Clink!” sounded the shot cutting the tin. The can jumped in its arc, and striking the ground rolled over and over as though it had been mortally wounded.
 
Ned raced to pick it up. It was now a sorry looking can; and he brought it to Mr. Russell, counting the shot holes as he did so.
 
 
“Sixteen!” he announced, , giving it over for .
 
“That’s very fair,” commented Mr. Russell, carelessly glancing at it. “There goes your dog,” he added, pointing across the field.
 
Sure enough; there was Bob, two hundred yards away, and making a bee-line for home. He never looked back. His tail was between his legs and his back was humped, and even at that distance his whole told of feelings.
 
“Here, Bob! Here, Bob!” called Ned; but he called and whistled in vain.
 
“No use, Ned,” remarked Mr. Russell, laughing. “He’s gun-shy. Somebody must have shot at him, once; or fired off a gun close to his ears; and now, you see, he’s afraid when he hears a report.”
 
“Won’t he get over it?” asked Ned, astonished and puzzled.
 
“No, I don’t think he will,” answered Mr. Russell. “He’s spoiled for hunting.”
 
“Well,” said Ned, gazing after poor Bob, now a townward. “It isn’t his fault, anyway. He can’t help it.”
 
“Supposing you try a shot,” proposed Mr. Russell, handing the gun and a shell to him.
 
Bob’s failure to toe the scratch, in this, the only particular, vanished from Ned’s mind. He gladly seized gun and shell.
 
“No, that’s not the right way to put in a cartridge,” corrected Mr. Russell, kindly. “You have the exactly at my stomach! And when you close the breech, that will bring the muzzle about at my mouth! Let me show you a better way.”
 
“There!” he continued, returning the weapon to Ned. “When you load, always be sure that nobody is in line with the piece. The chances are that the shell won’t explode, but if it should, even once in a thousand times, or in ten thousand, and there be an accident, you’d never forgive yourself. It’s impossible to be too cautious, and it’s very easy not to be cautious enough, Ned.”
 
Ned, somewhat , but impressed by the earnestness of Mr. Russell’s voice, this time loaded more carefully, and Mr. Russell had him repeat the operation to make certain that the lesson was learned.
 
“One small mistake might ruin your whole life, Ned,” warned Mr. Russell. “So start right. And now for a mark,” he proceeded. “I’ll set a can on that fence post, yonder, and I’ll that you can’t put as many shot in it as I did in that other can on the fly. Did you ever shoot a gun?”
 
“Once,” confessed Ned, reluctantly. “A long time ago. And it kicked me over, and made my lip bleed, and when I came home, and father found out he said it served me right. It was Chuck Donahue’s; his big muzzle loader.”
 
“Did you hit anything?” queried Mr. Russell, smiling as he walked away.
 
“N-n-no,” admitted Ned. “At least, there was only one shot-hole, and Chuck said he made it. But I’ve aimed lots of times,” he added, to prove that he was not lacking in experience.
 
“Here!” called Mr. Russell, looking back. “Keep that gun pointed toward the ground until you’re taking aim! I don’t want to be speckled all over with lead.”
 
“It isn’t cocked,” explained Ned.
 
“That makes no difference,” retorted Mr. Russell. “Always handle a gun, empty or loaded, cocked or not, as though you expected that it ............