' ther blood is runnin' down my
neck!"

"I vos dyin'!"

"I'll be dead in a minute!"

Sammy Smiles held fast to his nose, and made haste to bend over his
principal, whom he pretended to examine.

"Bring bandages!" he shouted. "Help me to stop him from bleeding to
death."

"It's nary a bit of use," groaned the Vermonter. "No feller ever lived
with his jubilee vein cut in two!"

"Merciful goodness!" cried Frank, in pretended horror, as he hovered
over Hans, also taking care to cling to his nose. "The whole top of
his head is shot away!"

The Dutch boy gave a wild, despairing wail.

"Und you said dot feller vos goin' to run avay! Dunder und blitsens!
I vos a fool dot I don'd run avay meinseluf pefore mein prains he shot
oudt!"

"Never mind," said Frank. "You will die like a hero, and we'll bury
you with all the honors of war."

"Yah!" snorted Hans. "Dot vos nice--I don'd pelieve! I don'd care
apout dot honors uf var! Oh, Shimminy Gristmas! vot a fool a blamed
fool vos!"

"I am surprised at you," said Frank, sternly. "You should be proud to
perish in such a heroic manner."

"Oh, yaw! I peen tickled to death--mit a pullet. Id vos fun!"

"I am afraid you are not a success as a hero."

"Vell, I dudder peen a success as a coward und kept avay from dot
pullet."

In the meantime Ephraim had recovered from the shock sufficiently to
detect the powerful odor of the stale egg that had struck him.

"Great gum!" he gurgled. "What was that Dutchman's pistol loaded with?
Something must have crawled inter ther pesky thing an' died there!"

"Do you really smell anything?" chuckled Sammy Smiles.

"Do I?" howled the Yankee boy, sitting up and gasping for breath. "I
ruther think I do, by gum!"

"You must be mistaken. Being seriously wounded, you imagine it. It is
the result of your injury."

"Is that so? Wal," he wildly panted, "if that's ther case, I hope I'll
die soon an' git aout of my misery!"

The spectators were convulsed with merriment, and Ephraim began to
smell a rat--if, indeed, it were possible to smell anything but the
ancient eggs.

"Say!" he snorted, "you fellers don't act like there was anybody dyin'
around here. An' by chaowder! this smell is jest ther same ez I struck
when I crawled under dad's old barn to find where the speckled hen was
layin', an' crunched up some aigs that hed bin there two or three
months. Ef that Dutchman loaded his pistol with a ripe aig an' shot me
in th