size, against the wall.

"Make yourself a better hunter," said he, sternly, "before you presume
to lay hands again on my gun. Look there!"

Jack pointed, as he spoke, in the direction in which the man had fired,
where the object that had been mistaken for a bear appeared in the form
of a man, crawling out of the bushes on all-fours. He seemed to move
unsteadily, as if he were in pain.

Running to his assistance, they found that he was an Indian, and, from
the blood that bespattered his dress and hand, it was evident that he
had been wounded. He was a pitiable object, in the last stage of
exhaustion. When the party ran towards him, he looked up in their faces
with lustreless eyes, and then sank fainting on the ground.

"Poor fellow!" said Jack, as they carried him into the hut and placed
him on one of the low beds; "he must have met with an accident, for
there is no warfare in this region among the Indians to account for his
being wounded."

"'Tis a strange accident," said Marteau, when the man's clothes were
stripped off and the wounds exposed. "An accident sometimes puts _one_
bullet through a man, but seldom puts _two_!"

"True," said Jack, "this looks bad, here is a hole clean through the
fleshy part of his right arm, and another through his right thigh. An
enemy must have done this."

On farther examination it was found that the bone of the man's leg had
been smashed by the bullet, which, after passing through to the other
side of the limb, was arrested by the skin. It was easily extracted,
and the wounds were dressed by Jack, who, to his many useful qualities,
added a considerable knowledge of medicine and surgery.

When the Indian recovered sufficiently to give an account of himself to
Marteau, who understood his language perfectly, he told him, to the
surprise of all, that his double wound was indeed the result of an
accident, and, moreover, that he had done the deed with his own hand.
Doubtless it will puzzle the reader to imagine how a man could so twist
himself, that with an unusually long gun he could send a bullet at one
shot through his right arm and right thigh. It puzzled Jack and his men
so much, that they were half inclined to think the Indian was not
telling the truth, until he explained that about a mile above the hut,
while walking through the bushes, he tripped and fell. He was carrying
the gun over his shoulder in the customary Indian fashion, that is, by
the muzzle, with the stoc