and left, and Jim was to hide in the woods when he
see the doctor coming till he was gone again.

CHAPTER XLI

The doctor was an old man; a very nice, kind-looking old man when I
got him up. I told him me and my brother was over on Spanish Island
hunting yesterday afternoon, and camped on a piece of a raft we found,
and about midnight he must 'a' kicked his gun in his dreams, for it
went off and shot him in the leg, and we wanted him to go over there
and fix it and not say nothing about it, nor let anybody know, because
we wanted to come home this evening and surprise the folks.

"Who is your folks?" he says.

"The Phelpses, down yonder."

"Oh," he says. And after a minute, he says:

"How'd you say he got shot?"

"He had a dream," I says, "and it shot him."

"Singular dream," he says.

So he lit up his lantern, and got his saddle-bags, and we started. But
when he see the canoe he didn't like the look of her--said she was big
enough for one, but didn't look pretty safe for two. I says:

"Oh, you needn't be afeard, sir, she carried the three of us easy
enough."

"What three?"

"Why, me and Sid, and--and--and _the guns_; that's what I mean."

"Oh," he says.

But he put his foot on the gunnel and rocked her, and shook his head,
and said he reckoned he'd look around for a bigger one. But they was
all locked and chained; so he took my canoe, and said for me to wait
till he come back, or I could hunt around further, or maybe I better
go down home and get them ready for the surprise if I wanted to. But I
said I didn't; so I told him just how to find the raft, and then he
started.

I struck an idea pretty soon. I says to myself, spos'n he can't fix
that leg just in three shakes of a sheep's tail, as the saying is?
spos'n it takes him three or four days? What are we going to do?--lay
around there till he lets the cat out of the bag? No, sir; I know what
_I'll_ do. I'll wait, and when he comes back if he says he's got to go
any more I'll get down there, too, if I swim; and we'll take and tie
him, and keep him, and shove out down the river; and when Tom's done
with him we'll give him what it's worth, or all we got, and then let
him get ashore.

So then I crept into a lumber-pile to get some sleep; and next time I
waked up the sun was away up over my head! I shot out and went for the
doctor's house, but they told me he'd gone away in the night some time
or other, and warn't back yet. Well, thinks I, th