"The idea!" exclaimed Ollie Lord indignantly, putting a hand caressingly on Veazie's shoulder. "A bulldog! If Veazie is anything, he is like the cunning little dog I had once. It was the darlingest little poodle! and I simply loved it!"

"Just fawncy!" sniffed Willis Paulding.

But Lew Veazie seemed pleased. He put up a hand to touch the caressing arm.

"You're another, Ollie!" he beamed. "I always did like poodles!"

"A pair of poodles!" said Skelding, and again winked meaningly at Rupert, who s.n.a.t.c.hed the cap from the head of Julian Ives and flung it into the air. Skelding took a snap-shot at it as it fell.

"If that cap is damaged," said Ives, smoothing his precious bang which the brisk breeze began to flirt about, "I'll make you fellows pay for it. That's flat!"

But Julian's alarm was premature. Not a shot had touched it.

The members of the Chickering set continued the delightful sport of s.n.a.t.c.hing hats and caps from each other's heads and shooting at them with Paulding's fine English gun; but the only damage done was by the falls the articles received, for not a shot touched any of them.

"Of course, fellahs, a moor c.o.c.k doesn't fly that way," Willis drawlingly explained, in extenuation of the poor shooting. "He doesn't go right up and down, you 'now. He has wings, don't you 'now, and flies straight away, like a shot. I could hit a grouse without any trouble, but this kind of shooting! The best shot in England would be bothered with it."

"We'll have a try at the clay pigeons and blackbirds soon," Chickering comfortingly promised.

"But, gwathious, I've twied them, and they're harder to hit than thethe are! I could do better if I could only keep my eyeth open, but the minute I begin to pull the twigger my eyeth go shut, and I can't help it."

They had turned round and were retracing their way toward Merriwell and his friends without noticing it. Suddenly Lew Veazie jumped straight up into the air, clapped a hand smartly against one of his legs, and began to dance a hornpipe. At almost the same moment a shot was fired by some one.

"Thay, fellowth, I'm thyot!" he gasped, turning deathly pale. "Honeth, thith ithn't a joke! I'm thyot! Ow! It burnth like fire!"

"Where?" Ollie anxiously asked, staring at the dancing youth, and looking quickly about to make sure that no loaded gun was pointed in his direction. The others looked about, too.

"This reckless shooting ought to be forbidden!" declared Skelding, regardless of the fact that the shooting he and his friends had been doing was of the most reckless character. Veazie dropped down on the ground, and began to pull up one leg of his trousers.

"It stwuck me wight here!" he gasped. "I think it must have gone thwough my leg. I can feel the blood twickling down."

Ollie went down on his knees and began to help him, and together they soon had the injured spot revealed to their anxious eyes. They beheld a reddish place, with a center like a pin jab, but not a drop of blood.

"It was a spent shot!" said Rupert wisely. "It came from a distance. But it was a very reckless thing to do to fire at all in this direction."

"Let me take a look at it!" said Julian Ives, crowding forward and stooping to inspect it. As he did so, he straightened up with a little screech, and clapped a hand to his hips.

"Wow!" he howled, dancing round as Veazie had done. "I'm shot, too!

Fellows, this is awful! I believe I'm killed! Who is doing this?"

"Thuch weckleth thyoothing I never thaw!" groaned Veazie, though he was much relieved to discover that he had not received a deadly hurt.

"Thomebody mutht be awwested for thith. I thouldn't be thurpwithed if it ith one of Merriwell's fwiendth!"

"Wow!" howled Julian, falling to the ground, and writhing about in his agony. "I'm dead! I never had anything hurt me so! Wow-ow-ow!"

Ollie Lord clapped a hand to his head and executed a quickstep. He pulled off his cap and rubbed furiously, expecting to feel the blood come away on his fingers, for he also fancied he had been shot.

"Goodness!" he gasped. "Whoever is shooting this way ought to be jailed.

We will all be killed in five minutes. That tore a hole in my scalp, sure!"

Rupert Chickering, who was beginning to look grave and anxious, next jumped up into the air, forgetting his dignity; while Willis Paulding sat down with a suddenness that jarred the ground, and began to declaim in a quick, nervous way and without the slightest imitation of an English accent.

Then Lew Veazie, who had been rubbing his injured leg and looking surprisedly and dubiously about, leaped to his feet with another howl and went dancing off from his friends.

"Felloth, it ith hornets!" he shrieked, beginning to fight and slap with his cap and his hands. "Ow! wow! They're thtinging me to death! Help me, thomebody!"

"Hornets!" shrieked Ollie Lord, leaping up and following his chum.

"Fellows, the air is full of them!"

Tilton Hull began to dig fiercely at his high collar.

"There is one down my neck!" he screeched.

He recklessly tore the collar away and began to dig with his nails in a wild search for the thing that had stung him, and which he fancied he felt boring its way still farther down his back. Julian Ives took his hand from his hip and slapped it against his breast, where a red-hot lance seemed to have been driven with torturing suddenness. Then he began to tear away his beautiful necktie and to recklessly rumple his gorgeous shirt front.

"This is awful!" he exclaimed. "Where are the things coming from? The air is full of them! Wow! Another struck me in the arm!"

Lew Veazie was rolling over and over. Their outcries attracted the attention of Merriwell and his friends, and also the attention of a number of others who had come upon the grounds.

"What are those idiots up to?" grumbled Hodge, who had no patience with the antics of the Chickering set. "They've been making fools of themselves ever since they came out here. Awhile ago, they were recklessly burning powder and hurling shot all round. Now they act as if they were crazy."

"Must be playing some sort of game of circus!" guessed Browning.

"They're tumbling about like acrobats--or fools!"

"And howling like wild Indians!" said Danny. "I think they are playing a Wild West."

"They ought to have Bill Higgins here, then, to make the show complete,"

Merriwell remarked, with a smile. "But seriously, I don't believe they're playing anything. Those yells sound real."

"Help!" howled Willis Paulding, forgetting his drawl, "We're being stung to death!"

Willis was down on the ground, soiling his beautiful trousers and digging furiously at his head.

"Hornets!" shrieked Ollie Lord, kicking about not far from Paulding.

"Wow!" screeched Lew Veazie, bobbing up and down like a cork in water when a fish is nibbling at the bait.

"Take 'em off!" begged Julian Ives, neglecting his lovely bang and scratching with great energy at the places where he had been stung.

"We're in a nest of hornets, or bees, or something!" exclaimed Rupert Chickering, becoming decidedly belligerent in his efforts to rid himself of the stinging creatures.

"Are you going to stand there and see us killed?" Skelding demanded. "I tell you, we are being stung!"

"Glad to know it!" declared Bart. "You need it. It's hopeless, though, to expect that the hornets will sting any sense into your crowd."

Merriwell started toward the screeching, dancing, jigging, fighting youths, quickening his steps into a run, and his friends followed at his heels. As he did so he heard the loud and discordant jangle of a cowbell furiously shaken.

A man, a woman, and a boy had come in sight, appearing from behind the seats allotted to spectators. Evidently they had emerged but a minute before from a strip of timber that cut off the view of a farmhouse that was on the right of the gun club grounds and some distance away. They were running as fast as they could, and were shouting something as they came on. The boy, a lanky chap of fourteen or fifteen, was vigorously shaking the bell. The man carried a large pail, and the woman swung a roll of dirty cloth.