Chapter 8

THE GUN CLUB.

"Baw Jawve, it would be sport if a fellah could draw on a grouse on a Scotch moor, don't you 'now! It would be something great to knock such a bird into the heather. There really isn't any shooting in this country to be compared to that, don't you 'now!"

Willis Paulding drawled this in his affected style, and then swung the handsome English Greener hammerless to his shoulder and squinted down the barrels as if he fancied he heard the whirring of a moor cock's wings and felt the thrill of the sportsman tingling through his veins.

"What's the matter with partridge and woodcock shooting in New England? Or quail shooting in the West and South? Or duck shooting on the Southwest coast? Or prairie-chicken and grouse shooting in the far West and Rocky Mountains?" demanded Merriwell, who had arrived on the grounds of the gun club with Bart Hodge and was taking his gun out of its case.

Paulding flushed.

"If you had ever shot grouse across the big pond, you 'now, you wouldn't ask such a question, Merriwell!"

"I have shot grouse on the other side of the big pond, and it is fine sport, true enough. But there is just as fine shooting to be had in America. You make me tired. You want to act like an Englishman, Paulding, but it is an insult to the English, for your imitation is really disgraceful. A true Englishman is very much a man!"

"And Paulding is a mere thing!" snapped Hodge.

"He isn't worth noticing, don't you 'now!" sneered Paulding, moving away with the members of the Chickering set. "He is always slinging insulting things at me. It's mere jealousy, don't you 'now, that makes him act so. Baw Jawve, if I was as jealous as Merriwell, I'd go drown myself!"

"He is always slinging insults at us in the same way!" Ollie Lord breathlessly declared, looking as fierce as he could and lifting himself on his tiptoes to increase his fighting height.

"I wouldn't let the thing worry me," purred Rupert Chickering. "Merriwell is so spoiled by flattery that he is hardly responsible for what he says. I never like to hold harsh feeling against any one."

"I'd like to pull the wetch'eth nothe!" lisped Lew Veazie, looking quite as fierce as Ollie Lord. "It would therve him wight if I thould walk up to him thome day and thimply pull hith nothe!"

"But he might pull yours!" Julian Ives warned. "That wouldn't be pleasant, you know."

Julian Ives, in the perfumed sanctity of Chickering's rooms, often looked lovingly at himself and his wonderful bang in the long mirror and dreamed the heroic things he would like to do and the revenges he would like to carry out, but his actual courage had been at a very low ebb ever since his humiliating experience as a member of the Eskemo dog-team driven by the cowboy, Bill Higgins. He was likely to remember that a long while.

"They're not worth talking about--none of Merriwell's crowd!" snarled Gene Skelding, as if anxious to change the drift of the unpleasant conversation, for he had been given cause to fear and hate Merriwell and his friends quite as much as any other individual who claimed the companionship and friendship of the immaculate Rupert. "Let me see your gun, Willis!"

He took the Greener, snapped it open to see if it was loaded, then winked at Chickering.

The members of the Yale Gun Club were rapidly coming on the ground, together with a number of noted New Haven shots and others interested in trap shooting. Browning and Rattleton appeared, and Diamond, Dismal, and several others of Merry's set were seen approaching.

"I thought Bart Hodge was sick?" said Tilton Hull. "But I see he is out again."

"When I heard he wath thick I hoped he would never get well. He ith a howwid cwecher! Whenever I go near him he thnapth at me like a bulldog."

"As if you were a bulldog?" queried Skelding, who at times seemed to delight in teasing certain members of this delectable set.

"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 snatched 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 snatching 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 cock 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.

"Hold on! hold on!" the man howled. "Jest handle 'em gently, can't ye?"

The Chickering set, as well as Merriwell's friends, heard him.

"Oh, yes! we'll handle 'em gently!" snarled Skelding, slapping at one of the stinging things and crushing it with his hand. He saw then that it was a bee. He jerked his hand away and stuck his fingers into his mouth. Then jumped up and began again to hop around.

"It run its stinger into my finger an inch!" he growled.

"Hold on! hold on!" the old man was howling.

"I'm holding on!' cried Rupert, smashing away at a handful of bees which seemed to be settling down on him all at once.

"You're killing 'em!" screeched the old woman.

"Yes, we're killing 'em!" Skelding answered, flailing away as if he had gone crazy. "I'd like to kill a million in a minute! I can't kill them fast enough! I'd like to welt 'em with a club and smash a regiment at a blow!"

Lew Veazie threw himself on the ground, drew his hat down over his head, and began to kick and shriek.

"You're jest a tantalizin' 'em!" panted the farmer. Merriwell stopped and laughed. The whole thing was too ridiculously funny for him to do otherwise.

"They're swarmin'!" shouted the boy, rattling away with the bell as if his life depended on it.

"Yes, I see they are!" howled Julian Ives. "They're swarming all over me!"

"Don't hurt 'em!" the farmer begged. He was only a few feet away, and panting on, almost breathless.

"Don't kill 'em!" whined the old woman. "They're my bees!"

Her words reached Lew Veazie. For a moment the kicking legs were stilled, though the hat was not withdrawn.

"Take 'em away then, pleathe!" he begged, from under the hat. "I don't want to hurt your beethe, but they're hurting me! Take 'em away, pleathe!"

The boy stopped his jangling bell.

"They are honey bees!" he said. Then added, as if he feared this might not be clear to the intellects of city-bred youths: "They make honey!"

"I'll tantalize them!" Skelding fiercely exclaimed, striking at the bees that were hovering round his head. "I'll treat 'em gently! Oh, yes! I'll pick them off very tenderly and put them in your lap, old lady! I don't think! Keep your old bees at home!"

"But they're swarming!" the old farmer exclaimed. "They're going out to hunt a new hive. We've been follerin' 'em."

Then Lew Veazie began to bellow again, more frantically than ever. A large crowd was gathering, men hurrying from all directions, Merriwell and his friends had arrived on the scene.

"Ow-wow!" Veazie shrieked. "They're worthe than ever!"

For a few seconds he had not been troubled except by the stings previously given, which pained intensely. Merriwell looked down and saw a big bunch of bees gathering along the top of Veazie's collar at the back.

"They're killing me!" Veazie screeched, rubbing a hand into this mass and leaping to his feet.

But the pile grew. The bees seemed to drop by scores right out of the air upon him. He started to run. The old woman began to shriek, and the boy commenced again to jangle the bell.

"You've got the queen!" howled the old man. "Jest keep still a minute! You have got the queen!"

"Is this a card-game?" drawled Browning.

"Lew Veazie is the little joker this time!" droned Dismal.

"That's because he is so sweet!" declared Bink. "Don't you know the boy said these are honey bees? They're going to carry Veazie away and turn him into honey and the honey comb."

"If you talk that way I'll have to swear off on honey!" exclaimed Browning, with a wry face.

"Hold on! Jest hold on!" the farmer was begging.

Veazie started to run, and the farmer reached out a hand for the purpose of detaining him.

"They ain't stingin' you!" he insisted. "Jest keep your hands down and keep still an' they won't do a thing to you!"

"Oh, they won't do a thing to him!" howled Danny.

Veazie dropped flat to the ground.

"Jest hold on!" begged the farmer. "Jest hold on! They're lightin' round the queen!"

Then he dipped his big hand into the pail and began to ladle out the water and drench the bees with it, while the old woman flailed with the roll of cloth to keep them away from her, and the farmer's boy, dancing up and down in his excitement, jangled the bell like an alarm clock.

"Jest hold on!" the farmer urged, as Veazie showed signs of rolling over. "I'll git my fingers on that there queen in a minute, and then I'll have 'em. I wouldn't lost this swarm fer five dollars. Jest hold on a minute!"

"Veazie's queen!" some one sang out from the heart of the surging, talking, sensation-loving throng. "I always knew you were attractive, Veazie, but I didn't know females rushed at you in that warm way. Yes, jest hold on a little, Veazie. We don't have a circus like this every day, and we want to get the worth of our money."

Ollie Lord, Chickering, Hull, Skelding, and the others seemed to have been almost deserted by the bees, that were now swarming down upon the hapless lisper, drawn there by the fact that the queen had found lodgment somewhere on Veazie's neck.

Under the influence of the farmer's commands, Veazie ceased to kick and strike, and lay like a gasping fish while the man deluged him with water.

"Thay, I'm dwoning!" he gasped at last. "Thith ith worthe than being thtung!"

But, in truth, the deluge of cold water took away something of the fiery pain of the stings.

"Just hold on!" cried the farmer again.

Then he thrust a thumb and finger down into the writhing wet mass of bees, drew out the queen, which by its size and shape he readily distinguished from the others, and began to rake the bees into the new, empty pail.

When he had the most of them in, the old woman threw the cloth over them. The farmer was now down on his knees, and the bees that were still on Veazie he began to pick off and pop into the pail as if they were grains of gold.

"I've got 'em!" he triumphantly declared. "This is my fu'st swarm this spring. I thought the blamed things was goin' to git away, but I've got 'em. Giner'ly they light on a tree when they're swarmin', or on somethin' green!"

"That's why they struck Veazie!" some one shouted from the crowd.

"Can I get up?" Veazie gasped. "I'm wetter than the thea!"

"Yes, young man, an' I'm 'bliged to ye. The rest of 'em will find their way to the queen, I guess. When these bees makes honey, if you'll come over I'll give you a hunk."