All this had cost considerable self-denial; for of course he boiled with curiosity about the man in the orchard. He did not dare to go out there, but now, stealthily glancing out of the window, he saw his father returning from the garden with long strides. Jim understood. His father, going out at the front door, had slipped round to the side of the house, so that it would look as if he had come from the street. He was not surprised that his father looked stern and angry. That fellow must have done something mighty mean, he thought, to make his father shoot; and he admired at once the magnanimity and the skill which had merely winged the man, as he supposed, by way, presumably, of teaching him a lesson. Then, struck by the boldness and openness of his father's return to the house, Jim suddenly felt that he had been foolish; that the cleaning of the gun had not been needed. What man would dare, after such a lesson, to complain against his father! Mr. Edwards walked straight into Jim's room. Aroused from his nap by the shot, he had leaped to the window and seen the man fall. He had then turned and run downstairs so quickly that he had not seen the fellow half-rise and crawl into the bushes; and, having reached the spot, he was much relieved, if somewhat staggered, to find no body. He did find tracks, for this was plowed ground; but they told him nothing of the wounded man except that he had left in a hurry on a pair of rather large feet. He looked about for a while, and then started toward the house, determined to have an explanation with Jim. He knew Jim's gun by the sound of its report, and felt no doubt that the boy had fired the shot. What sort of culpable accident had happened? Suffering still with the splitting headache which he had been trying to sleep off, angry with Jim for his carelessness, concerned lest the man were really injured, Mr. Edwards was in his least compromising mood. "How did it happen?" he asked, without preface. His tones were harsh, and he fixed Jim with stern eyes. "How did it happen!" repeated Jim, in pure surprise. Certainly his father knew much better than he how it had happened. "Speak out!" said Mr. Edwards, impatiently. "How did you come to shoot that man? I want to know about it." "Me!" cried Jim, in complete bewilderment. "I--I haven't shot any man, father! You know I haven't." Mr. Edwards, never a man of nice observation, and now bewildered with anger and headache, took his son's genuine astonishment for mere pretense and subterfuge. Were not the facts plain? "I don't want any nonsense about this," he said incisively. "I heard your gun. I saw the man fall. No one else but you could possibly have fired it. It's useless to lie, and I won't stand it. Tell me at once what happened." "I didn't shoot him, father. You _know_ I didn't!" reiterated Jim, more and more dumfounded. "I don't know how it happened, honest Injun--I don't, father!"