“Oh, please don't,” she replied in a distressed voice. “We are having such a splendid time, and besides we are after birds, aren't we? And there are the others,” she added, pointing across the stubble field, “and Sweeper is on point again. Oh, let's run.” She started forward quickly, her foot caught in a tangle of vetch vine and she pitched heavily forward. Jack sprang to catch her. A shot crashed at their ears. The girl lay prone. “My God, Kathleen, are you hurt?” said Jack. “No, no, not a bit, but awfully scared,” she panted. Then she shrieked, “Oh, oh, oh, Jack, you are wounded, you are bleeding!” He looked down at his hand. It was dripping blood. “Oh, oh,” she moaned, covering her face with her hands. Then springing to her feet, she caught up his hand in hers. “It is nothing at all,” he said. “I feel nothing. Only a bit of skin. See,” he cried, lifting his arm up. “There's nothing to it. No broken bones.” “Let me see, Jack--Mr. Romayne,” she said with white lips. “Say 'Jack,'” he begged. “Let me take off your coat--Jack, then. I know a little about this. I have done something at it in Winnipeg.” Together they removed the coat. The shirt sleeve was hanging in a tangled, bloody mass from the arm. “Awful!” groaned Kathleen. “Sit down.” “Oh, nonsense, it is not serious.” “Sit down, Jack, dear,” she entreated, clasping her hands about his sound arm. “Say it again,” said Jack. “Oh, Jack, won't you sit down, please?” “Say it again,” he commanded sternly. “Oh, Jack, dear, please sit down,” she cried in a pitiful voice. He sat down, then lay back reclining on his arm. “Now your knife, Jack,” she said, feeling hurriedly through his pockets. “Here you are,” he said, handing her the knife, biting his lips the while and fighting back a feeling of faintness. Quickly slipping behind him, she whipped off her white petticoat and tore it into strips. Then cutting the bloody shirt sleeve, she laid bare the arm. The wound was superficial. The shot had torn a wide gash little deeper than the skin from wrist to shoulder, with here and there a bite into the flesh. Swiftly, deftly, with fingers that never fumbled, she bandaged the arm, putting in little pads where the blood seemed to be pumping freely. “That's fine,” said Jack. “You are a brick, Kathleen. I think--I will--just lie down--a bit. I feel--rather rotten.” As he spoke he caught hold of her arm to steady himself. She caught him in her arms and eased him down upon the stubble. With eyes closed and a face that looked like death he lay quite still. “Jack,” she cried aloud in her terror. “Don't faint. You must not faint.”