Stooping for a rock, I dropped my pistol and Spot Miller picked it up and the boys all saw it, and peace brooded instanter. Every fellow dropped his rocks and crowded in, and I had every marble in the crowd in half an hour. While these negotiations were proceeding Ed had climbed a tree and a limb broke and he fell out and broke his left arm. Ed always regretted it when he broke his arm, and I have seen the poor fellow almost cry over it. It disqualified a fellow for so many of the pursuits, forcing him to lie up for the bone to knit. Besides that, Bill Allen made arm-breaking so common that the boys got tired of it. Bill fell upon every rock he came across and broke his arm, and then he would rebreak it and break it over in another place. At first it was something to have your arm broken, and a fellow was envied and looked up to, but at that time a collar-bone fracture was considered more _recherché_ and _distingué_. When I was a boy you had to break all of a boy’s legs and arms and things to disqualify him for the game. One little measly fracture was just fun, and kept a fellow out of the garden. The only difference that it made with Ed and me was that I had to dig all the worms for two weeks and sort o’ hold and piddle around and back him up. I went home with Ed—and don’t you think they sent for a doctor? I could have set it myself, but they did not ask me; and, besides that, it did not need setting. I would bet on Ed’s arm growing out strong and straight every time. He was that sort. If it had been cut off it would not have surprised anyone who knew him to see another one grow out. I have already told why it happened—because he failed to make a cross mark and spit in it before breakfast. I think now that was also the reason I missed that rabbit—if the reader persists in saying that I _did_ miss it. I am willing to admit that the suspicions were against me until I showed the wounds on the rabbit, but I am not going to try to cram anything down public credulity, because I have several more things to tell that I am not willing to swear to, and it is necessary to have the confidence of my creditors. While Ed’s arm is knitting I will gather up a few odds and ends that are needed to round out these exciting narratives. Ed could make a bow and arrow that was a perfect Indian’s dream, and I doubt if the Six Nations had anything like them. Find a green cedar limb about an inch thick and cut it to three feet length; trim the knots smooth and shave it just a little each side of the center on the concave side at the places where it must gently bend; cut a notch on the side just at the center for the arrow to rest in, and string it with a stout cord. Cut your arrows out of straight hickory and make them plumb, and then take a piece of tin about two inches square and roll it into a sharp spike and fasten it on tightly with a rivet. You can send that arrow through a two-inch plank and hit a tree two hundred yards.