"Abel will tell me about it.
Slight concussion of the brain. Can't remember very well for an hour or
two,--will come right by to-morrow."

"Been stunded," Abel said. "He can't tell nothin'."

Abel then proceeded to give a Napoleonic bulletin of the recent combat of
cavalry and infantry and its results,--none slain, one captured.

The Doctor looked at the prisoner through his spectacles.

"What 's the matter with your shoulder, Venner?"

Dick answered sullenly, that he didn't know, fell on it when his horse
came down. The Doctor examined it as carefully as he could through his
clothes.

"Out of joint. Untie his hands, Abel"

By this time a small alarm had spread among the neighbors, and there was
a circle around Dick, who glared about on the assembled honest people
like a hawk with a broken wing.

When the Doctor said, "Untie his hands," the circle widened perceptibly.

"Isn't it a leetle rash to give him the use of his hands? I see there's
females and children standin' near."

This was the remark of our old friend, Deacon Soper, who retired from the
front row, as he spoke, behind a respectable-looking, but somewhat
hastily dressed person of the defenceless sex, the female help of a
neighboring household, accompanied by a boy, whose unsmoothed shock of
hair looked like a last year's crow's-nest.

But Abel untied his hands, in spite of the Deacon's considerate
remonstrance.

"Now," said the Doctor, "the first thing is to put the joint back."

"Stop," said Deacon Soper,--"stop a minute. Don't you think it will be
safer--for the women-folks--jest to wait till mornin', afore you put that
j'int into the socket?"

Colonel Sprowle, who had been called by a special messenger, spoke up at
this moment.

"Let the women-folks and the deacons go home, if they're scared, and put
the fellah's j'int in as quick as you like. I 'll resk him, j'int in or
out."

"I want one of you to go straight down to Dudley Venner's with a
message," the Doctor said. "I will have the young man's shoulder in
quick enough."

"Don't send that message!" said Dick, in a hoarse voice;--"do what you
like with my arm, but don't send that message! Let me go,--I can walk,
and I'll be off from this place. There's nobody hurt but myself. Damn
the shoulder!--let me go! You shall never hear of me again!"

Mr. Bernard came forward.

"My friends," he said, "I am not injured,--seriously, at least. Nobody
need complain against this m