u get him back
to the village, or else he will chalk this raft so he can find it again.
It's the way they all do."

So I said I would, and left, and Jim was to hide in the woods when he see
the doctor coming till he was gone again.

CHAPTER XLI.

THE doctor was an old man; a very nice, kind-looking old man when I got
him up. I told him me and my brother was over on Spanish Island hunting
yesterday afternoon, and camped on a piece of a raft we found, and about
midnight he must a kicked his gun in his dreams, for it went off and shot
him in the leg, and we wanted him to go over there and fix it and not say
nothing about it, nor let anybody know, because we wanted to come home
this evening and surprise the folks.

"Who is your folks?" he says.

"The Phelpses, down yonder."

"Oh," he says. And after a minute, he says:

"How'd you say he got shot?"

"He had a dream," I says, "and it shot him."

"Singular dream," he says.

So he lit up his lantern, and got his saddle-bags, and we started. But
when he sees the canoe he didn't like the look of her--said she was big
enough for one, but didn't look pretty safe for two. I says:

"Oh, you needn't be afeard, sir, she carried the three of us easy
enough."

"What three?"

"Why, me and Sid, and--and--and THE GUNS; that's what I mean."

"Oh," he says.

But he put his foot on the gunnel and rocked her, and shook his head, and
said he reckoned he'd look around for a bigger one. But they was all
locked and chained; so he took my canoe, and said for me to wait till he
come back, or I could hunt around further, or maybe I better go down home
and get them ready for the surprise if I wanted to. But I said I didn't;
so I told him just how to find the raft, and then he started.

I struck an idea pretty soon. I says to myself, spos'n he can't fix that
leg just in three shakes of a sheep's tail, as the saying is? spos'n it
takes him three or four days? What are we going to do?--lay around there
till he lets the cat out of the bag? No, sir; I know what I'LL do. I'll
wait, and when he comes back if he says he's got to go any more I'll get
down there, too, if I swim; and we'll take and tie him, and keep him, and
shove out down the river; and when Tom's done with him we'll give him
what it's worth, or all we got, and then let him get ashore.

So then I crept into a lumber-pile to get some sleep; and next time I
waked up the sun was away up over my head! I shot ou