He had not been raised in gun smoke, but nevertheless he knew a bullet when he heard it, and he did not think himself conceited when he believed this particular bullet had been presented to him.

Why?
On his stomach he inched down out of range unless the shooter moved his position, and then, impelled by a keen desire to know for sure, he adopted the old, old trick of sending his hat scouting for him.

A dead bush near by furnished the necessary stick, and the steep slope gave him shelter while he tested the real purpose of the man who had shot.
It might be just a hunter, of course--only this was a poor place for hunting anything but one inoffensive young flyer who meant harm to no one.

He put his hat on the stick, pushed the stick slowly up past a rock, and tried to make the hat act as though its owner was crawling laboriously to some fancied shelter.
For a minute or two the hat crawled unmolested.

Then, _pang-g_ came another bullet and bored a neat, brown-rimmed hole through the uphill side of the hat, and tore a ragged hole on its way out through the downhill side.