He knew nothing could have happened on account of the rifle, for his faith in that marvel of the gunmaker's craft was unbounded; but Eli was inclined to be a bit clumsy, and might have stumbled into some hole, striking his head and rendering himself unconscious; or there was a chance that he had wounded a stag which had thereupon charged vigorously upon him, as wounded bucks are apt to do; so that Eli, not being accustomed to working the mechanism of the repeating rifle, might have been caught napping and tossed down.
