"But how did the buffalo get so conveniently into the gully ?" he asked.
"Jim Hooker lamed him with a shotgun, and he fell over," said Clarence timidly.
A roar of Homeric laughter went up from the party.

Clarence looked up, stung and startled, but caught a single glimpse of Jim Hooker's face that made him forget his own mortification.

In its hopeless, heart-sick, and utterly beaten dejection--the first and only real expression he had seen on it--he read the dreadful truth.

Jim's REPUTATION had ruined him! The one genuine and striking episode of his life, the one trustworthy account he had given of it, had been unanimously accepted as the biggest and most consummate lie of his record!.