DICK CHENEY made an apologetic visit to hospital yesterday to see an old friend whom he accidentally peppered with shotgun pellets on a weekend quail hunting trip in Texas.

The US Vice-President shot and wounded Harry Whittington, a 78-year-old millionaire lawyer from Austin, at a ranch in South Texas.

He was reported to have been hit in the face, chest and neck but was “alert and doing fine” in hospital yesterday after Mr Cheney’s visit.

Lea Anne McBride, Mr Cheney’s spokeswoman, said that he “was pleased to see that he’s doing fine and in good spirits” after Saturday’s accident. The Vice-President’s office did not disclose details of the incident for nearly 24 hours.

Katharine Armstrong, the owner of the Armstrong Ranch where the accident happened, said that Secret Service agents travelling with Mr Cheney had tended to Mr Whittington until an ambulance arrived.

She had been watching from a car while the hunting party got out to shoot at a covey of quail. Mr Whittington shot a bird and went to look for it in the tall grass, while Mr Cheney and a third hunter walked to another spot and discovered more targets.

She said: “Mr Whittington came up from behind and didn’t signal them or announce himself. The covey flushed and the Vice-President picked out a bird and was following it and shot. And by God, Harry was in the line of fire and got peppered pretty good.”

Mr Cheney was an old friend who visits the ranch to hunt about once a year and was “a very safe sportsman”, Mrs Armstrong said, although she thought that he and Mr Whittington had not hunted together before.

Mr Whittington has been a lawyer in Austin since 1950 and has long been active in Texas Republican politics. He was appointed president of the Texas Funeral Service Commission by George W Bush while he was Governor.

Mrs Armstrong said that Mr Whittington was bleeding after the shooting and Mr Cheney was very apologetic. “It broke the skin,” she said of the shotgun pellets, “but he was fine. He was talking. His eyes were open. It didn’t get in his eyes or anything like that”.

Mr Cheney is an avid hunter and regularly shoots. In December 2003 he shot 70 farmed ring-neck pheasants and a number of mallard ducks in a session at the Rolling Rock Club in Pennsylvania. The birds were plucked and vacuum-packed before he returned to Washington that day.

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