LEWISTON – Two 18-year-old men were in custody late Tuesday after reports of multiple gunshots being fired sent police swarming into the Little Canada section of the city.

Nobody was struck by gunfire, but for a tense half-hour, police searched along the railroad tracks, in the woods and between clusters of buildings between Cedar and Lincoln streets.

A homeless man who had been sleeping in the woods hunkered down until the suspects were captured and then was hospitalized with heart problems.

The two suspects were arrested separately in wooded areas after police, with rifles drawn, blocked off traffic and searched for them. Arrested were Samuel Warner of Lewiston and Daniel Chamberland, who had been visiting Lewiston from an unspecified community.

Police said the two men were being charged with reckless conduct, but investigators were pondering further charges late Tuesday night.

“I saw all these cops, but I didn’t think much about it,” said one man who witnessed much of the scene from a sidewalk near Hope Haven Gospel Mission. “Then I heard ‘puck, puck, puck.’ The police were everywhere.”

Police said they found a rifle at least one of the suspects had fired in a wooded area across the street from Hope Haven and behind a cluster of Country Kitchen buildings.

What they were shooting at was not immediately known. Police Cpl. Tim Darnell was driving through the area about 9:30 p.m. when he reported hearing shots being fired nearby. All available officers were ordered to respond to the scene without lights or sirens.

After more than a half-dozen police officers had arrived, more shots were heard from the woods at Cedar and Lincoln streets.

“You’ve got businesses and all these residences and there’s a four-lane highway right there,” said police Sgt. Jeffrey Parshall. “This is not the place to be shooting.”

Before the suspects were captured, local police had been joined by undercover agents from the Maine Violent Crime Task Force who had been working in the area. Some officers scoured the alleys around Country Kitchen, while others moved through the woods near the railroad tracks and still others scanned the neighborhoods near Lincoln Street and Lincoln Street Circle.

Drivers trying to pass through the area were quickly told to turn around and reverse direction. Men and women who crept out of their homes were advised to go back inside and stay there until the shooting had stopped and suspects were caught.

Chamberland was captured about 9:50 p.m., police said. Warner was found and arrested 10 minutes later in another wooded location. It was not immediately clear if either or both offered resistance

Police questioned the two men before they were taken to the Police Department. The pair did not say what they had been shooting at, police said.

“It’s pitch-black out there,” Parshall said. “And we didn’t find a flashlight on them.”

The man who suffered heart palpitations after hearing the gunfire was being treated late Tuesday at Central Maine Medical Center. His identity was not immediately known.

“He had been sleeping in the woods, and when he heard the gunshots, he was very badly shaken,” Parshall said. “His heart was racing.”

It was not immediately known if any nearby property was damaged by gunfire. The incident remained under investigation late Tuesday night.