"Oh, Bruno, I'm sorry I blamed you. I thought perhaps you were a little rough, but you cared so for my beautiful Balder that I might have known you couldn't hurt him! And that wicked, wretched fox! Well, I am glad he has his deserts. But that will not bring back my dear Balder. Oh, have you gone to join the old heroes in Valhalla? For I can't think you were just a common bird. You would have gone back to your kind if you had been. I ought to write a lament for you."
Pablo was coming up the road with a back load of brush. But he dropped it in dismay as she called.
Bruno pawed the fox, then gave it a push, and glanced up at Pablo.
"You see—the fox must have crept up here, and seized my dear Balder by the neck and killed him. And Bruno made him pay for it."
When Pablo was deeply moved or amazed, he went back to his Mexican patois, that Bruno had come to understand very well, and nodded sagaciously.
"The thief! The murderer! Last year, you know, your uncle and I shot two of the bloody thieves over the ridge there, and I've not seen one since. Bruno seized him by the throat, and has torn him well. Look at the brush—why, a lady could put it on her tippet. And the skin—I'll have that. We'll throw him out to feed the hawks. Oh, the poor gull! He was like folks, Missy, you had all trained him so much. Oh, don't cry so, Missy."
Bruno came up and rubbed her shoulder, licked her hand, and gave a low, mournful lament of sympathy.
Laverne rose and took the dead bird in her arms. The visitor had gone, and Miss Holmes stood out by the door, wondering. The procession took their way thither.
"The mean, sneaking brute, that he should have come just when I had gone. The bird was so fond of paddling round there. Strange that he never wanted to go with his kind, but most things want to keep by you, Missy."
They told the sad story over. Laverne laid the gull down tenderly on a bit of matting.