"Oh, it's nothing to make a fuss over," he said, quickly.
"Yes, it is," declared Frank, sincerely. "That little squirrel never harmed me, but I murdered him. He was one of God's creatures, and I had no right to lift my hand against him. I feel like a brute, a wretch, a murderer!"
Then Frank knelt down on the moss beside the dead squirrel.
"Oh, little squirrel!" he said, his voice breaking into a sob; "how much I would give could I restore your life to you! But I have killed you, and all my regret and sorrow over the act will not bring you back to scamper and frolic through the woods."
To his astonishment, Bruce felt a misty blur come over his eyes, and there was a choking sensation in his throat.
"Come away, Merry—come and leave it!" he exclaimed, thickly. "Don't be a fool!"
"No," said Frank, "I can't leave him this way."
He took a handkerchief from his pocket and wrapped the squirrel in it, doing so with such gentleness that Bruce wondered more and more. Then he searched about till he found a thin, flat rock that was about a foot long and four inches wide. With that rock Merriwell scooped a grave in the ground. That grave he lined with soft bits of moss, and then he took the squirrel, wrapped in the handkerchief shroud, and placed it in the grave. The earth was thrown in on the little body, and heaped up in a mound till it was a tiny model of the grave in the glade above. Then Frank thrust the flat rock into the ground as a headstone, and a tear dropped silently down.
Browning had turned away. The big fellow had been taught a lesson he would not soon forget, and more than ever he admired and respected Frank Merriwell, who could be as brave as a lion or as gentle as a dove.
"Come."