But the heavy, motionless weight endorsed the Major’s words. There was no joyous movement, no nestling toward her, no gladsome, whining bark; Rollo had had his last gambol over the mountain side, and lay slowly stiffening out, with eyes glazing and seeming to gaze mournfully up at her he had loved so well.
“Oh, sir,” cried Martha piteously, “I have been so careful, but he would take them. I always felt sure he would be choked by some bone.”
“Choked!” cried the Major angrily; “the poor brute has been poisoned for doing his duty too well.”
“Poisoned!” cried Martha, as Dinah looked up wildly at her father. “Impossible, sir. I’ve kept it in a bottle tied down and locked up where no one could find it but myself.”
“Kept what?” cried the Major.
“The arsenic for the rats, sir.”
“But this is something worse, woman. There is no doubt about it. There are the signs. Some scoundrel has given him strychnia, and it must be one of those ruffians from the mine.”
A low, piteous sigh escaped from Dinah’s lips, as she softly laid the dog’s head on the stones, and then with a quick glance of apprehension, she rose and took hold of her father’s arm.
“Yes, my dear,” he said. “Poor Rollo was too true a servant, and watched for the pitiful purloiner. Now let him beware of my gun, for, by Jove, if I find any marauding scoundrel within shot, he shall certainly have the contents.”
Dinah said no word, but as Martha stood there holding the lamp, the light shone upon her dilated eyes, and lit up her white, contracted face, which seemed to have grown suddenly hard and stern. It was as if her father’s words had sent a sense of satisfaction through her, and she was looking out into the darkness of the night for the cowardly wretch who had robbed her of another friend, that he might come on once more and meet his fate.