The little animal with the bushy tail that had raised its pointed nose to yap mournfully at the moon, had suddenly sprung straight up into the air. It cleared the snow at least four feet. One convulsive wriggle it gave with its whole body, and fell back, a black heap, on the snow.
“Oh, Neale! what happened to it?” gasped Agnes, amazed.
“Shot,” said the youth, a curious note in his voice.
“Oh, who shot it?”
“Ask me an easier one.”
“Why—what—I think that was sort of cruel, after all,” sighed the girl. “He wasn’t really doing any harm.”
“I thought you were afraid he might eat us all up,” said Neale, dropping the curtain which he had been holding back, and turning away from the window.
“Oh—but—I am serious now,” she said. “Who do you suppose shot him?”
“I could not say.”
“That old woodsman, perhaps? There is none of our party out there with a gun, of course. Oh, dear! I hope I don’t dream of it. I don’t like to see things killed.”