“He’s killed,” she sobbed. “I–I saw him!”
“So he is,” soothed Agnes. “None of the rest of us would have dared set the trap, if we had been bright enough to think of it. There! It was harrowing, but it’s all over now.”
“No, no,” shuddered Dorcas. “He’s in there yet, and he’s dead!”
Catherine spied Bert’s two mischievous eyes looking around the corner of the building. In an instant she had despatched him to clear the room of its horror, and was bringing Dot, a protesting prisoner, to join the group.
“Where did you come from?” asked every one, while Dorcas collected herself.
“O, our chariot’s just outside,” answered Dot. “We saw you all peeping in, so we drove around behind to have a look ourselves. Got there in time to see the final fatality. Dorcas was heroic 53 until she won. Are you girls honestly afraid of mice?”
“I am of live ones,” confessed Catherine.
“I am of dead ones,” said Dorcas.
“Dead or alive, they, ‘turn my blood to ice within me, and make the breath of my heart wax pale,’ as the lecturer said last night,” said Polly. “But now that you dare-devil people have cleared the field for action, we may as well go in and scrub. We’d only just finished sweeping. Dot, you may take the death-bed boards. And, O, there comes Bert, back from the funeral. As President of the Winsted Boat Club and Library Association, I hereby appoint you and Geraldine Winthrop a Standing Mouse Committee with full power to act.”
“Dorcas to be official executioner, I trust,” and Bert held the door open for Dorcas, bowing low as she passed.