At no great distance from their own cabin, Gill had no recollection at the moment of this particular woods, perhaps because the winter afternoon gave it a new and strange aspect.
She recognized that the trees were white pine, many of them fifty feet in height with drooping long branches and five-fingered leaf bunches. Beneath the trees the ground, soft with the needles at other seasons, was to-day hard and white as a marble bed.
The arch of the trees formed a kind of natural temple with the opening beyond like a great rose window seen through the intervening space.
As she approached the end of the vista Gill heard a noise which at first startled and later on puzzled and troubled her. The noise was like the barking of a dog in distress. She stood still, called and whistled only to have the sound cease and then begin again with a deeper note of suffering.
Continuing her walk, but more slowly, Gill moved in the direction from which the barking came. In spite of what may have appeared to contradict this fact, actually she was more attached to animals than any one of the Camp Fire girls. Within another moment she had made a discovery. In a trap set by a hunter a small red fox had been caught but not killed. The barking to her ears had sounded like a dog’s.
Notwithstanding its pain and terror and fear of human beings, it seemed to Gill the little animal turned its red-brown eyes toward her with an expression of appeal.
Several seconds the girl stood frowning and puzzled, all her color flown and her lips trembling. Her own ignorance and cowardice formed the chief barrier. The little animal’s hind feet had been caught and nearly torn from the body, and yet she was unable to open the trap or to relieve the pain in any way, as she carried no weapon of any kind.
Gill set her teeth. Why not walk on or, a better plan, return to the warmth and friendliness of the big cabin. Of a sudden she felt lonely and vaguely uneasy here in the silent woods, the silence broken only by the cry of a small animal in pain. Yet the pain could not continue indefinitely, and in any event she could soon be out of sight and hearing.
Gill’s eyes dropped toward the ground. Immediately in her path she beheld a heavy stick, from which the snow had blown away, leaving it exposed to her gaze. A second only she hesitated, then picking it up discovered that the end was round and thick as a bludgeon. She knew that her eye and her aim were unswerving, yet the prospect of a moment’s swift action made her sick and faint.
The next Gill lifted her cudgel. With a quick stroke between the eyes that were fastened half fearfully, half trustfully upon her own, the little creature’s suffering was ended.