A chill, settling along my spine, crept upward to my scalp, until every separate hair wiggled to the roots. Miss Barrison was pale, but perfectly calm and self-possessed.
"Let us go in-doors," I said, as steadily as I could.
"Very well," she replied.
I held the door open; she entered with the dog; I followed, closing and barring the door, and then took my station at the window, rifle in hand.
There was not a sound in the forest. Miss Barrison laid the dog on the floor and quietly picked up her pad and pencil. Presently she was deep in a report of the phenomena, her pencil flying, leaf after leaf from the pad fluttering to the floor.
Nor did I at the window change my position of scared alertness, until I was aware of her hand gently touching my elbow to attract my attention, and her soft voice at my ear—
"You don't suppose by any chance that the dog ate those pies?"
I collected my tumultuous thoughts and turned to stare at the dog.
"Twelve pies, twelve inches each in diameter," she reflected, musingly. "One dog, twenty inches in diameter. How many times will the pies go into the dog? Let me see." She made a few figures on her pad, thought awhile, produced a tape-measure from her pocket, and, kneeling down, measured the dog.
"No," she said, looking up at me, "he couldn't contain them."