he wasn't back by
the time we were ready to start, we could go on without her, and she would
hunt for him if it took all fall."

While they were still discussing it the boys came running back to camp
much excited. They had met the orderly.

"Oh, the poor dog!" mourned Keith. "What a shame for the poor old fellow
to be shot down that way. It seems almost as bad as if it had been one of
us boys that was killed."

Ranald and Rob joined in with praise of his many lovable traits, talking
of his death as if it were a lifelong friend they had lost; but Malcolm
turned away with an anxious glance to the woods, where he could hear the
laughing voices of the girls.

"Poor little Princess Winsome," he thought. "It will nearly break her
heart," and he wished with all the earnestness of the real Sir Feal, that
by some knightly service, no matter how hard, he could save his little
friend from this sorrow.

The girls came strolling up, presently, so occupied with their spoils that
no one noticed the boy's serious faces but Lloyd. The moment she caught
Malcolm's sympathetic glance she was sure something had happened to Hero.

"Oh, what is it?" she began, the tears gathering in her eyes as she felt
the unspoken, sympathy of the little group. Leaving Mrs. Walton to tell
the other girls, Miss Allison drew Lloyd aside, saying as she led her down
toward the spring, an arm around her waist, "I have a message for you,
Lloyd, from Colonel Wayne. Let's go down to the rocks by ourselves."

A sympathetic silence fell on the little circle left behind as they heard
Lloyd cry out, "Shot my dog? Shot _Hero?_ Oh, he ought to be killed! How
could he do such a cruel thing!"

"But he feels dreadfully about it," said Miss Allison. "The orderly said
that, big, strong man though he was, the tears stood in his eyes when he
saw what he had done, and he kept saying, 'I wouldn't have done it for the
world.'"

Nearly all the girls were crying by this time, and Malcolm turned his head
so that he could not see the fair little head pressed against Miss
Allison's shoulder, as she clung to her sobbing.

"Think how it must have hurt poah Hero's feelin's," Lloyd was saying, "to
go back to their camp so trustin' and happy, thinkin' the men would be so
glad to see him, and that he was doin' his duty, and then to have one of
them stand up and send a bullet through his deah, lovin' old heart. Oh, I
can't _beah_ it," she screamed. "Oh, I can't! I can't! It seems a