“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 as if it would kill me to think of him lyin’ ovah there all cold and stiff, with the blood on his lovely white and yellow curls, and know that he’ll nevah, nevah again jump up to lick my hands, and put his paws on my shouldahs.  He’ll nevah come to meet me any moah, waggin’ his tail and lookin’ up into my face with his deah lovin’ eyes.  Oh, Miss Allison!  I can’t stand it!  It’s just breakin’ my heart!” Burying her face in Miss Allison’s lap, she sobbed and cried until her tears were all spent.

It was a subdued little party that rode back to the Valley, a few hours later.  Not only sympathy for Lloyd kept them quiet, but each one mourned the loss of the gentle, lovable playfellow who had come to such an untimely end after this week of happy camp life with them.

* * * * *

Under the locusts that evening, just as the sun was going down, came the tread of many marching feet.  It was the tramp, tramp of the soldiers who were bringing home the Little Colonel’s Hero, All the men who had been most interested in his performances the day before, had volunteered to follow Colonel Wayne, and the long line made an imposing showing, as it stretched up the avenue after him.

Lloyd watched the approach from her seat on the porch beside her father.  All the camping party were waiting with her, except the four boys who rode at the head of the procession, Ranald and Malcolm first, then Rob and Keith.  Lloyd hid her eyes as Lad and Tarbaby came into view behind them.

“Look,” said her father gently, pointing to the flag-draped burden they drew.  “How much better it was for Hero to have been shot by a soldier and brought home with military honours, than to have met the fate of an ordinary dog—­been poisoned, or mangled, by a train, as might have happened, or even died of a painful, feeble old age.  The Major would have chosen this? so would Hero, if he could have understood.”