The clean-swept room at which the visitors entered was the neatest one in Heart’s Desire.  The tall, narrow fireplace of clay in the corner of the other room was swept clean, spick and span.  A chair stood exactly against the wall.  The parlor table—­ah, appalling spectacle! the parlor table, bare and empty, held upon its surface no object of any sort whatever!

“They’re gone!” cried Curly, “plumb gone!” His hand instinctively reached toward his hip, and he cast a swift glance upon Bill, the parrot, who sat blinking at the edge of the table.

“All over now!” remarked Bill.  “All over!  Too late!  Quork!”

“Rope him and throw him,” urged Doc Tomlinson, “Search his person.  We got to look in his teeth.”

“Not necessary,” said Dan Anderson.  “He hasn’t got any teeth.”  The entire party looked with enmity at Bill, but the latter turned upon them so brave and unflinching a front that none dared question his honor.

Dan Anderson, his hands in his pockets, turned and strolled alone into the other room, and thence out of the door into the sunlight, where the twins were still continuing their unwonted industry at the chip pile.  He stood and looked at them, saying no word, but with a certain smile on his face.  A corner of each apron fell down, spilling the chips upon the ground.  The other hand of each twin was raised as though to wipe a furtive tear.  Dan Andersen put out his arms to them.

“Come here, little women,” he said softly, and took them in his arms.  One chubby face rested against each side of his own.  His long arms tightened around them protectingly.  Tears now began to wet his cheeks, falling from the eyes of the twins.

“You—­you won’t tell?” whispered Suzanne, in his right ear, and Arabella begged as much upon the left.

“No,” said Dan Anderson, hugging them the tighter, “I won’t tell.”

“It’s gone!” said Suzanne, vaguely.

“Yes,” said Dan Anderson, “it’s gone.”  He turned at the sound of voices.  Curly appeared at the door, carrying in his hand a limp, bedraggled figure.

“That,” said Dan Anderson, “I take to be the remains of our late friend Bill, the parrot.  What made you, Curly?”

“Well,” said Curly, defensively, as he held the body of Bill suspended by the head between two fingers, “I was lookin’ for his teeth, to see if he had any candy in ’em, and he bit my finger nigh about off.  So I just wrung his neck.  Do you reckon he’d be good fried?”

“He’d like enough be tolerable tough,” said McKinney.  “Them parrots gets shore old.”

“You ought to have some drugs to tan his hide,” Doc Tomlinson volunteered hopefully.  “It’d be right stylish on a hat.”

Dan Anderson gazed at Curly with reproach in his eyes.  “Now, I just wrung his neck,” repeated the latter, protesting.

“Yes,” said Dan Anderson, “and you’ve wrung the wrong neck.  Bill was innocent.”