He walked to the window, as if he didn’t want her to see what he thought of that, and I saw him looking hard at something outside in the snow.  When he walked back to the fire he was smiling, and he stooped over and poked Arabella with his finger.

“So that was it!” he said.  “Full to the scuppers, poor little wretch!  Minnie, I am hoist with my own petard, which in this case was a boomerang.”

“Which is in English—­” I asked.

“With the instinct of her sex, Arabella has unearthed what was meant to be buried forever.  She had gorged herself into a convulsion on that rabbit I shot last night!”

CHAPTER XXI

THE MUTINY

They went to the house together, he carrying Arabella like a sick baby and Miss Patty beside him.  As far as I could see they didn’t speak a word to each other, but once or twice I saw her turn and look up at him as if she was puzzled.

I closed the door and stood just inside, looking at father’s picture over the mantel.  As sure as I stood there, the eyes were fixed on the spring, and I sensed, as you may say, what they meant.  I went over and looked down into the spring, and it seemed to me it was darker than usual.  It may have smelled stronger, but the edge had been taken off my nose, so to speak, by being there so long.

From the spring I looked again at father, and his eyes were on me mournful and sad.  I felt as though, if he’d been there, father would have turned the whole affair to the advantage of the house, and it was almost more than I could bear.  I was only glad the old doctor’s enlargement had not come yet.  I couldn’t have endured having it see what had occurred.

The only thing I could think of was to empty the spring and let the water come in plain.  I could put a little sulphur in to give it color and flavor, and if it turned out that Mr. Pierce was right and that Arabella was only a glutton, I could put in the other things later.

I was carrying out my first pailful when Doctor Barnes came down the path and took the pail out of my hand.

“What are you doing?” he asked.  “Making a slide?”

“No,” I said bitterly, “I am watering the flowers.”

“Good!” He was not a bit put out.  “Let me help you.”  He took the pail across the path and poured a little into the snow at the base of a half-dozen fence posts.  “There!” he said, coming back triumphant.  “The roses are done.  Now let’s have a go at the pansies and the lady’s-slippers and the—­the begonias.  I say”—­he stopped suddenly on his way in—­“sulphur water on a begonia—­what would it make?  Skunk cabbage?”

Inside, however, he put down the pail, and pulling me in, closed the door.

“Now forget it!” he commanded.  “Just because a lot of damn fools see a dog in a fit and have one, too, is that any reason for your being scared wall-eyed and knock-kneed?”