One afternoon John ran into the room.  “My dear Mrs. Moodie, what is Mrs. —–­’s dog like?”

“A large bull-dog, brindled black and white.”

“Then, by Jove, I’ve shot him!”

“John, John! you mean me to quarrel in earnest with my friend.  How could you do it?”

“Why, how the deuce should I know her dog from another?  I caught the big thief in the very act of devouring the eggs from under your sitting hen, and I shot him dead without another thought.  But I will bury him, and she will never find it out a bit more than she did who killed the cat.”

Some time after this, Emilia returned from a visit at P—–.  The first thing she told me was the loss of the dog.  She was so vexed at it, she had had him advertised, offering a reward for his recovery.

I, of course, was called upon to sympathise with her, which I did with a very bad grace.  “I did not like the beast,” I said; “he was cross and fierce, and I was afraid to go up to her house while he was there.”

“Yes; but to lose him so.  It is so provoking; and him such a valuable animal.  I could not tell how deeply she felt the loss.  She would give four dollars to find out who had stolen him.”

How near she came to making the grand discovery the sequel will show.

Instead of burying him with the murdered pig and cat, John had scratched a shallow grave in the garden, and concealed the dead brute.

After tea, Emilia requested to look at the garden; and I, perfectly unconscious that it contained the remains of the murdered Chowder, led the way.  Mrs. —–­ whilst gathering a handful of fine green-peas, suddenly stooped, and looking earnestly at the ground, called to me—­

“Come here, Susanna, and tell me what has been buried here.  It looks like the tail of a dog.”

She might have added, “of my dog.”  Murder, it seems, will out.  By some strange chance, the grave that covered the mortal remains of Chowder had been disturbed, and the black tail of the dog was sticking out.

“What can it be?” said I, with an air of perfect innocence.  “Shall I call Jenny, and dig it up?”

“Oh, no, my dear; it has a shocking smell, but it does look very much like Chowder’s tail.”

“Impossible!  How could it come among my peas?”

“True.  Besides, I saw Chowder, with my own eyes, yesterday, following a team; and George C—–­ hopes to recover him for me.”

“Indeed!  I am glad to hear it.  How these mosquitoes sting.  Shall we go back to the house?”

While we returned to the house, John, who had overheard the whole conversation, hastily disinterred the body of Chowder, and placed him in the same mysterious grave with Tom and the pig.

Moodie and his friend finished logging-up the eight acres which the former had cleared the previous winter; besides putting in a crop of peas and potatoes, and an acre of Indian corn, reserving the fallow for fall wheat, while we had the promise of a splendid crop of hay off the sixteen acres that had been cleared in 1834.  We were all in high spirits and everything promised fair, until a very trifling circumstance again occasioned us much anxiety and trouble, and was the cause of our losing most of our crop.