ss Laura dropped the paper. "Uncle, did he leave those animals to
starve?"

"Didn't you notice," said Mr. Wood, grimly, "that there wasn't a wisp of
hay inside that shanty, and that where the poor beasts were tied up the
wood was knawed and bitten by them in their torture for food? Wouldn't
he have sent me that note, instead of leaving it here on the table, if
he'd wanted me to know? The note isn't dated, but I judge he's been gone
five or six days. He has had a spite against me ever since I lent him
that hundred dollars. I don't know why, for I've stood up for him when
others would have run him out of the place. He intended me to come here
and find every animal lying dead. He even had a rope around the pig's
neck. Harry, my boy, let us go and look after them again. I love a dumb
brute too well to let it suffer, but in this case I'd give two hundred
dollars more if I could make them live and have Barron know it."

They left the room, and Miss Laura sat turning the sheet of paper over
and over, with a kind of horror in her face. It was a very dirty piece
of paper, but by-and-by she made a discovery. She took it in her hand
and went out-doors. I am sure that the poor horse lying on the grass
knew her. He lifted his head, and what a different expression he had now
that his hunger had been partly satisfied. Miss Laura stroked and patted
him, then she called to her cousin, "Harry, will you look at this?"

He took the paper from her, and said: "that is a crest shining through
the different strata of dust and grime, probably that of his own family.
We'll have it cleaned, and it will enable us to track the villain. You
want him punished, don't you?" he said, with a little, sly laugh at Mist
Laura.

She made a gesture in the direction of the suffering horse, and said,
frankly, "Yes, I do."

"Well, my dear girl," he said, "father and I are with you. If we can
hunt Barron down, we'll do it." Then he muttered to himself as she
turned away, "She is a real Puritan, gentle, and sweet, and good, and
yet severe. Rewards for the virtuous, punishments for the vicious," and
he repeated some poetry:

"She was so charitable and so piteous,
She would weep if that she saw a mouse
Caught in a trap, if it were dead or bled."

Miss Laura saw that Mr. Wood and Mr. Harry were doing all that could be
done for the cow and horse, so she wandered down to a hollow at the back
of the house, where the Englishman had kept his pig. Ju