room with a
shriek and fell upon Agnes, who was nearest.

"He's killed," she sobbed. "I--I saw him!"

"So he is," soothed Agnes. "None of the rest of us would have dared set
the trap, if we had been bright enough to think of it. There! It was
harrowing, but it's all over now."

"No, no," shuddered Dorcas. "He's in there yet, and he's _dead_!"

Catherine spied Bert's two mischievous eyes looking around the corner of
the building. In an instant she had despatched him to clear the room of
its horror, and was bringing Dot, a protesting prisoner, to join the
group.

"Where did you come from?" asked every one, while Dorcas collected
herself.

"O, our chariot's just outside," answered Dot. "We saw you all peeping
in, so we drove around behind to have a look ourselves. Got there in
time to see the final fatality. Dorcas was heroic until she won. Are you
girls honestly afraid of mice?"

"I am of live ones," confessed Catherine.

"I am of dead ones," said Dorcas.

"Dead or alive, they, 'turn my blood to ice within me, and make the
breath of my heart wax pale,' as the lecturer said last night," said
Polly. "But now that you dare-devil people have cleared the field for
action, we may as well go in and scrub. We'd only just finished
sweeping. Dot, you may take the death-bed boards. And, O, there comes
Bert, back from the funeral. As President of the Winsted Boat Club and
Library Association, I hereby appoint you and Geraldine Winthrop a
Standing Mouse Committee with full power to act."

"Dorcas to be official executioner, I trust," and Bert held the door
open for Dorcas, bowing low as she passed.

That afternoon the B. C. & L. A. gathered in force. Even Tom Davis,
brother of Bertha and Agnes, asked for a half-day's vacation and helped
Algernon whitewash. Bert had impressed Max into carpentering, and the
work of bookcase-building went on noisily inside the shed. The girls sat
on the weedy patch of ground outside, sewing sash curtains.

"It would be quicker to make them on the machine at home, but not nearly
so much fun," said Agnes. "How many books did you and Bert gather up
this morning, Dot?"

"Fifty-three volumes besides Miss Ainsworth's. Those were already over
here in the shed. Where is Archie?"

"He and Winifred are coming. They were going to bring a rug Win's mother
said we could have, and two lamps."

"They will enjoy carrying them over this hot afternoon!" said Bess,
deftly hemming a curtain. "But it can