"If the fox is of no good in the world," said Mercy, "why was he made?"
"He can't be of no good," answered the chief. "What if some things are, just that we may get rid of them?"
"COULD they be made just to be got rid of?"
"I said—that WE might get rid of them: there is all the difference in that. The very first thing men had to do in the world was to fight beasts."
"I think I see what you mean," said Mercy: "if there had been no wild beasts to fight with, men would never have grown able for much!"
"That is it," said Alister. "They were awful beasts! and they had poor weapons to fight them with—neither guns nor knives!"
"And who knows," suggested Ian, "what good it may be to the fox himself to make the best of a greedy life?"
"But what is the good to us of talking about such things?" said
Christina. "They're not interesting!"
The remark silenced the brothers: where indeed could be use without interest?
But Mercy, though she could hardly have said she found the conversation VERY interesting, felt there was something in the men that cared to talk about such things, that must be interesting if she could only get at it. They were not like any other men she had met!