Agatha was not greatly interested, but he seemed disposed to silence, and she felt, for no very clear reason, that it was advisable to talk of something.
“No,” he said, “not often, anyway. If Mrs. Nansen wants a couple I crawl down to the long grass with the rifle and get them for her.”
“The rifle? Doesn’t the big bullet destroy them?”
“No,” returned Wyllard. “You have to shoot their head off or cut their neck in two.”
“You can do that—when they’re right out in the slough?” asked Agatha, who had learned that it is much more difficult to shoot with a rifle than a shotgun, which spreads its charge.
Wyllard smiled. “Generally; that is, if I haven’t been doing much just before. It depends upon one’s hands. We have our game laws, but as a rule nobody worries about them, and, anyway, those birds won’t nest until they reach the tundra by the Polar Sea. Still, as I said, we never shoot them unless Mrs. Nansen wants one or two for the pot.”
“Why?”
“I don’t quite know. For one thing, they’re worn out; they just stop here to rest.”
His answer appealed to the girl. It did not seem strange to her that the love of the lower creation should be strong in this man, who had no hesitation in admitting that the game laws were no restraint to him. When these Lesser Brethren, worn with their journey, sailed down out of the blue heavens, he believed in giving them right of sanctuary.
“They have come a long way?” she asked.