Jeb Rushmore strolled down to where Raymond sat on the rough bench outside the provision cabin, facing the lake.
“Still watchin’? If yew say so, I’ll light a lantern and we’ll tow a couple uv skiffs across and wait on ’tother side.”
“I wasn’t thinking about them just now, Jeb; I was looking at those birds.”
High up, through the fading twilight, a bird sped above the lake, toward the south. Its course was straight as an arrow. Above it a larger bird hovered and circled but the smaller bird went straight upon its way, as if bent upon some important mission.
Then, suddenly, the larger bird swooped and there was only the one object left in the dim vast sky where, a moment before, there had been two.
“Get me my rifle,” said Jeb.
As Raymond hurried back with it, he could see the wings of the big bird flapping in the fury of its murderous work. What was going on up there he could only picture in his mind’s eye, but the thought of that smaller bird hurrying on its harmless errand—homeward to its nest, perhaps—and waylaid and murdered up there in the lonely half darkness, troubled him and his hand trembled perceptibly as he handed the weapon to Jeb.
“You always hit ’em—fetch ’em—don’t you?” he asked, anxiously.
“Purty near.”
The sharp report rang out and echoed from the surrounding hills. Even before it died away there lay at Raymond’s feet a hawk, quite dead, while through the dim light in a pitiably futile effort to fly, the smaller bird, a vivid speck of white in the fading twilight, fluttered to the ground.