Alec signified that he never had. "Guess they dinna live in this country," he added.
"I guess they don't," replied Upton drily. "Fact is they don't live in any country any more. What is supposed to be the very last specimen died in captivity in Cincinnati last year. A reward of several thousand dollars for proof of a single pair nesting anywhere in America has stood for several years. But the bird is believed to be absolutely extinct. And yet seventy-five years ago they were numbered by millions and extended over America from the Atlantic to the Rocky Mountains. Probably billions would be nearer the truth. The ornithologist Wilson once watched a flock which he estimated to be a mile wide, moving at the rate of a mile a minute, and it took four hours to pass. Allowing three birds to each square yard there must have been more than two billion birds in that one flock. In 1869 one town in Michigan shipped to market in forty days almost twelve million birds. They were so plentiful that they sold as low as twelve cents a dozen and netters made money at that. When the first efforts to protect them were made they were fruitless because people said that the numbers were so great that it would be impossible ever to reduce them to a serious extent. And to-day there is not one living. It doesn't seem possible, but it is a cold, hard fact. And man alone is to blame.
"The same thing is happening right now with a lot of animals and birds. Just as sure as that fire is burning fifty years will see a lot off them extinct unless they are better protected. The hunters of the pigeon didn't believe it any more than you believe it about the rats. On the level, Alec, do you think it a square deal to take a rat in the only place he's got to stay in the winter?"
"Oh, I'm not taking them that way," Alec protested with some haste. "I believe in respecting the law, even if it is a fool law."
"But is it a fool law? I don't think so," said Walter quietly. "In a boxing match it is a foul to hit a man when he's down."
"'Tisn't in a lumberman's fight," Alec broke in. "If a man's down so much the better. Then you've got him. That's the thing to do—get him down and then do him good."
"Aw say, youse don't mean that!" Sparrer's eyes were round with indignation, for even a street gamin has better ethics than this.
"It's the way they fight up here, Sparrer, I'm sorry to say," said Pat. "In a rough and tumble fight here they kick, bite and gouge, and you may well pity the under man. But they're learning better."
"Would you hit a man who was bound and helpless?" asked Walter quickly.
"Certainly not!" cried Alec indignantly. "That's different."