"It's the nearest approach to a lake we have until you get to the alkali tract," he said.
Agatha went with him through the shadow of the wood, and when at length they came out of it he found her a seat upon a fallen birch. The house and ploughing were hidden now, and they were alone on the slope to a slight hollow, in which half a mile of gleaming water lay. Its surface was broken here and there, by tussocks of grass and reeds, and beyond it the prairie ran back unbroken, a dim grey waste, to the horizon. The sun had dipped behind the bluff, and the sky had become a vast green transparency. There was no wind now, but a wonderful exhilarating freshness crept into the cooling air, and the stillness was only broken by the clamour of startled wildfowl which presently sank again. Agatha could see them paddling in clusters about the gleaming sloo.
"Yes," said Wyllard; "duck of various kinds. Most of them the same as your English ones."
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," said 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 sloo?" asked Agatha, who had learned that it is much more difficult to shoot with a rifle than a shot-gun, 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."
"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. For the most part, at least, when these Lesser Brethren sailed down out of the blue heavens worn with their journey he gave them right of sanctuary.