the bluff.

"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 they came
out among the trees he found her a seat upon a fallen birch. The house
and plowing 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 gray 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 broken only
by the clamor of startled wildfowl which Agatha could see paddling in
clusters about the gleaming slough.

"Those are ducks--wild ones?" she asked.

"Yes," answered Wyllard; "ducks of various kinds. Most of them the same
as your English ones."

"Do you shoot them?"

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.

Wyllar