"My ideal woman has never been a life-taker," he said coolly. "Once, when I was a boy, there was a girl--very lovely--my first sweetheart. I saw her at the traps once, just after she had killed her seventh pigeon straight, 'pulling it down' from overhead, you know--very clever--the little thing was breathing on the gra.s.s, and it made sounds--" He shrugged and walked on. "She killed her twenty-first bird straight; it was a handsome cup, too."

And after a silence, "So you didn't love her any more, Mr.

Siward?"--mockingly sweet.

They laughed, and at the sound of laughter the tall-stemmed alders echoed with the rushing roar of a c.o.c.k-grouse thundering skyward. Crack!

Crack! Whirling over and over through a cloud of floating feathers, a heavy weight struck the springy earth. There lay the big mottled bird, splendid silky ruffs spread, dead eyes closing, a single tiny crimson bead twinkling like a ruby on the gaping beak.

"Dead!" said Siward to the dog who had dropped to shot; "Fetch!" And, signalling the boy behind, he relieved the dog of his burden and tossed the dead weight of ruffled plumage toward him. Then he broke his gun, and, as the empty sh.e.l.ls flew rattling backward, slipped in fresh cartridges, locked the barrels, and walked forward, the flush of excitement still staining his sunburnt face.

"You deal death mercifully," said the girl in a low voice. "I wonder what your ci-devant sweetheart would think of you."

"A bungler had better stick to the traps," he a.s.sented, ignoring the badinage.

"I am wondering," she said thoughtfully, "what I think of men who kill."

He turned sharply, hesitated, shrugged. "Wild things' lives are brief at best--fox or flying-tick, wet nests or mink, owl, hawk, weasel or man. But the death man deals is the most merciful. Besides," he added, laughing, "ours is not a case of sweethearts."

"My argument is purely in the abstract, Mr. Siward. I am asking you whether the death men deal is more justifiable than a woman's gift of death?"

"Oh, well, life-taking, the giving of life--there can be only one answer to the mystery; and I don't know it," he replied smiling.

"I do."

"Tell me then," he said, still amused.

They had pa.s.sed swale after swale of silver birches waist deep in perfumed fern and brake; the big timber lay before them. She moved forward, light gun swung easily across her leather-padded shoulder; and on the wood's sunny edge she seated herself, straight young back against a giant pine, gun balanced across her flattened knees.

"You are feeling the pace a little," he said, coming up and standing in front of her.

"The pace? No, Mr. Siward."

"Are you a trifle--bored?" She considered him in silence, then leaned back luxuriously, rounded arms raised, wrists crossed to pillow her head.

"This is charmingly new to me," she said simply.

"What? Not the open?"

"No; I have camped and done the usual roughing it with only three guides apiece and the champagne inadequately chilled. I have endured that sort of hardship several times, Mr. Siward.

What is that furry hunch up there in that tall thin tree?"

"A racc.o.o.n," he said presently. "Can you see the foxy head peeping so slyly down at us? Look at Sagamore nosing the air in that droll blind mole-like way. He knows there's something furry up aloft somewhere; and he knows it's none of his business."

They watched the motionless ball of fur in the crotch of a slim forest elm. Presently it uncurled, cautiously; a fluffy ringed tail unfolded; the rounded furry back humped up, and the animal, moving slowly into the tangent foliage of an enormous oak, vanished amid bronzing leafy depths.

In the silence the birds began to reappear. A jay screamed somewhere deep in the yellowing woods; black-capped chickadees dropped from twig to twig, cheeping inquiringly.

She sat listening, bright head pillowed in her arms, idly attentive to his low running comment on beast and bird and tree, on forest stillness and forest sounds, on life and the wild laws of life and death governing the great out-world 'twixt sky and earth. Sunlight and shadows moving, speech and silence, waxed and waned. A listless contentment lay warm upon her, weighting the heavy white lids. The blue of her eyes was very dark now--almost purple like the colour of the sea when the wind-flaws turn the blue to violet.

"Did you ever hear of the 'Lesser Children'?" she asked. "Listen then:

"'Mult.i.tudes, mult.i.tudes, under the moon they stirred!

The weakerbrothers of our earthly breed; All came about my head and at my feet A thousand thousand sweet, With starry eyes not even raised to plead: Bewildered, driven, hiding, fluttering, mute!

And I beheld and saw them one by one Pa.s.s, and become as nothing in the night.'

"Do you know what it means?

"'Winged mysteries of song that from the sky Once dashed long music down--'

"Do you understand?" she asked, smiling.

"'Who has not seen in the high gulf of light What, lower, was a bird!'"

She ceased, and, raising her eyes to his: "Do you know that plea for mercy on the lesser children who die all day to-day because the season opens for your pleasure, Mr. Siward?"

"Is it a woodland sermon?" he inquired, too politely.

"The poem? No; it is the case for the prosecution. The prisoner may defend himself if he can."

"The defence rests," he said. "The prisoner moves that he be discharged."

"Motion denied," she interrupted promptly.

Somewhere in the woodland world the crows were holding a noisy session, and she told him that was the jury debating the degree of his guilt.

"Because you're guilty of course," she continued. "I wonder what your sentence is to be?"

"I'll leave it to you," he suggested lazily.

"Suppose I sentenced you to slay no more?"

"Oh, I'd appeal--"

"No use; I am the tribunal of last resort."

"Then I throw myself upon the mercy of the court."

"You do well, Mr. Siward. This court is very merciful.

How much do you care for bird murder? Very much? Is there anything you care for more?

Yes? And could this court grant it to you in compensation?"

He said, deliberately, roused by the level challenge of her gaze: "The court is incompetent to compensate the prisoner or offer any compromise."

"Why, Mr. Siward?"

"Because the court herself is already compromised in her future engagements."

"But what has my--engagement to do with--"

"You offered compensation for depriving me of my shooting. There could be only one adequate compensation."