In the middle of the three runs that opened off the stable, the Silver watched with outrage. His shining black crest was erect, his red felt seemed to have extended so that he looked like an aroused chieftain dressed for war. In spite of the wire between them, Sarah took an instinctive step backward when he suddenly stood erect, grunting with anger, and began to beat his powerful snowy wings with a peculiar rushing and clicking sound.
“He’s a devil, isn’t he?” said Hunter admiringly at Sarah’s side. “And look at old Trooper there. Not as romantic as he looks. Watch.”
He extended a fragment of bread through the wire. The Amherst cock stopped in mid-dance, took the bread eagerly, waited to see if any more were to be had, and resumed his pirouetting. Sarah, waked out of her absorption, realized that with the loss of Peck everybody had been pressed into service. Milo was coming forward with an empty feeder, Bess had emerged from the Manchurians’ pen with one of the big blue birds in a firm and expert grip.
She said worriedly to Hunter, “Where’s all this eye trouble coming from? Get the Argyrol, will you, and some cotton and boric acid if it’s there?”
The pheasant submitted to doctoring with an almost trance-like docility. Bess walked away with it, talking quietly and steadily, and Hunter looked at Sarah’s camera. “Going to take some pictures?”
“I was,” said Sarah carelessly, “but I don’t know how fast this film is. I doubt if it could keep up with the Amherst.”
“Bess had very good luck with a batch she took last spring. I’m sure she has an extra set somewhere.”
Was this the automatic politeness it seemed, or a test? Sarah smiled at him. “I’d like to try my own luck,” she said. “Would you have any more bread to entice him with?”
Hunter gave her a long level glance that she came close to flushing under before he said pleasantly, “Yes, I have,” and glanced around. “I think over here . . .”
The spot he led her to was perfect: sun slanting over her shoulder, the Amherst cock a fairy-tale bird against the dark snow-sifted pine boughs. Sarah moved the camera imperceptibly, under the guise of focussing, until the tiny glass aperture held Hunters profile, sharp, vivid, alert. Something, the context or the gilding of light on his hair, gave him an elusive resemblance to Charles. She said over the camera, “I’m sorry to keep you; this thing seems to be—” and Hunter turned his face instinctively.
“—stuck,” said Sarah, but the click of the shutter had been simultaneous with the sudden upward veer of his head.
“Jet,” he said, getting to his feet and gazing briefly at the sky over Sarah’s shoulder. “Did you get Trooper?”
“I think so.” There had been a jet. She could still hear its diminishing scream, but the sky here was so full of them on weekends that they were almost a background noise. They were certainly no novelty to be stared at. “Thanks,” said Sarah, cordial with an effort. “HI see what I can do over here.”
She pretended to photograph the Japanese Coppers, by far the most valuable birds on the place; the going price was something like two hundred dollars a pair, and that didn’t include the price of importing them, maintaining them during the necessary period of quarantine on the West Coast, transporting them here. The corner of her eye saw Milo going on his reluctant rounds, circling closer to her like an inquisitive bee.
Sarah strolled unconcernedly toward the Manchurians’ pen, worrying about the fading light, and was rewarded. Milo presented himself with a mock-offended air. “When do I get to have my picture taken? I’m in full color right now, believe it or not.”
Wouldn’t the man who had masqueraded as Charles realize the danger of a camera in Sarah’s hands? Milo stationed himself at the side of the pen, and she realized with a little shock of triumph that he hadn’t taken off his glasses. People who wore them usually did for this kind of photograph, because of the distorting glitter of light on the lenses. On the other hand, the owlishly round dark frames were the feature a stranger would remember about Milo’s face.
Sarah said into the camera, “There’s an awful lot of reflection from your glasses,” and Milo’s hand lifted and dropped again to his side. “Let’s face it. I’m the intellectual type, and it’s the pheasants you want anyway, isn’t it? Say when, so I can take a manly breath.”
Even then Sarah did not quite trust him. She said, “One second, while the hen comes a bit closer—” and quick as her finger had been on the shutter, Milo was quicker. Deliberately, he had made an elaborate face.
It was the kind of thing he would think amusing, and there was no excuse for the flash-fire of anger that took place inside Sarah; briefly, she could not trust herself to speak. Milo said something innocent about hoping she had done him justice, but she pretended not to hear.
Two pictures taken so far, one a blur of movement, the other a comic-strip grimace. They would have to be taken again, at random, and although they wouldn’t be full-face they would have to do. The color would help. It would show Hunter’s weathered complexion, Milo’s dark hair and glasses, Rob Clemence’s grooved, freckled tensity and sandy curls—if she could ever manage to entrap Rob.
It didn’t, in Sarah’s present black frame of mind, seem very possible that she could. She passed the stable runs on her way back into the barn. The Amherst cock was still absorbed in his delicate enamelled dance, but the Reeves had dropped into a bored walk. The Silver followed Sarah inside as though he had read her mind.
If she were to explore the pens, it would have to be done
