He stood up now, with the kicking rabbit held by the hind legs. The trapped animal was fat and was of good size.
"Oh! Oh!" cried Dot. "He'll get away from you."
"How are you going to kill him?" Sammy, the practical, asked.
"Oh! How awful!" gasped Tess. "Won't it hurt him?"
"It won't know anything about it," said Rowdy.
He was already holding the rabbit away from him almost at arm's length and poised his right hand, edge out, for the blow that was to finish the creature. Sharp and quick was the blow, the outer edge of the boy's hand striking across the back of the rabbit's neck just at the base of the brain. The vertebra was snapped in this way and the creature instantly killed--a merciful and sudden death. The rabbit kicked but once, and then was still.
"Oh, don't worry," said Rowdy. "Ike M'Graw showed me how to do that."
"Oh!" cried Dot. "_We_ know Mr. Ike M'Graw--so we do."
"How did you come to know him?" demanded Rowdy, quickly and suspiciously, it seemed. "He isn't at home now."
"Yes, he is," said Sammy. "He was up at Red Deer Lodge last night and he was there again this morning."
"Oh!" ejaculated Rowdy, standing and holding the rabbit as though the information gave him considerable mental disturbance. "I--I thought he'd gone away for good."
Then he turned suddenly and plunged into the drifting snow. "Come on!" he exclaimed again. "This snow is drifting awfully."
Sammy drove the little girls ahead of him again. "Aw, go on!" he muttered. "He's all right. He's got some kind of a hide-out."
"I don't believe I like that Rowdy," said Tess softly. "He--he's real cruel. All boys are, I s'pose."
"Cause girls are such softies," declared the impolite Sammy.
They plunged ahead, wading far above their waists now. Behind the trees the hillside rose abruptly. It towered so above their heads in the snow that the children were almost scared. Suppose that hill of snow should tumble right down on top of them!
"Goodness!" exclaimed Tess, with some exasperation. "Where is your old cave?"
"Come on," said Rowdy, patiently. "It's here somewhere. But the old snow--Ye-e--yi, yi!" he suddenly yelled.
Faintly there came an answering voice--half smothered, wholly eerie sounding.
"Then don't you live alone?" Tess demanded.