“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! Oh!” murmured Tess.
“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.”