Leveling his rifle, sighting as best he could in the uncertain light, Andy snapped a shot after the fleeing owl. He shot a second time, a third, and watched the bird fly out of sight. When he lowered the rifle, there was dread in his heart.
He had hoped that, in time, his muskrats would come to know and learn to avoid land prowlers, such as foxes and bobcats. But there was not and couldn't possibly be any defense against raiding great horned owls. The wariest muskrat would never hear them coming and, nine times out of ten, would never see them. They were destruction itself, death in its most efficient form. A very few of them, hunting the swamp regularly, could make it impossible ever to raise muskrats there.
Andy made up his mind. No believer in the unnecessary destruction of anything at all, he must defend that which was his. The only possible course lay in keeping the swamp as free of great horned owls as he could.
Somewhat dejectedly, he made his way back to the house. Turning his swamp into a muskrat farm had seemed like a grand dream, but maybe it could never be anything except a dream. He had expected to lose some, but the first day was not yet ended and he'd lost a quarter of all the muskrats liberated. If casualties kept up at this rate, he'd have none left in another three days.
The next morning, carrying more traps and armed with his .22, he went back into the swamp. Passing Dead Man's Slough, he sighed in relief to discover that the two muskrats he had left there were safe. The second pair, the cautious ones, were not in sight but a partly finished house was evidence that they were still in the slough. Why they wanted a house when they already had a den was puzzling, but Andy supposed they had their own reasons.
Approaching the third slough, the one from which the fox had taken the muskrat, Andy halted and stood quietly.
A leaning log angled from the bank into the slough, and the surviving muskrat sat on it, shucking a fresh-water mussel. It bit through the tough mechanism that clamped the shell, scooped out and ate the tender flesh within, let the shell fall into the water and dived for another mussel.
The gray fox that had caught the first muskrat had come back for the second one. He was lying motionless on the bank. As soon as the muskrat dived, the fox rose, paced forward and, a split second before the muskrat's head broke water, went into another crouch.
Slowly, making no swift move that would call attention to himself, Andy raised and sighted his rifle. But he did not shoot because he was interested.
The fox, evidently a young one that had not yet learned that it pays to look in all directions all the time, was so intent on the muskrat that it paid no attention to anything else. The muskrat climbed out on the log, ate his mussel and dived for another one. The fox rose, paced forward, and threw himself down again.