High in one of the trees, a tamarack, he had seen something move. Little more than a flicker, it was enough to make him aware of an alien presence. Flattening himself, he held perfectly still and searched. Presently he saw clearly the thing that had moved. It was another great horned owl. Twenty feet from the ground, it perched close to the trunk of the gloomy tamarack and enjoyed a nap. Frosty remained where he was.
Experience had taught him what these great birds could do, and again he wanted to escape notice because, if it came to a battle, he was not sure he would win it. The great owls were strong and unbelievably ferocious, and a motion might bring this one down upon him. Never taking his eyes from it, Frosty decided exactly what he would do if the owl swooped at him. If possible, he would get back into the brush.
He heard Andy come back to resume the search, but again he dared not move. His friend went away.
Twilight draped its gray mantle over the swamp, and finally the owl took wing. Frosty still did not move, for the owl merely soared gracefully over the slough, dipped to pluck a swimming muskrat from the water and winged into a dead tree to devour its prey. Frosty slunk away.
In the tamarack, the owl had been an unknown factor. It might be hungry and it might not. Now it was known. Having the muskrat, it would eat. After eating, it would not be hungry. Therefore, the chances of its hunting anything else in the near future were small. Frosty resumed his search for a way out of the swamp.
A while later, he knew that there was none. He was on a little island which he could not possibly leave unless he wanted to swim, and he would not swim. Hungry, Frosty gave himself over to finding something to eat. He prowled back through the brush without discovering anything, and when hunger emboldened him, he stalked among the trees. He struck at and missed a rabbit that promptly jumped into and swam across the slough.
The small island had never supported much life anyway, and the owl had been living on it and hunting every night for almost two weeks. Many of the island's furred inhabitants had already fallen to it, and whatever had escaped knew it was here. The mice and gophers that remained ventured from their burrows only when necessity forced them to do so.
Hearing a bird stir, Frosty marked the tree in which it roosted and made his way there. He climbed and was ten feet from the ground when the bird took wing and rattled off into the darkness. Frosty descended the tree. He took a stance before a mouse's burrow and waited. But the mouse did not emerge.
Dawn was breaking and Frosty was still hungry when he went back to look for the owl. He found it still in the dead tree. He settled down to watch, for once again the owl was an unknown factor. It had fed last night, but it might be in the mood to feed again and the kitten was of no mind to serve as its next dinner. If he knew where his enemy was, he would also know what it was doing. He watched the owl all day.
Again, with the coming of dusk, the owl winged out to get another muskrat. Little interested in the muskrats' fate and unable to catch one himself because none climbed out on the island, Frosty could not know that the owl had found a bonanza here. Its plan was to remain, with little need to exert itself, until it had caught every one of the ten muskrats Andy had planted. Then it would seek another hunting ground.