Five minutes later, Luke Trull passed the house and went into the swamp. Frosty watched with anger in his eyes, knowing only that once again he had been near his deadliest enemy. He couldn't possibly know that Luke wouldn't have dared let himself be seen going into the swamp, or even past the house, had Andy been home. Nor could Frosty understand, as Luke did, that Andy was in jail and would not be back for several days.
Luke disappeared in the tall swamp grass. He knew where Andy had planted his twenty pairs of muskrats and the safe trails to them, for Andy himself had inadvertently pointed them out. Luke did not know how many other colonies there were or their locations, but there would never be a safer time to look for them. He had his own plans, and he had already decided how and when he intended to strike. All he had to find out was where.
Evening shadows were long when hunger forced Frosty from the house. He left reluctantly, for he was very lonesome and ached for Andy's presence, but he must have food. The kitten stalked down to the slough in which Four-Leaf and Clover were making their home. Only two of the young remained, and they had built themselves a very clumsy house at the slough's far end. The others—partly spurred by a natural wanderlust of youth and partly driven by irritable parents that were expecting new babies and had no time for the old—had gone into the swamp.
Frosty flattened himself, and again anger flared in his eyes. Luke Trull came back out of the swamp and took himself off toward the road. Waiting until the hated man was out of hearing, Frosty went on.
He stalked a red-winged blackbird that was swaying on a reed, sprang—and lashed his tail in anger when the bird escaped him. He glared after the bird as it flew, knowing that he should have made a kill and not understanding why he had not. He leaped at a mouse that was moving through its grass-thatched tunnel and missed by a fraction of an inch. Twenty minutes later, he missed a strike at a woodcock that whistled away in front of him.
Chagrined by these failures, Frosty went deeper into the swamp. His hunger grew, but so did his bad luck. For some reason, everything in the swamp seemed to be not only unusually alert but extraordinarily agile. Frosty missed five more strikes at mice and three at various birds. Casting back and forth, he sought for new quarry.
Black night found him deep in the swamp and still hungry. Hearing fresh game, he broke into a swift run. But again his luck was bad.
He'd heard a young muskrat, one of the sons of Four-Leaf and Clover, swimming up a thin finger of water that led over a little knob and into a slough. The kitten reached the knob a split second after the youngster jumped into the slough and swam away. Twitching an angry tail and glaring, Frosty watched the little drama that unfolded before him.
Another young muskrat, a daughter of the cautious pair, was already in the slough. The two met, looked awkwardly at each other, swam in circles, then climbed out on a half-submerged log and became better acquainted. Finally, side by side, they dived beneath an overhanging bank and began to enlarge a burrow that the little female had already started. They were simply two lonely, lost youngsters who, for the present, were happy just to have each other's company. But if both lived, next year there would be another muskrat colony.
Frosty stalked and missed a rabbit, and made a wild spring at a grouse that was roosting in the lower branches of a tamarack. When the grouse rattled off in the darkness, he spat. Then he regained his self-control. Irritated by repeated failures, he had been striking furiously but wildly, and that was no way to hunt. He must follow a careful plan.