The next week, Andy finished his job with the Casmans and, just as Jud had predicted, the breakup followed. It was no violent change but a soft and gentle thing. One day the temperature climbed to near-summer heights and remained there for three days. It wiped out the snow and presently it took the ice, too. Because there had been little snow and not much spring run-off, except for the thaw, there was almost no change in the swamp.
Andy resumed his daily patrols. The owls were still present and, as Andy discovered when one plucked a rabbit from under his very nose, still ravenous. But muskrats that had been ice-bound for weeks were frantic for a taste of fresh food. They swarmed out of dens and houses to dig in the mud for anything succulent. Their very eagerness made them careless. Andy shot a bobcat with a muskrat in its mouth, found where a great horned owl had taken one, and a fox another. But there was no great wave of predators immediately.
Another week elapsed before he knew definitely that something was seriously wrong. The sign left by digging muskrats was easy to see, and after a week, in eight separate colonies, there was not only no fresh sign but the houses were falling into disrepair. Andy redoubled his efforts, going into the swamp with daylight and staying until dark. This predator was a complete mystery. It left neither tracks nor sign, and the only evidence that it had struck at all was another colony that no longer contained muskrats. Andy, who had thought he knew everything there was to know about the swamp, gave up.
He did not understand this, but Joe Wilson might be able to give him some good advice, for Joe was very wise. An hour before dark, Andy climbed the path leading to the road and struck out toward town. He had walked no more than half a mile when he saw a horseman coming toward him.
It was Luke Trull, whose eyes were cold and whose smile was colder. He passed without speaking, but for a full two minutes Andy stood rooted. Then he turned slowly back toward his house. The Trull-Gates feud, with Luke and himself as sole participants, was about to be renewed, for, in addition to his usual disreputable clothing, Luke wore a muskrat-skin hat!
DEEP SAND
Ten minutes after Andy left, Frosty went into the swamp. He had his full growth now, and his twelve pounds were distributed perfectly over a near-perfect frame. Lithe muscles were under exact control of a brain that, naturally fast, had been further sharpened by the dangers to which he had been exposed. Because he was very sure of himself and what he could do, Frosty disdained to hide from even the great horned owls, unless he felt like it. He would fight anything anywhere, if fighting seemed the wisest course. But he would hide, if hiding best served the ends he wanted to achieve. He was never guided by anything save his own intelligence, and he met each situation according to circumstances.
Not especially hungry, tonight he was in the mood to accept a tempting tidbit should one come his way. Most of all, he wanted to wander and explore, for his feline curiosity never had been and never would be satisfied. No matter how many times he went into the swamp, he always found something new or some new aspect to something old. And he had prowled the swamp so much that, though the rabbit or muskrat that lived its whole life in one comparatively small area might know that area better than he, Frosty grasped the over-all picture more completely than anything else.