Indeed they weren’t even angry, for they didn’t know all the harm he’d been doing and there wasn’t anybody in all the Woods and Fields who could tell them. Tommy said: “What’s that?” and Louie answered, “First time I ever saw him,” and they just stood still and stared at him.
Killer certainly was afraid of them. His wits were as muddled as a pollywog’s puddle when a duck goes fishing in it. First place, what had happened to his nice safe home? Tooth nor toenail couldn’t dig into it. Then why did that great big stone flop right over on its back and leave him without a place to hide in? He didn’t know it was because the little boys used a stick to pry it with just like the First Man used a stick to pry the stone that shut up the pass to his little island against the wolves in the First-off Beginning of Things.
Killer was as bad as any wolf, but the little boys didn’t know that. They didn’t know enough to be afraid of the wicked little beast who scrouched down at their very feet, snarling and swearing at them. All they thought of was the funny faces he was making. They were snarlier and funnier than any Stripes Skunk could ever make, or even Tad Coon.
“Te-hee,” giggled Louie. “My, but he thinks he’s big!”
“Ho-ho!” laughed Tommy, thinking of the fight between Nibble Rabbit and the cat that morning, “I’d like to see what our old Tabby would say to him.”
That was too much for Killer. He did jump. But he didn’t jump at them. He went leaping off into the Woods, spitting like a firecracker and looking for a new place to hide from them. And he found—the Big Oak that was blown down in the Terrible Storm where the Bad Little Owls were hidden! Wow! But wasn’t Killer mad when he bounced into the hole of the Big Oak!
He hadn’t more than poked his whiskers inside the hollow tree than he smelled owl. He smelled other things, too, but he was too mad to think about them.
“Yah!” he snarled, sniffing viciously. “So that’s where you are, you lying little flap-wings. Just you wait until I get my breath and I’ll teach you a few things. You told me it was good hunting here, you did! Well, there isn’t so much as a mouse-tail swishing, or a feather flying, or even a frog hopping by your fine pond. Not a trail has been made since the big rain that almost washed me out of my snug stones.
“And, next, did you think I wouldn’t hear what happened to Silvertip the Fox? He isn’t dead. He’s turned into the worst enemy we weasels have; he’s a Ghost Owl and he’s haunting these very Woods and Fields. That’s why all the other creatures have gone.”
“He isn’t! Truly he isn’t,” wailed Screecher’s wife. “Grandpop Snappingturtle ate him.”