Paws were surely flying. Under the stack they went, over the engine, through the thrashing machine, in and out and up and down. But Killer was smaller and faster than any one. And how he could climb! Better than any one but the cat, and she was afraid of him. It he could have reached the elm tree or a rat hole—but the skunks hadn’t practised on rats for nothing.
There was one more thing to climb—the long arm of the thrashing machine, reaching almost to the roof of the barn. Up he went. He was way out in the far-out end when Tad Coon bounced, four-footed, on the bottom of it. Upsy-daisy, it flicked the weasel off like Chatter Squirrel’s hickory tree had done. Killer went rolling and tumbling down the slippery side of the new strawpile.
For a moment nobody moved, hide nor hair nor skin—nor overalls. Killer the Weasel rolled and slid and clawed and grabbed at the loose straw. Didn’t he send it flying! And wasn’t he cursing and snarling! The men held their breath. The Woodsfolk gulped hard for theirs because they’d lost it all chasing him.
Suddenly Tommy’s dog Watch began to bark: “He’ll dig in! He’ll dig in! There’s nobody guarding the bottom of it! If he digs in we’ll lose him!”
He forgot about old Doctor Muskrat! The wise old fellow doesn’t like to fight. He can’t run fast enough. But if fighting comes his way——
Well, he’d been sitting all this time in the bottom of the straw just nibbling his whiskers because he wasn’t any help to the rest of them. Killer came tumbling right down on top of him. And Killer was surely fighting!
Snap! Doctor Muskrat can snap fast enough to catch minnows with their flicky tails. I guess he could snap fast enough to catch Killer, no matter how swiftly he was passing. They rolled out into the barnyard, slashing and biting. And the cat arched her back and squalled, “Kill him! Kill him!”
A lot of help she was! Neither of the fighters knew where he had a hold of the other fellow, though they each knew mighty well where the other fellow had a hold of him.
Flop! came Tad Coon with his teeth all ready. But the three skunk kittens were before him. Their bright little eyes were blazing, their jaws were snapping. They wiped what was left of the wicked beast all over the barnyard, snarling: “You killed our mammy, you did! You killed her!” They hadn’t forgotten. But Killer’s killing days were done.
He hadn’t even killed Doctor Muskrat; he had just slashed a horrid hole in the old fellow’s skin. But the old muskrat sat up, as soon as he’d caught his breath again, pawed the straw and dirt off his ears, and flopped over to the cows’ drinking trough for a dip in cold water to stop the bleeding. Then he was all right.