broken Swagdagger’s neck; but it crouched still, its nervous force oozing away. Tarka ran at it. Swagdagger faced him with an angry chakker, and was nipped in the shoulder. The fitch ran out through the opening, but turned outside and gibbered in fury. Tarka looked once at the green points that were the fitch’s eyes, and went on with his work. Swagdagger went away, to climb a granite stone, and chakker into the night. The moon was rising, dim in the mist, and the harsh notes echoed about the grey stillness of the granite clitter. Kak-h'kak-kak, he rattled, throwing his call one way, then another. He was summoning the stoats of Belstone Cleave.
Tarka had eaten half the rabbit when a strong scent made him look round again. He saw in the low opening several greenish dots, that stared and swung about and stared again. He went on eating. Delicate sniffs, sudden rustles and paddings, scratchings, a quick sneeze—he peered for another way out, wanting to be alone. He found a crack and explored it with his nose, before beginning to scrape. He sucked in the scent of fitch, for Swagdagger’s mate had her nest of young beyond the crack.
She had been hunting a rabbit three hundred yards away when Swagdagger had climbed the stone, and as soon as she heard the call, she galloped back. Other fitches had run to the summons of Swagdagger. Sharp-toothed, bloodthirsty, and without fear, they ran up and down by the opening, sniffing the delicious scent of fresh-slain rabbit, weaving quick bodies and lifting their small heads to sniff, sniff, sniff. The
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