256 ON THE EDGE OF THE WILDERNESS 
strained with his neck to get his mouth, with its 
razor teeth, into some part of his antagonist, and 
between his kicking and biting the feathers flew 
from the bird even while the blood flowed from 
the hare. Now and again the hawk would get 
him clear of the ground, only to be forced down 
again a few feet away, where again the snow was 
trampled, the long, powerful hind legs kicked, 
bird and beast rolled and bounced and battered 
each other. But the hawk was ever striking with 
his cruel beak, hanging on relentlessly with his 
talons, and at last the hare lay still on the red 
snow. The hawk stood upon him and tore his 
flesh, before he flapped his feathers straight again 
and rose with the carcass. 
But meanwhile Red Slayer had slipped away 
unobserved. He had seen all he wanted to. The 
Terror was growing in his heart. 
For the most part, of course, it was bigger 
game than weasels the goshawk was after, but he 
scorned nothing in the way of meat, just as Red 
Slayer himself would devour a grasshopper on 
his way to kill a chicken. And some instinct told 
Red Slayer this was so. He redoubled his cau- 
