Peter heard the yell, and his teeth sank deeper in the flesh of the first thing he had ever hated.

It was the girl, more than Peter, who realized the horror of what followed.

The man bent down and his powerful fingers closed round Peter's scrawny neck, and Peter felt his wind suddenly shut off, and his mouth opened.

Then Jed Hawkins drew back the arm that held him, as he would have drawn it back to fling a stone.
With a scream the girl tore at him as his arm straightened out, and Peter went hurtling through the air.

Her stick struck him fiercely across the face, and in that same moment there was a sickening, crushing thud as Peter's loosely-jointed little body struck against the face of the great rock.