Never had he been so angry in all his life! To have a fat partridge stolen from him like this was an imposition he had never suffered before.

He wanted to dart in and fasten his teeth in Baree's jugular.

But he was too good a general to make the attempt, too good a Napoleon to jump deliberately to his Waterloo.

An owl he would have fought.

He might even have given battle to his big brother--and his deadliest enemy--the mink.