The raven was pecking away, but again the brown bump heaved and the raven leaped to a near perch.
"Wah--wah--wah--wo--hoo--yow--wow--rrrrrr-rrrr-rrrr"-- and the other ravens joined in.
Rolf had no weapons but his bow, his pocket knife, and a hatchet.

He took the latter in his hand and walked gently forward; the hollow-voiced ravens "haw--hawed," then flew to safe perches where they chuckled like ghouls over some extra-ghoulish joke.
The lad, coming closer, witnessed a scene that stirred him with mingled horror and pity.

A great, strong buck--once strong, at least--was standing, staggering, kneeling there; sometimes on his hind legs, spasmodically heaving and tugging at a long gray form on the ground, the body of another buck, his rival, dead now, with a broken neck, as it proved, but bearing big, strong antlers with which the antlers of the living buck were interlocked as though riveted with iron, bolted with clamps of steel.

With all his strength, the living buck could barely move his head, dragging his adversary's body with him.

The snow marks showed that at first he had been able to haul the carcass many yards; had nibbled a little at shoots and twigs; but that was when he was stronger, was long before.