Muggy had a job at the time trapping rabbits for the bailiff of a gentleman’s farm. He was paid by results, being given so much a head for perfect rabbits; and rabbits did not pass as perfect to the dealer at the market town when half their heads had been battered as though by the blows of some mighty instrument. The curious thing was that he did not know for a long while what caused the damage. He thought of a fox, but a fox would not have mauled rabbits like that; he would have carried them away. The idea of a badger being the aggressor came to him, but he could find no spoor of a badger’s pad, which, once seen, is never forgotten. And still the mysterious depredations went on. Farmer Smith of Crowberry, later on in the year, lost seven chicks one morning, with no sign of how they had gone. He thought of hawks, and waited all that afternoon with a gun, but nothing came. He knew that had it been a kestrel the bird would have returned for more. Another morning he lost seventeen. Nine of them had been left--mutilated lumps of stained feathers. They looked as though a spike had been driven through their bodies. He knew that it was no ordinary thing that caused the destruction. Mortality among the lambs continued. And then, one night in the Nightcrow Inn, light came to them. They slapped their thighs, and rattled their pint mugs; of course, it could only be “thay” ravens! Till closing time that night it was the only subject talked about. The Tiger was there and his brother Aaron--two men who belonged to a family that has been famous for cliff scaling in the district for many generations. They had immense arms, being blacksmiths. The following day a boat pulled round the headland, and the stronghold of the robbers was detected, though no sign of them could be seen. Aaron was in the boat, and he fixed the place by a peculiar formation of the edge of the cliff. This done, he grunted, and a long pull back to the sands began. The waning moon of dawn had floated above the Exmoor hills when the next morning three men left the village and set off along the road to the base of the headland. They carried ropes, hauling blocks, a great crowbar, and a sledge-hammer. John Smith of Crowberry was one, and his companions were the blacksmith brothers. They were going to rob the robbers.