Early the following morning, Cartman had gone outside to pass hraka when he saw a truck driving right into the middle of the rabbits' meadow! Why would anyone do that, he wondered. Quickly he jumped into a bush before he could be spotted.
The truck came to a stop. Two men got out. They looked like they meant business. Then Cartman saw the word written on the side of the truck: "Exterminator." Oh no!
One of the men took a metal cannister out of the back of the truck, and the other got a long hose. They hooked one end of the hose up to the tank and stuck the other into the entrance to the rabbit warren. Cartman realized they were going to spray the rabbits inside with poison gas, just like the men at his old warren had.
He didn't spare a single thought for Cowslip and the others, because he was a dick like that. His only notion was saving himself. The two men hadn't seen him yet, and they were both keeping their eyes on the tunnel. If Cartman made a run for it now while they were preoccupied, he might escape with his life.
With no hesitation, he leapt from the bush and sprinted off across the meadow at a heck of a lick. But he'd only been running a few seconds when he heard one of the men crying, "Look! There goes one of 'em now!"
"I'll take care of 'im," said the second man, reaching into the cab of the truck and pulling out a gun.
Cartman had almost reached the edge of the meadow when the man fired. He felt a sharp blow on one of his hind legs and a hot stinging pain along his side. But amazingly, he kept on running. He knew if he stopped the man would shoot him again. He pressed on in spite of the pain and ran into the woods on the east side of the meadow.
Behind him, he could hear the men arguing.
"I don' roightly know whether you 'it 'im er not."
"Ah, I 'it 'im all roight. That's blood there, see?"
"Ah, well, but that don't signify. 'E might 'ave bin only wounded. I reckon 'e's in them trees."
"Well, us can't go beggarin' up and down the woods all day fer one bloody rabbit. Even if this 'un survives, all the rest will asphyxiate down in that cave."
Cartman found he no longer had the strength to run now, but he forced himself to keep walking. He didn't have any idea where he was going. His only goal was putting as much distance between himself and the exterminators as possible. Why had he ever thought he could be a Chief Rabbit? All he had managed to do in the end was get all his followers killed, and only luck had saved him from being killed himself. To his surprise, he realized he missed his friends. If only he could see Stan again, or Kenny, or even Kyle…