Gutting a Sentence

“The vole was huddled in frozen terror under the crumbling bark of a fallen tree.”

How would you re-write this sentence composed three years ago in another life?

My snarky answer: Since ‘huddle’ implies fright, why add ‘frozen terror’? Sounds like an echo to me. The same is true of ‘crumbling bark’ and ‘fallen tree’. The tree is down so the bark isn’t in good shape. Why repeat it? And what's with the double verb? Dump 'to be' verbs whenever possible.

Editing version of the above sentence:

The vole huddled under the fallen tree. Silent.

Later, on the same page or paragraph, I’d repeat the ‘beat’ of this sentence followed by a single, fragmented word to increase the tension.

Don’t forget our blogfest:

By the way, every one makes mistakes. Even uber agents.

This agent's blog: "...they will only 'except an' ms or query from an agent..."
*snicker* Okay, I shouldn't laugh. But....
BWHAHAHAHHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH