"Porky, Porky!" he was saying, by which I guessed he had found a porcupine, for I had been apprised of the numbers in these woods. "Come, here's a shot for you," he added, as I drew nearer. "Porcupines damage a lot of trees and should be killed."
I gazed up and distinguished a black bunch clinging to the body of a fairly large spruce, near the top. "He doesn't seem to be damaging that tree much," I said.
"No, but he will. They kill ever so many. The State of Maine pays a bounty for their scalps."
I looked up again. Porky seemed to be inoffensive enough, and my killing blood was not much aroused.
"But the hunters and logmen destroy a good many more trees with their fires," I argued. "Why doesn't the State of Maine and the Province of Nova Scotia pay a bounty for the scalps of a few hunters and logmen?"
But Eddie was insistent. It was in the line of duty, he urged, to destroy porcupines. They were of no value, except, perhaps, to eat.
"Will you agree to eat this one if I shoot him?" I asked, unbundling my rifle somewhat reluctantly.
"Of course—that's understood."
I think even then I would have spared Porky's life, but at that moment he ran a little way up the tree. There was something about that slight movement that stirred the old savage in me. I threw my rifle to my shoulder, and with hasty aim fired into the center of the black bunch.
I saw it make a quick, quivering jump, slip a little, and cling fast. There was no stopping now. A steady aim at the black ball this time, and a second shot, followed by another convulsive start, a long slide, then a heavy thudding fall at our feet—a writhing and a twisting—a moaning and grieving as of a stricken child.