How long she would have gone on with this can never be known, but one of the babies, nearly suffocated with the earth, set up a little, whimpering cry, and Pero's motherly heart responded at once.
She knew it was a cry of pain—of distress—and so she suddenly gave up the burrowing and turned back to her little one.
It was a good thing she did so, for she had to do some more burrowing work in order to get the babies out of the earth which she had thrown over them. But by the time she had done this she realized that the man had stopped trying to get in, and so she was able to lie down.
Her tired little body was quivering with excitement; her nostrils opening and shutting convulsively, and her little heart beating like a trip-hammer. She gathered her babies to her and gave them their evening meal, but all the time she was listening for the enemy.
He was indeed an enemy, and was deeply disappointed at not being able to get Pero, for there were so many burrows about there, and the porcupines had done so much mischief to his various crops—potatoes, carrots, rice and roots of many kinds—that he was determined to destroy them.
So determined was he to kill them, that he was already having dogs trained to take up the scent of the porcupine—dogs who would not be quite so stupid as Jock, although in many cases they would probably get a few quills.
There were two reasons for killing the porcupines. One was to get rid of them and their destructive propensities; the other was that they provided an article of food, their flesh being very white and palatable, resembling pork or veal.
But the man had failed this time, and Pero was determined that she would not risk that danger again. So, the next day, she made a little tunnel from her present home into another hole that she had carefully burrowed out.
Then for some days and weeks she was again busy collecting food. And this was hard work, as roots and plants were getting scarce. Meanwhile, the babies were growing strong and sturdy, and their tiny quills were just beginning to peep out.
Pero finished her work at last, and her second winter home was as carefully and well stocked as her first one.