When they came in sight of the tree, the boys saw the porcupine shuffling awkwardly along some distance ahead of them. Instantly they gave chase, with Bill close at their heels. When they overtook their quarry the lads suddenly halted and broke out into peals of laughter at the antics of the stupid creature before them. Finding itself unable to escape by direct flight, the clumsy animal had deliberately rolled itself into a sort of ball. And, as it lay helpless in the very path of its pursuers, there rose from its body a mass of sharply pointed yellow-tipped quills, or spines.
“Look out! Don’t touch it!” warned Bill.
“Why, what a strange-looking beast it is!” cried Ed, instantly focusing his camera.
“Looks like it was stuck full of hat-pins,” laughed George.
“It is, and you’ll be, too, if you touch it!” declared the trapper.
Then he began to prod it gently with his paddle. Quickly it straightened out and made a vicious swing at the ashen blade with its quill-filled tail.
“That’s the way he drives the darts into you. See them fall out each time he strikes the paddle?” said Bill.
The boys saw several quills fall to the ground every time the porcupine struck the paddle-blade with its tail.
Bill declared the creature a nuisance on account of its habit of stripping trees of their bark, which seemed to be its principal article of diet. And with this he began to look for a club; but the boys begged for mercy, and the porcupine’s life was spared him.
They remained for some time watching the queer creature, which turned its head slyly in their direction and blinked at them with little stupid eyes. Then, when they had withdrawn a few yards, the porcupine rose to its feet and resumed its laughable attempt at flight. The boys at once ran to the spot where it had been and gathered up the shed quills, which, after carefully examining, they fastened in their caps.