He turned and smiled at Mother Wolf and the youngsters. He felt quite proud of his spying quality. “I smell nothing but raccoon up that tree,” he added. “Therefore, it was a raccoon, and not a porcupine, that you treed.”
“But little brother said it was Billy the Porcupine,” interrupted one of the cubs.
“How’d Little Brother know it was a porcupine?” asked Sneaky. “When did you ever see one?”
Now Washer was feeling very miserable, first, because his wounds hurt him, and second because one of his own people had turned on him and attacked him after he had saved his life. So he spoke without thinking. “I don’t know,” he stammered. “Maybe I never saw one.”
“Ah! ha!” scoffed Sneaky. “I thought so. It was only a trick to deceive us. I see now what it means.”
He turned to the tree again, and looked up it, and began sniffing at the trunk and limbs. “Nothing but raccoon odor,” he added. “No porcupine has been here.”
“For goodness sake,” interrupted Mother Wolf, wiping the blood from Washer’s face, “what are you wasting your time about? Why don’t you help Little Brother? He’s all bloody, and we must help him home.”
“Ah, bloody! So he is! Then if it was Billy the Porcupine we should find quills sticking in him.”
He examined Washer’s wounds a little roughly, smiling all the time. Of course, there were no porcupine quills, and this seemed to please Sneaky immensely.
“Just as I thought,” he said finally. “There are no quills. Therefore, there was no porcupine here. Then why did Little Brother deceive you?”