“Steering clear of needles, Flash?” said his rider, laughing cheerfully. “Say, Roy,” he called to his companion, who sat astride a chestnut mustang, “is it true that porcupines can shoot their quills?”
“Bunk!” answered Roy Manley briefly. “Pure bunk, Teddy. You don’t mean to say you believed that, do you?”
“Well, now, that’s a question,” Teddy Manley replied, a veiled twinkle in his eyes. “Some say one thing, some say another. Pop Burns told me a porcupine shot him full of quills from ten feet away.”
“Pop Burns!” Roy snorted. “He could convince an Eskimo that ice was made of rock candy. You ought to know Pop by this time.”
The two brothers pulled their horses to a halt and gazed curiously at the small, quilled animal. The boys were alike in build, both being lean, wiry products of ranch life. Teddy Manley, fifteen years old, one year younger than Roy, had light hair and blue eyes, favoring his mother, Mrs. Bardwell Manley, in these respects. Roy took after his father in the matter of eyes and hair—both of these being brown.
Roy ran his hand over the ears of Star, his pony. From any other, this would have been cause for immediate proceedings tending toward the unseating of the rider, but now Star whinnied affectionately.
“Tell you what,” Roy declared. “Let’s bring this sticker home with us and get Pop to explain how it shoots its quills.”
“Good idea,” Teddy answered, grinning. “You’re elected, Roy. How are you going to carry it?”
“Humph! Never thought of that,” the brother demurred. “If we had something we could wrap it up in—”
“Or if we had a wagon,” Teddy went on. He was deriving much amusement from Roy’s serious attention to the problem at hand. Quieter, and looking at life through graver eyes than Teddy, Roy would frequently devote himself to the solemn consideration of a question which Teddy would dismiss with a light laugh. Roy’s nature was drawn from his mother, who, before her marriage to Bardwell Manley, had been a schoolteacher in Denver.