Once in the open he set a leisurely course toward the borders of the forest, only to be interrupted by a series of staccato barks as Pal rounded the cabin and glimpsed the night prowler. Like the bear cub, Pal had had no experience with a porcupine to teach him prudence. He felt that the beast had no business in the clearing and accordingly charged, barking furiously, only to be met by a round ball of bristling quills. Pal stopped, clearly astonished. Then, as the ball lay deceivingly still, he rashly tried closer investigation, and was met with a smashing blow from the barbed tail.
Several quills fastened themselves in the dog's soft and tender nose and there they stayed, paining him unbearably. The aggressive challenge changed to yelps of pain and, as swiftly as he had charged, Pal retreated to the cabin, vainly trying to free his muzzle of the fiery barbs. With his efforts they but sank the deeper. He suffered agony until his master, aroused by the outcry, came to his relief. Holding the struggling dog firmly with both hands, the Hermit extracted the quills with his teeth. It was a painful process and both were glad when the last quill was out.
Meanwhile, Kagh continued on his placid way toward the black forest wall, just beyond the rail fence. He had fed well and had quickly routed his enemy. Altogether he considered the world a happy place for porcupines. In the darkness which precedes the dawn he took his way to a slender poplar sapling standing near the border of the woods. This he climbed as far as his weight would permit and, seated comfortably on one branch, with his hand-like paws tightly clasping another, he went peacefully to sleep, lulled by every passing breeze.
THE TRAIL OF THE MOOSE
On a bare, rocky promontory far up in the north country, where the turbulent waters of the Little Vermilion cut through lanes of pointed fir and dark spruce, a gigantic moose stood, his ungainly body and huge antlers silhouetted against the sky of sunset. Below him the noisy, hurrying waters were churned into foam over innumerable hidden rocks; to the rear lay the wilderness, green, shadowy and mysterious.
The moose was a magnificent beast, the ridge of his shoulders rising to a height of little less than seven feet. His great antlers, the admiration and desire of every hunter in the Little Vermilion country, showed a spread of almost six feet from tip to tip. As if carved from the rock the big moose stood, his eyes on the distant waters, only his ears moving slightly to test the wind. Then, as some vagrant whiff from the gently moving air assailed the sensitive nostrils, or some faint sound reached his ears, the great beast turned and vanished into the forest, as light and soundless as thistledown for all his twelve hundred pounds of bulk. Not even a twig snapped under his feet.
